There are many different sources available to you to conduct research on women and the law in the Taggart Law Library. If you need assistance locating or using any of these sources, do not hesitate to consult a librarian.
Secondary Sources
Treatises: Legal treatises, or books, are often a good way to begin researching a legal topic. These treatises can be one volume or multi-volume, and may be updated with pocket parts or as part of a looseleaf service. They provide a discussion of the law in that area and can give you citations to cases, statutes, and regulations, as well as references to other research materials.
A few of the treatises and books on women and the law available at the Taggart Law Library include:
Women’s lives, men’s laws. Catharine A. MacKinnon. KF 478.M26 2005—Law North
The gender of constitutional jurisprudence. Beverley Baines, ed. K 3243.G46 2005—Law North
The American Bar Association legal guide for women. KF 390.W6 A46 2004—Law North
Women in the world’s legal professions. Ulrike Schultz. K 118.W6 W665 2003—Law North
Pioneering women lawyers: from Kate Stoneman to the present. Patricia Salkin, ed. KF 299.W6 P56 2008—Law North
Browsing the Stacks: Sometimes by browsing the stacks in a particular area, you can find something better than what you were originally looking for! Here are the call numbers and locations of some women and the law subjects:
Call No.
Subject
Location
K 349
Feminist jurisprudence
Law North
K 644
Women—legal status, laws, etc.; women’s rights
Law North
KF 477
Women—legal status, laws, etc.—U.S.—Bibliography
Law North
KF 478 Women—legal status, laws, etc.—United States Law North HQ 1236 Women's rights; human rights Law North
Encyclopedias: Legal encyclopedias provide general overviews of legal topics and references to other research materials. These encyclopedias will have a subject index to help you find entries by topic. For example, if you wanted to look up the topic “Desertion” in the index, it might lead you to the encyclopedia’s article “Divorce §41,” which you could then look up in the appropriate encyclopedia volume.
Taggart Law Library has two popular national legal encyclopedias:
American Jurisprudence, 2nd ed. (AmJur2d) 2 copies—Law North (also available on Lexis and Westlaw)
Corpus Juris Secundum (CJS)—Law North (also available on Westlaw)
There are also encyclopedia sets available for many states if your research focus is state-specific. Ohio Jurisprudence (OJur), for example, is an Ohio legal encyclopedia. State encyclopedias can be found in the state materials section on the south side of the library.
A.L.R. Annotations: Experts in a particular area of the law write the annotations, or articles, found in American Law Reports. They usually focus on a very narrow area of the law and can provide case citations and references to other secondary sources. Annotations can be found topically using the index or from citations found in other secondary sources. Looking up the topic “Pregnancy—diagnoses” in the index, for example, would lead you to an annotation titled “Liability for Incorrectly Diagnosing Existence or Nature of Pregnancy,” 2 ALR5th 769
A.L.R. Annotations are located in Law South and are also available on Lexis and Westlaw.
Research Guides/Bibliographies: Sometimes helpful research sources for a particular area of the law have already been pulled together by someone else. An example of a research guide on women and the law is:
Sexual harassment in the workplace: a legal research guide. Kimberly Pruett. KF 241.L33 P78 2001—Law North
Journal Articles
Articles from legal journals and law reviews can also be helpful in explaining an area of the law and providing research references. Articles can often be more current and more narrowly focused than books. For example, on the topic of “divorce,” the article “Putting a Price Tag on your Divorce Case” from the Summer 2005 issue of Family Advocate might be helpful.
How do I find journal articles on my topic?
There is usually a two-step process to finding journal articles:
- Use a print or online index to find citations to articles by topic.
- Go to a print or online journal article to get the full text of the article.
Print Journal Indexes:
Index to Legal Periodicals and Books (Beige in color): Articles indexed by subject and author from 1886-present; citations only-Law North
Current Law Index (CLI—Red & black in color): Articles indexed by subject, author, and title from 1980-present; citations only-Law North
Online Journal Indexes:
Index to Legal Periodicals and Books: 1918-Present (Same as print version above)
LegalTrac (Online version of Current Law Index; citations and some full text of articles from legal periodicals from 1980-present)
Where do I go to get the full text of articles?
Bound Periodicals and Law Reviews: Shelved in alphabetical order by journal title on the north side of the library
Law Reserve: The most current issues of our periodicals are kept on reserve. If the article is recent and you can’t find it on the shelves, ask at the Circulation Desk.
HeinOnline: Full text of law reviews and journals; coverage varies by title—available at the law library from the Library Subscription Services web page
JSTOR: Scholarly journal archive featuring full text page images of articles from journals in history, political science, sociology, and many other disciplines; coverage varies by title—available through the Library Subscription Services web page
Women and the Law Periodicals: There are several periodicals dealing with women and the law. Some of these titles are listed below, with the links to the law library’s holdings.
Harvard Journal of Law and Gender
Berkeley Journal of Gender, Law and Justice
Yale Journal of Law and Feminism
Michigan Journal of Gender and Law
Duke Journal of Gender Law and Policy
Texas Journal of Women and the Law
Primary Sources
Case Law: Sometimes you might want to read cases to find out how the courts have dealt with your topic.
How do I find cases dealing with my topic?
Secondary Sources : As mentioned earlier, many secondary sources provide case citations. Examples include treatises, legal encyclopedias, ALR annotations, and journal articles.
West Digests : A tool to help you find cases by subject. They are arranged by predefined topics and subtopics and there are index volumes with each digest set to help you access these topics.
For example, if you looked up “custody” in a digest index, it could lead you to the West topic of “Child Custody.” You could then go to the appropriate volume of the digest (topics are arranged alphabetically) to find that topic. “Child Custody” is further divided into subtopics that are called key numbers. West key numbers will have a key symbol next to the number of the subtopics that looks something like this:
175
Key number 175 under “Child Custody” for example, deals with visitation. You could go directly to that key number in the digest and find short summaries of cases, as well as case citations.
Because there are different types of courts and jurisdictions, there are different digest sets, including:
- State digests : West digests for individual states located with state materials (Law South)
- Supreme Court Digest : Supreme Court cases (Law South)
- Federal digests : Only federal cases (Law South)
- Decennial Digests : West-reported state and federal cases in all 50 states (Law South)
West digest sets can also help you find a case by name, such as Egelhoff v. Egelhoff . They normally have a Table of Cases volume (or volumes) where you can search by case name in alphabetical order.
Online Sources :
- Court Web Sites: More and more courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, are now providing their opinions on their official web sites. This can be a good source for finding recent cases, but coverage of past cases is probably limited.
- LEXIS and Westlaw: Cases can be found in these online databases by citation, by party name, or by using various search strategies.
- Casemaker: Online database of opinions from federal and selected state courts (including Ohio). Can be accessed for free by students who are Ohio State Bar Association members by using your last name and member number. Linked on the Library Subscription Services page and also available at http://www.ohiobar.org/Members/Pages/CaseMaker.aspx
Statutes
United States Code (USC): Arranged topically with 50 titles, there are two annotated versions of the United States Code, United States Code Annotated (USCA—burgundy in color) and United States Code Service (USCS—black). They are produced by different publishers and can differ in the annotations they provide, so it’s a good idea to check both sets.
Some statutes dealing with child nutrition can be found in Titles 42. Other statutes may be found elsewhere—use the index volumes at the end of the set to find what you need, or there are volumes listing acts by popular name (Family Violence Prevention and Services Act, etc). We keep two copies of both sets in the Law South stacks.
State codes :Annotated state codes work very much like the federal codes, but may have a different topical organization. For example, in Ohio, statutes dealing with divorce are contained in Chapter 3105 of the Ohio Revised Code. The Taggart Law Library has state codes for all 50 states in the state materials section on the south side.
Online sources : The U.S. Code and state codes can be found online in various places. LEXIS and Westlaw offer annotated codes, while unannotated versions can be found elsewhere. An excellent online source for recent legislation and Congressional information is the Thomas web site, http://thomas.loc.gov, which is maintained by the Library of Congress.
Regulations: Administrative regulations are very similar to statutes, except that they are produced by administrative agencies (like the Food and Drug Administration - FDA) instead of legislatures. There are two main sources for federal administrative regulations:
Code of Federal Regulations (CFR): Includes only final regulations and arranges them by subject order, much like the United States Code. Regulations concerning nondiscrimination on the basis of sex in education programs receiving federal financial assistance, for example, are contained in Title 34 of the CFR. Located in Law Documents (North) at GS 4.108 and available online at http://www.gpoaccess.gov/ecfr. Exact page images of the CFR from 1938 forward are also available on HeinOnline.
Federal Register (FR): Includes proposed and final regulations as well as public notices in chronological order. The Federal Register is also the place to find agency contact information and an agency’s description of why it did what it did when issuing a new regulation. Located in Law Documents (North) at GS 4.107 and available online from 1994-present at http://www.gpoaccess.gov/fr/index.html. Exact page images of the Federal Register from 1936 forward are also available on HeinOnline.
Selected Links to Women and the Law Websites
When using the Internet for research, be sure to carefully evaluate the websites you are using to determine how authoritative they are and any potential bias they may have on the topic you are researching.
ABA Commission on Women in the Profession — Commission whose purpose is to “secure the full and equal participation of women in the ABA, the legal profession, and the justice system.” Site includes publications, statistics, and links to further information. www.abanet.org/women/home.html
ACLU—Women’s Rights —Website of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Women’s Rights Project. Site includes resources and publications dealing with such topics as criminal justice, discrimination, violence against women, education, employment, poverty and welfare, and pregnancy and parenting. http://www.aclu.org/womensrights/
American Women —Part of the Library of Congress’s American Memory project, this site serves as a “gateway” to the study of women’s history and culture in the United States. Includes a link to resources available through the Law Library of Congress. www.memory.loc.gov/ammem/awhhtml/
Federal Agency Websites —
- Department of Labor Women’s Bureau: http://www.dol.gov/wb/
- Equal Employment Opportunity Commission: http://www.eeoc.gov/index.html
- Department of Justice Office on Violence Against Women: http://www.ovw.usdoj.gov/
- Department of State Office of International Women’s Issues: http://www.state.gov/s/gwi/
Hieros Gamos: Women and the Law —Legal directory with links to many online resources dealing with women and the law, including the U.S. Constitution, treaties and other international materials http://www.hg.org/women.html
International Women’s Human Rights and Humanitarian Law —Website produced by the Bora Laskin Law Library at the University of Toronto which includes links to international treaties and conventions and other resources dealing with women’s rights in international law. http://www.law-lib.utoronto.ca/resguide/women2.htm
Law about…Feminist Jurisprudence— Overview of feminist jurisprudence produced by Cornell University’s Legal Information Institute (LII). Links to the U.S. Constitution, judicial decisions, and other resources. http://topics.law.cornell.edu/wex/feminist_jurisprudence
Legal Momentum —The new name for the National Organization for Women’s (NOW) Legal Defense and Education Fund. Legal Momentum seeks to “ advance the rights of women and girls by using the power of the law and creating innovative public policy.” Includes publications and information on a wide range of topics concerning women, including information on actions the organization is supporting in the courts and in Congress. http://www.legalmomentum.org/
National Women’s Law Center —A nonprofit organization that seeks “to protect and advance the progress of women and girls at work, in school, and in virtually every aspect of their lives.” Includes information on issues ranging from athletics and employment to women in the military. www.nwlc.org
Researching Women’s Human Rights Issues —Pathfinder produced by the University of Minnesota Law Library; contains detailed instructions to finding relevant sources in print and electronic formats. http://local.law.umn.edu/library/pathfinders/womenshr2.html
WomensLaw.org —Website designed to provide state-by-state legal information and resources on domestic violence. www.womenslaw.org
Women’s Legal History Biography Project —Website produced by Stanford Law School that uses biographies of individual women lawyers to examine the subject of women’s legal history. Includes links to articles and other information about women lawyers. http://womenslegalhistory.stanford.edu/
WomenWatch —Website produced by the UN which contains a wealth of information and resources on gender equality and the empowerment of women. http://www.un.org/womenwatch/
