Open Educational Resources

This open source textbook authored by Amy Taylor was designed to provide University of Georgia School of Law students with a comprehensive guide to Georgia legal research. Using this text in combination with appropriate assignments, student objectives include the ability to select, evaluate, and use appropriate legal research tools with an emphasis on cost-effective research and proficiency in the following topics: Developing an efficient and cost effective research strategy; Advanced searching skills in legal research databases; Case law, including docket research, court rules, and verdicts & settlements; Statutory law, including legislative materials and legislative history; Administrative regulations, rules, and related materials; Practice materials, including litigation and transactional tools; Competitive Intelligence & business information; Local & municipal law; Legal ethics; Free and low cost internet legal resources.

Welcome to The Indigo Book—a free, Creative Commons-dedicated implementation of The Bluebook’s Uniform System of Citation. The Indigo Book was compiled by a team of students at the New York University School of Law, working under the direction of Professor Christopher Jon Sprigman. The Indigo Book isn’t the same as The Bluebook, but it does implement the same Uniform System of Citation that The Bluebook does. The scope of The Indigo Book’s coverage is roughly equivalent to The Bluebook’s “Bluepages”—that is, The Indigo Book covers legal citation for U.S. legal materials, as well as books, periodicals, and Internet and other electronic resources. In addition, The Indigo Book offers citation guidance that is deeper than The Bluebook’s Bluepages—for example, The Indigo Book has citation guidance for bills, and for legislative history, that the Bluepages lack. For the materials that it covers, anyone using The Indigo Book will produce briefs, memoranda, law review articles, and other legal documents with citations that are compatible with the Uniform System of Citation.

This electronic publication was conceived in the summer of 1992. A small band of Cornell Law students, charged with identifying subjects on which computer-based materials would be particularly helpful, placed citation at the top of the list. With their assistance I prepared the first edition of Introduction to Basic Legal Citation. It was released on diskette that fall, one of the first hypertext publications of Cornell's Legal Information Institute (LII). Later reconfigured for the Web, where it still resides at: http://www.law.cornell.edu/citation/, the work has been updated regularly in the years since. Like that online version on which it is based, this e-book was most recently revised in the fall of 2013. As has been true of all editions released since 2010, it is indexed to the fourth edition of the ALWD Citation Manual and the nineteenth edition of The Bluebook. But it also rests firmly on the evolving practice of judges writing opinions and lawyers writing briefs.

The first edition of the Legal Writing Manual was made possible with funding from the University of Georgia’s Office of the Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost’s Affordable Materials Course Grant. The second edition of this manual was made possible with funding from an Affordable Learning Georgia Round 18 Continuous Improvement Grant. List of contributors: Brittany BlanchardGabrielle GravelChase LyndaleConnely Doizé

Authored by UGA School of Law's own legal writing instructor Jean Mangan in 2021, this textbook was created under a Round 19 Mini-Grant. It is hosted on the Open ALG (Affordable Learning Georgia) Projects platform. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Visit the book's home platform at OpenALG to retrieve a Word Doc version.

At its most basic definition the practice of law comprises conducting research to find relevant rules of law and then applying those rules to the specific set of circumstances faced by a client. However, in American law, the legal rules to be applied derive from myriad sources, complicating the process and making legal research different from other sorts of research. This text introduces first-year law students to the new kind of research required to study and to practice law. It seeks to demystify the art of legal research by following a “Source and Process” approach. First, the text introduces students to the major sources of American law and describes the forms the various authorities traditionally took in print. After establishing this base, the text proceeds to instruct students on the methods they will most likely use in practice, namely electronic research techniques and the consultation of secondary sources. Sources of Law incorporates screencasts currently hosted on YouTube that actively demonstrate the processes described in the static text. Finally, the text illustrates how the different pieces come together in the legal research process. Sources of Law focuses on realistic goals for 1Ls to learn in a relatively small amount of instruction time, and so focuses mainly on the basics. It does introduce some advanced material so that 1Ls can recognize pieces of information they may encounter in research, but it does not fully cover researching materials outside the scope of the traditional 1L course. As such, it is best-suited for introductory legal research courses for 1Ls.

Written and edited by expert practitioners, this tome reframes traditional approaches to law librarianship while expounding on emerging theories and themes permeating society and education, demanding incorporation into the library science curriculum. We also have an opportunity with this open-access e-textbook to reach beyond our borders. Librarianship is one of the oldest professions in the world. Well before universities, law firms, and courts of law were established, libraries flourished, and librarians were the keepers of knowledge. Librarians have built collections, shared resources, and supported research for hundreds, if not thousands, of years.

Principles of Legal Research provides comprehensive yet concise coverage of research methods in both online and printed resources. It has been thoroughly updated to explain the latest features of the major legal research platforms as well as dozens of other free and subscription websites. In this expanded and reorganized edition, an introductory survey of research strategies is followed by discussion of major secondary sources, treatment of the sources of U.S. law created by each branch of government, chapters on specialized resources for litigation and transactional practice, and an overview of international and foreign law. Other new features include a deeper look at search algorithms and executive branch lawmaking. Sample illustrations are included throughout, and an appendix lists hundreds of major treatises and topical services by subject.

This hornbook treatise available through West Academic promotes the art of good writing by teaching students and practitioners the tools to make their prose clear, precise, simple, and forceful. With examples of what works and what doesn’t, this short but comprehensive treatise provides an invaluable resource for recasting writing for maximum impact and ultimate success.