Secondary sources are a great place to start when researching an area of law that is new to you. Here are some suggested sources:
Legal periodical articles
Legal periodical articles are in-depth discussions of narrow areas of the law and legal issues. Articles in academic journals tend to revolve around very theoretical and cutting-edge legal issues. Articles in practitioner-oriented journals tend to be more practical. Periodical articles can be very good law finders; they tend to have a great many footnotes with a lot of legal citations.
The major American legal periodical indexes are the Index to Legal Periodicals and LegalTrac. There are several databases that include the full-text legal periodical articles; Lexis and Westlaw contain the full text of articles from many law reviews from roughly the past decade. HeinOnline contains the full text of legal periodical articles for many hundred law reviews from their inception until a year or two ago. (If full-text searching is necessary, try to avoid searching Hein Online.)
In general, full-text searches are not the most effective device for finding periodical articles on a particular topic. Full-text online searches will return articles that contain the particular language that the writer has chosen. This can sometimes produce overly-broad results, or exclude otherwise relevant documents. An index, on the other hand, will get a user articles that an editor has decided are about the topic selected.
Legal treatises
Legal treatises are single or multi-volume works dedicated to the examination of an area of law. Treatises tend to be very good at describing the law, they're good law finders, and many of the classic treatises are persuasive. They tend to provide an in-depth discussion of a particular area of law and will provide the researcher with references to a few cases and statutes. Many treatises are kept up-to-date with pocket parts. The Legal Information Buyer’s Guide and Reference Manual describes the important legal treatises in several areas of the law. To identify and locate a legal treatise, you may also use a library catalog like MORRIS.
Legal encyclopedias
Legal encyclopedias are immense sets of books that briefly describe all of the main legal issues for a particular jurisdiction. An encyclopedia can provide a basic introduction to an area of law and will provide the user with some case and statutory citations. Legal encyclopedias will not delve deeply into an area, nor will they discuss the finer points of an area of law. The two major legal encyclopedias are American Jurisprudence 2d (AMJUR) and Corpus Juris Secundum (CJS) they are available on Westlaw, Lexis and in print.
In print, one can access information in a legal encyclopedia via an index, a table of cases, a table of statutes, or by browsing. Legal encyclopedias in print are kept up-to-date with pocket parts. On Westlaw, search the database AMJUR or CJS or retrieve the document with a citation previously acquired from the print sources. On Lexis, you can retrieve this source by searching in their secondary sources database.
Many states have encyclopedias devoted to the law of that state. These are shelved next to the state codes in the Reading Room on L3.
ALR
ALR is a case reporter that also provides topical annotations. These annotations focus on a relatively narrow area of law and discuss it in some depth. They provide a good basic grounding in law, as well as serve as good case finding tools. The ALR is rarely relied on as persuasive authority. ALR is available in print and on Westlaw (database ALR). Annotations can be identified in print by using the ALR Index to Annotations and online via online searches. Please note that the ALR titles tend to be very descriptive. So it can be useful to limit your search to the title field.
Restatements
The restatements were developed by legal scholars initially to restate the law, and currently to describe what the law should be. In either case, Restatements are very persuasive although they are not very good at describing the law. They can serve as adequate law finders. There are restatements for many areas of law: but not all. The Restatements are available on Lexis and Westlaw and in print. Online, they can be searched in full-text; in print you would use the library catalog to identify the relevant restatement and then the restatement’s own index to find the relevant sections.
Looseleaf Services
Looseleaf services bring together all of the law on a particular topic. Looseleaf services are not available for all areas of law, but when they do exist, they can be an invaluable resource. For a researcher, they bring together in one place the code, administrative regulations, court decisions, administrative decisions, citators, finding aids, commentaries, forms, etc.. Looseleaf services are moving online. To identify a relevant Looseleaf service, whether in print or online, use the Legal Looseleafs in Print. Also, see the BNA database.