The Law Library provides access to three major study aid platforms: Aspen Learning Library, LexisNexis Digital Library, and West Academic. There are multiple links to the various platforms on the Law Library's website. Regent Law users will be prompted for RU login. Each platform allows users to register for an individual account that will enable saving favorites, making notes, and adding highlights. Each platform also offers offline reading and listening options.
The Aspen Learning Library consists of digital study aids with full-text search, note-taking, and highlighting capabilities, audio recordings, and digital media. Study Aid titles included in this collection include:
The LexisNexis Digital Library allows you to read eBooks online and download an app for offline reading. Study aid include:
The West Academic Study Aids Collection offers online access to popular study aids, audiobooks and lectures, and a variety of academic and career success eBooks. The platform includes:
These are just a few of our most recent titles. Check the catalog or the shelf for additional resources. Please feel free to consult a law library faculty member for help finding the best resource.
Legal Research Demystified by
Legal Research Demystified offers a real-world approach to legal research. The textbook guides law students through eight steps to research common law issues and ten steps to research statutory issues. These research steps are demonstrated through many hypotheticals and visual aids. Students have praised the textbook for its screen captures, checklists, and descriptive charts, such as charts demonstrating Boolean searching and comparing features of citators. Professors have appreciated that the book educates students on how to do legal research instead of discussing finding tools and resources in a vacuum. The second edition includes multiple updates. The chapters on research plans and secondary sources have been moved to their own section because these initial research steps apply to all legal issues. The chapters on secondary sources, citators, and keyword searching have been revised and expanded. New assessment questions on research tools and concepts have been added to almost every chapter. The revised introductions and additional cross references make it easy to assign the chapters out of order. With the purchase of a new book, students gain free access to the assessment and teaching platform of Core Knowledge for Lawyers. That online platform contains interactive questions and exercises that map to Legal Research Demystified. Almost 200 auto-grading questions from the end of each chapter. Hundreds of interactive questions and explanations that walk students through the steps for researching common law and statutory issues on Westlaw and Lexis+. Instant feedback after each question--similar to Core Grammar and MBIE. Robust instructor dashboard--professors can view individual and class performance.
Sources and Strategies of Legal Research by
Sources and Strategies of Legal Research, intended for use in first-year legal writing and research courses, offers a new approach to the course subject matter based on the concept that legal analysis is essential to legal research. This concise book is unique in two ways: it places legal analysis as the focal point of legal research; and it departs from the typical source-specific or bibliographical approach, instead taking a process-oriented approach, focusing on search strategies for efficiently and effectively finding information. The book is organized around six fundamental questions: What is legal analysis in a research context? What source has the relevant information needed to resolve the client's problem? Why should a researcher select this specific source? How should the information be used to advance the research process? What is the optimal research strategy to locate the information efficiently and effectively? What is a research strategy or plan? By incorporating the author's scholarship in the pedagogy of legal research, Sources and Strategies of Legal Research presents a contemporary approach to legal research within the larger context of the legal profession.
Just Research by
Just Research provides students with the information and skills that will enable them to do thorough and cost-effective research as soon as they enter into practice. Highly respected authors Laurel Currie Oates and Anne Enquist describe the sources that can be used to research the most common types of legal issues, for example, issues governed by state statutes and regulations, issues governed by federal statutes and regulations, issues governed by local law, and issued governed by common law.
Legal Research by
Examples & Explanations: Legal Research is designed to meet the needs of law students who have come to expect that they will instantly receive answers to their questions. Rather than cataloging sources or outlining processes, this text starts where today's law students are when they realize they have a research problem. By that time, their research problem is not locating sources, but knowing what to do with them. The Legal Research E & E guides students through examples and explanations of the kinds of sources they've found, using the context of interesting and entertaining real-world problems. The text helps students determine which sources are the most useful for the current project and which not; it leads students to understand how one source affects and relates to the others; and--equally important--it shows students how to write about the sources they have found. Because this book covers the kinds of research projects faced not only by beginning law students but also by advanced students and even new lawyers, its value to its readers is long-lasting. Even experienced researchers will learn more about working with the difficult, as well as the easy, research questions that today are addressed by an array of sources.
Legal Research in a Nutshell by
Finding and using legal resources effectively is an essential skill for lawyers. This comprehensive but succinct guide covers research procedures using major online services, free Internet resources, and library materials. The most heavily used commercial databases and authoritative, free online sources are discussed and placed in context for effective and productive use in research. Discussion includes coverage of primary and secondary legal resources, as well as legislative history, administrative law, specialized and interdisciplinary resources, and research in international and comparative law. Appendices list state research guides and leading treatises by subject.
Long's a Short and Happy Guide to Advanced Legal Research, 2d by
Legal research can be costly for students and practitioners in two ways: time and money. A Short & Happy Guide to Advanced Legal Research, 2nd identifies available free and fee-based legal research options as good, cheap and/or fast. This book compares free and fee-based legal research resources for each stage of civil litigation, including the initial case assessment; discovery and investigation resources to find information on judges, attorneys, experts, and companies; and resources to find pleadings, motions, and briefs for pretrial action. Although this book is designed for law students taking an Advanced Legal Research course with unlimited access to Bloomberg Law, Lexis+, and Westlaw Edge, it is also a valuable reference for anyone who graduated from law school prior to 2019, interested in learning about the new litigation analytics and artificial intelligence features. Ann Walsh Long is the Head of Research & Digital Collections/Associate Professor of Law at the Lincoln Memorial University School of Law and teaches Legal Research, Advanced Legal Research, and Competitive Intelligence. Ann also worked at the Environmental Protection Agency's Headquarters Library and in four "Big Law" firms. As a former law firm librarian, Ann taught hundreds of summer and new associates how to conduct cost-effective legal research, and advised firms on how best to recover those costs from clients. This book may also serve as a valuable reference when renegotiating your next legal research license and offers guidance on evaluating content to add to your flat-rate contract that will lead to a more cost-effective practice.
Principles of Legal Research by
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.
Honigsberg and Ho's Gilbert Law Summary on Legal Research, Writing and Analysis, 14th by
This outline covers court systems, precedent, case reporting system (including regional and state reporters, citations, and case findings), statutes, constitutions, administrative agencies (including regulations), legislative history, and secondary sources (including treatises, law reviews, digests, and restatements). The outline also discusses Shepard's Citations and KeyCite, as well as headnotes and the West Key Number System.An introduction to the evolving role of artificial intelligence in legal research has been added, along with updates on computerized legal research, including Westlaw and Lexis. This edition also contains chapters on reading and understanding a case (including briefing a case), basic guidelines for legal writing, organizing your research, writing a memorandum of law, writing a brief, and writing an opinion or client letter.
Legal Research, Analysis, and Writing by
Become the "go to" paralegal at your firm as you prepare for a career in law with Putman/Albright's popular LEGAL RESEARCH, ANALYSIS, AND WRITING, 5E. This reader-friendly, step-by-step approach shows you how to conduct reliable digital and traditional legal research, analyze the results and write clear memoranda and other legal documents that are well supported. Each chapter begins with an interesting hypothetical scenario and ends by showing you how the chapter's concepts apply to the scenario. You walk through the legal process as chapters discuss key facts and issue spotting, analysis and counter-analysis, research, secondary sources, citations and writing strong legal briefs and memoranda. Updates show you trusted sources for digital research, while the latest examples, Practice Alerts learning features and optional Cengage Infuse digital resources help you refine skills to stand out as a legal professional in today's tech-driven, competitive job market.
Beyond the First Draft by
Beyond the First Draft helps law students and lawyers approach the often difficult task of editing their own writing. The book starts with the fundamental idea that good writing is organized, vigorous, clear, and polished. Its ultimate goal is to help students and practitioners understand that good writing cannot be accomplished in a single draft; good writers must be good editors. Each chapter of the book is organized around one of the principles of good writing and begins with an editing checklist for accomplishing that principle of good writing. The book explains each item in the checklist, providing both students and lawyers with the instruction and straightforward editing tips that they need to become effective editors. Beyond the First Draft was written with law students, practitioners, and legal writing professors in mind. Its straightforward approach makes even those difficult-to-understand grammatical concepts accessible to everyone through frequent, easy-to-understand reminders, explanations, and examples. The updated second edition of the book includes a new introduction that helps writers think about the ways in which language evolves over time and puts the book's expanded coverage of pronouns into context. In addition, this new introduction will give professors and students alike the opportunity to think critically about the ways in which the formal written English of legal writing differs from both informal written and spoken English.
Legal Writing in Context by
Readers of this textbook will learn to think deductively and analogically, to distill the holdings of multiple cases into a coherent legal rule, and to craft a compelling narrative, among other skills. All the nuts and bolts of effective lawyering are here. But this new edition also helps students understand how context (historical, societal, and personal) can play a role in legal analysis and gives students tools for how to find and use that context. Professors Susan McMahon and Sonya Bonneau have mined the writings of legal academics, lawyers, judges, psychologists, and philosophers to produce a text for legal writing courses that teaches students practical writing skills, uses theory to explain why those skills are effective, and primes students to understand the influence of context on legal thinking.
The 1L Guide to Legal Writing by
The 1L Guide to Legal Writing is a concise text that covers both objective and persuasive writing. The author's most frequent requests from first-year law students in her writing classes were for a legal writing textbook with a more manageable reading load and more examples. This text responds to both. Developmental reviews have praised the way this text uses a conversational tone and multiple examples as it coaches students through the structure and substance of the respective legal documents. Written with an emphasis on readability, the text includes "professor's tips" in its margins, and sections of "write this, not this" to highlight common pitfalls in first-year legal writing. Notably, the book uses the same fact pattern as the basis for its memorandum, appellate brief, and motion for summary judgment, so that the students can exclusively focus on the skills and structure each document requires. It includes information on common student errors, as well as sample e-memo versions of the more formal memorandum it teaches students to write. The text also contemplates 1L writing that may be beyond the scope of the class by including tips for (and samples of) cover letters for public and private sectors. While this book is suitable for class adoption as a concise main text, its length and price point also make it an ideal secondary text.
Law and Rhetoric by
Benefitting a wide audience, this text introduces rhetorical theory as applied to the law. Aristotle's definition of rhetoric--discovering all the available means of persuasion--encapsulates the benefits of rhetoric to lawyers. We know stories are persuasive, and narrative theory explains why. Law is built on metaphor and analogy. Argument structures are themselves persuasive. Rhetorical sensitivity and the features of the rhetorical situation offer frameworks useful in mediation and in working with clients. Questions of character, form, and structure address the larger questions of justice beyond individual cases and specific statutes. Students and practicing attorneys will gain insight from this text's rhetorically grounded advice on persuasive techniques drawn from classical rhetoric and contemporary rhetorical theories relating to argumentation, metaphor, analogy, and storytelling. Just as this brief volume brings together teachers and scholars from law and rhetoric, each chapter connects the relevant rhetorical theories and applies them to current legal problems.
Becoming a Legal Writer by
This workbook will help develop two essential lawyering skills: objective analysis and writing. Providing ample foundation in every chapter followed by exercises, Becoming a Legal Writer is designed to complement any legal writing book or be used as a stand-alone text for academic support or pre-law instruction. Students will learn fundamental lawyering skills such as formulating questions to ask clients upon intake, exploring research strategies into systems of law, developing critical reading skills for statutes and cases, briefing cases, extrapolating implicit and explicit rules, synthesizing rules, organizing and applying the law into objective written analysis, and polishing their writing.
Just Briefs by 
Just Memos by 
Just Writing, Grammar, Punctuation, and Style for the Legal Writer by 
A Lawyer Writes by
For class planning purposes, instructors may find a brief list of changes from the second edition of A Lawyer Writes here. This new edition of the popular text teaches the foundational principles of critical reading, analysis, and writing in a clear and accessible way. By putting the reader in the place of a first-year attorney, the text shows law students how to succeed in law school and in the practice of law. Using graphics and contrasting effective and weak examples to illustrate concepts, the book demonstrates best practices in both traditional and electronic environments. Speaking to its readers in a straightforward manner, A Lawyer Writes communicates essential skills and theories so that they will be retained for a lifetime of legal practice. This third edition of A Lawyer Writes preserves the original concepts from the previous edition while refining content to reflect current practices. Chapter 18, "Professional Emails," not only discusses the form and substance of electronic communication, but now features new material on how to convey analysis effectively in email. Chapter 19, "The Transition from Objective to Persuasive Writing," has been reorganized and revised to highlight effective strategies for drafting persuasive analysis. Revisions in other chapters reorganize and update the original content by expanding on or clarifying ideas.
Legal Writing by
Designed as a desktop reference for legal writers, the sixth edition of this book adds new entries and updates current entries, provides reference material and guidance on improving one's legal writing, includes a large index with cross-references under each entry, and addresses common questions legal writers have. Covering issues small and large, it offers quick, reliable answers. New in this edition are entries on specific kinds of writing lawyers must complete, including the following: amicus briefs; pretrial briefs; appellate briefs; reply briefs; scholarly writing; legal recommendations; corporate documents; judicial opinions; PowerPoints; and informative documents, such as fact sheets, white papers, and newsletter articles.
Legal Writing and Analysis in a Nutshell by 
The Legal Writing Handbook by 
Legal Writing Style by 
A Short and Happy Guide to Legal Writing by
Like the inaugural edition, this second edition of A Short & Happy Guide to Legal Writing provides a full concept of the history and practice of legal writing in the briefest of formats. The author recounts the theory of written laws from our British roots to the present American legal court system. The guide then transitions into teaching the framework and construction for written legal communication, explaining the underlying theory of citation, how to read precedent opinions. Complete with samples of case briefing, a useful paradigm for organizing predictive and persuasive analyses, complete interoffice and e-memos, updated, annotated examples of real appellate briefs, and more, this book packs a big punch in a small footprint.
The Law Library now provides BriefCatch to the entire Regent University community!
This award-winning product, which is widely used by U.S. courts and law firms, is a bit like Grammarly for lawyers. Designed to help users improve legal writing skills, BriefCatch analyzes legal documents and leverages insights from leading legal minds to offer real-time editing suggestions, examples from top lawyers and judges, analytical draft scores, and detailed narrative reports.
Instructions for installing BriefCatch are available here.
The Bluebook by
A Uniform System of Citation: The Bluebook is the definitive style guide for legal citation in the United States. For generations, law students, lawyers, scholars, judges, and other legal professionals have relied on The Bluebook's uniform system of citation in their writing. In a diverse and rapidly changing legal profession, The Bluebook continues to provide a systematic method by which members of the profession communicate important information to one another about the sources and legal authorities upon which they rely in their work.
Legal Citation in a Nutshell by
Learning legal citation is one of the difficult (and sometimes admittedly annoying) tasks that students new to the law face. This book is designed to ease that task. It initially focuses on conventions that underlie all accepted forms and systems of legal citation. Building on that understanding and an explanation of the process of using citations in legal writing, the book then discusses and illustrates the particular rules of The Bluebook and the ALWD Citation Guide for citing cases, statutes, and all other major legal sources. Its unique appendices provide a useful reference resource to aid students in formulating citations.
Cite Checker by
Cite-Checker: Your Guide to Using the Bluebook, Third Edition, provides students with a comprehensive self-paced guide to citation form according to The Bluebook. This concise paperback is rich with lucid explanations and sound advice and will prove a valuable complement to any legal writing or research course. This practical and pragmatic guide to learning proper citation form features: An easy-to-use, self-paced tutorial to citation form that includes rules, exercises, and answers Explanations of the rules established in The Bluebook along with a complete and thorough overview of citation form A hands-on exercise in each chapter, with answer keys to the exercises included in the text Practice Tips, offering practical advice on using The Bluebook, in every chapter A logical, step-by-step format to help students build confidence with citation skills A bonus section on preparing tables of authorities for briefs and court documents -- a topic not covered in either The Bluebook or ALWD Completely updated to the 19th Edition of The Bluebook published in June, 2010, the Third Edition presents new and revised exercises throughout. This concise, readable paperback offers thoughtful and thorough explanations of important concepts with self-checking exercises that will help students confidently master those concepts.
Understanding and Mastering the Bluebook by
View updates to The Bluebook® and printing differences in Understanding and Mastering The Bluebook® (printings in 2020, 2021, and 2023) here: https://caplaw.com/sites/umb/ The Bluebook® provides the rules for legal citation, but can be intimidating and frustrating to use. With its simple building-block approach, this survival manual teaches how to understand and master the essential rules for legal practitioners. Rules are fully described and illustrated using: Clear explanations and illustrations of the basic components of legal citations; Step-by-step instructions for building citations to the most common authorities cited by legal practitioners; Detailed guidance for citing legal materials to both print and electronic sources; Examples, comparison charts, illustrations, and bullet-point explanations designed for quick mastery of basic Bluebook citation rules; Tips, hints, and cautions to help users avoid common citation errors; Cross references to the controlling Bluebook rules; and A user-friendly format gathering The Bluebook's scattered rules for each authority into one place. For readers interested in further practicing their citation skills, Linda Barris created Mastering The Bluebook Interactive Exercises, an online learning tool. The new edition will coordinate with both Understanding and Mastering The Bluebook, Fourth Edition and The Bluebook, 21st Edition (both out summer 2020). Each copy of Understanding and Mastering The Bluebook, Fourth Edition includes a discount code for 20% off the purchase of Mastering The Bluebook Interactive Exercises.
Black's Law Dictionary 11th Edition, Hardcover by 
Plain English for Lawyers by
Plain English for Lawyers has been a favorite of law students, legal writing teachers, lawyers, and judges for almost 40 years. The seventh edition, co-authored by Amy Sloan, updates this classic text while preserving all the approaches that make it such a standard in the field. In addition to guiding students through techniques for producing clear writing, this edition includes new exercises, a discussion of the principles of document design, a chapter on the appropriate uses of generative AI for writing, and detailed coverage of best practices for correct pronoun usage and avoiding gendered language. Plain English for Lawyers remains (in size only!) a little book, small enough and palatable enough not to intimidate overloaded law students. In January 2005, the Legal Writing Institute gave Wydick its Golden Pen Award for having written Plain English for Lawyers. The Legal Writing Institute is a non-profit organization that provides a forum for discussion and scholarship about legal writing, analysis, and research. The Institute has over 1,300 members representing all of the ABA-accredited law schools in the United States. Its membership also includes law teachers from other nations, English teachers, and practicing lawyers.
Bad Words: A Legal Writer's Guide to What Not to Say by
Bad Words: A Legal Writer's Guide to What Not to Say provides a guide to words and phrases that legal writers should use less often, rarely, or not at all. The book's principal advice is that the easiest way for law students and lawyers to improve their legal writing is to use few, if any, adjectives and adverbs. To help with that effort, Bad Words lays out--one-by-one--words, phrases, and rhetorical devices that legal writers should use less often or not at all, with an explanation of why for each (delivered with some snark, sarcasm, and good humor). Offering both a guide to read cover to cover and a desk reference for looking up words while editing and drafting, the book includes an Introduction and three sections: (1) a "Top 50 to Avoid," alphabetically listing adjectives and adverbs that legal writers use most frequently and that, as described in each accompanying explanation, will likely distract, confuse, annoy, or undermine the trust of the writer's audience; (2) a longer, dictionary-style collection of words, phrases, and rhetorical devices that legal writers should use less or not at all, each with an explanation of why; and (3) a "Bonus Material" section including several lists of adjectives and adverbs that did not merit their own entries but are categorized based on a shared reason to avoid them. And the book also includes an alphabetized table of where to find the more than 2,000 words and phrases that the book covers.
The Case for Effective Legal Writing by
Welcome to a book that brings the courthouse to the legal writing classroom. The Case for Effective Legal Writing is the first of its kind, a text that connects writing technique to real-world consequences. In its pages, you'll find dozens of court cases in which writing technique determined the outcome or was otherwise significant--cases proving that the finer points of writing mechanics and legal style aren't trivial or mere fancies of personal taste. In short, this book will be Exhibit A when professors tell students that legal writing is every bit as important as the doctrinal law it shapes. The book devotes chapters to writing techniques and issues that law students invariably wrestle with: tone, diction, succinctness, grammar, syntax, punctuation, and more. Each chapter features an illustrative case or cases, edited for readability and focus. The case excerpts are preceded by explanatory passages and are followed by notes, questions, and practical exercises. The book is sure to prompt rich and useful conversations in and out of the classroom. And the writing lessons that emerge will stick, given their newly evident real-world implications. After reading these cases, students will never again see usage, mechanics, and style as ancillary afterthoughts. Professors can use this book in any legal writing course, whether a first-year offering or an advanced course. Its cases and lessons will enhance instruction on everything from memos and court briefs to contracts and legislation. It will also be a useful and practical resource for AJD, LLM, and MLS students.
Critical Reading for Success in Law School and Beyond (with Video) by
New book purchase includes complimentary digital access to the eBook and digital resources.Reading cases and statutes is challenging for students and attorneys. However, everybody can learn critical reading strategies and become effective legal readers and advocates. Critical Reading for Success in Law School and Beyond identifies the reading strategies used by expert legal readers and presents the strategies in a systematic sequence. Critical Reading is written in an easy to read style with lots of examples. Readers will learn:the purpose for reading cases,how to read with focus,case structure and important civil and criminal procedure terms,techniques for understanding complex text,strategies for identifying the parts of a case,how to brief a case,legal analysis skills such as analogical reasoning and case synthesis, andstrategies for reading statutes.The second edition adds chapters that address reading on screens and techniques for reading bar prep materials. The second edition also has a seventeen part video series with PowerPoint slides. Each video introduces a reading strategy, provides helpful tips, includes a short student exercise, and gives students the opportunity to self-assess their proficiency.Critical Reading can be used in law school pre-orientation and orientation programs, academic success courses, bar prep courses, and legal writing and doctrinal classes. It is also useful for legal readers who want to improve their reading efficiency and effectiveness.
Think Like a Lawyer by 
Mastering Legal Analysis and Drafting by
Mastering Legal Analysis and Drafting seeks to emphasize the fundamental structure and methods of legal drafting, grounded in the surprisingly few elemental rules and techniques of legal analysis. It is designed to (1) help the legal drafters identify those elemental rules and techniques, and (2) show how they are used to prepare effective legal writing in different formats, most of which share common elements and structures. The book begins with a discussion of legal analysis, followed by a discussion of general drafting principles and rules, and then proceeds to apply these concepts to specific forms of legal writing, including client letters, demand letters, research memoranda, motions and supporting documents, appellate briefs, contracts and instruments, and legislation. It closes with a chapter on "writing to build a record" that reprises the other chapters and highlights the key concepts. The second edition has been updated to reflect recent developments in legal practice, research, citation, and technology.
Legal Analysis by
The third edition of Legal Analysis: The Fundamental Skill continues to teach students the critical skills of legal reasoning. This popular book introduced the CREAC paradigm to law students. The third edition builds on the basics of the CREAC paradigm and explains how to use CREAC in a variety of additional ways. The book is a practical and clear guide that explains the many ways lawyers analyze the law. The authors demystify legal analysis through step-by-step explanations of the different levels of critical thinking to thoroughly explain and apply the law to a client's case. New examples and exercises are also included.
Legal Writing and Analysis in a Nutshell by A Lawyer Writes by
For class planning purposes, instructors may find a brief list of changes from the second edition of A Lawyer Writes here. This new edition of the popular text teaches the foundational principles of critical reading, analysis, and writing in a clear and accessible way. By putting the reader in the place of a first-year attorney, the text shows law students how to succeed in law school and in the practice of law. Using graphics and contrasting effective and weak examples to illustrate concepts, the book demonstrates best practices in both traditional and electronic environments. Speaking to its readers in a straightforward manner, A Lawyer Writes communicates essential skills and theories so that they will be retained for a lifetime of legal practice. This third edition of A Lawyer Writes preserves the original concepts from the previous edition while refining content to reflect current practices. Chapter 18, "Professional Emails," not only discusses the form and substance of electronic communication, but now features new material on how to convey analysis effectively in email. Chapter 19, "The Transition from Objective to Persuasive Writing," has been reorganized and revised to highlight effective strategies for drafting persuasive analysis. Revisions in other chapters reorganize and update the original content by expanding on or clarifying ideas.
Thinking Like a Writer by 
