LexisNexis Legal

What is LexisNexis Legal?

LexisNexis Legal (also known as lexis.com) is a collection of legal resources including cases, legislation, journals, law reviews and reference material. There is a bias towards US primary and secondary materials, although substantial Australian, Commonwealth, UK and other world sources are available. There are Australian Federal and State cases included, as well as selected online journals.

Getting started

Connect to LexisNexis Legal from UNE University Library. Use your internet browser to go to http://www.une.edu.au/library.

Go to the Law Databases at http://www.une.edu.au/library/resources/guides/law/databases.php.
Select 'LexisNexis Legal' from the list (not LexisNexis AU).
You will usually be asked to enter your UNE username and password.

The Search Sources screen

The 'Search Sources' tabs across the top include 'Research Tasks' (automatically generated topic searches of US material), 'Search Advisor' (topic approach, US material), 'Get a Document' (individual North American cases, articles and decisions), 'Shepard's®' (US law), 'Alerts' (run your own saved search strategies), 'Guided Search Forms' (using selected US sources) and 'Command Searching' (US sources).
Check the 'Recently Used Sources' to quickly access your source that someone else may have already used.

Search strategies

There are many different ways to search LexisNexis. Please note that some of these search types are only available for US legal sources.

Get a Document by looking for a particular North American 'Citation', 'Party Name' or 'Docket Number'.
Shepard's® enables you to determine the current legal validity of a US case. Shepardizing™ a case shows you the prior and subsequent treatment of the case itself and its supporting cited references. Type in a citation, such as 800 f2d 111, and click on 'Check'.
Recently Used Sources lists those accessed most recently by UNE staff and students.
Look for a Source using the tabs, which include 'Legal', 'News & Business', 'Public Records', 'International Law' and 'Find a Source'.
To search several sources at the same time click on 'Show checkboxes for combining sources'. Note that not all sources can be combined.
Find a Source You can type the full name of a source such as Melbourne University Law Review.
Or you can choose Long Names (like Federal Courts) or Short Names (GENFED;COURTS) if you know the correct US format.
Lastly you can use the 0-9 A-Z links to browse lists of titles.
Hint: click on the 'i' for a description that tells you exactly what is in a particular source.
You can search for a particular legal subject using the 'Legal' tab and selecting 'Area of Law - By Topic'. There are around fifty choices, but be aware they cover US law and not Australian or UK law.

Locating Australian, UK and other non-US sources

Make sure the 'Look for a Source' tab is on 'Legal'.
Scroll down and click on 'Find Laws by Country or Region' on the right hand side of the screen.
Select a country from the alphabetical list.
Choose a category from those offered, such as 'Case Law', 'Journals', 'Legislation & Regulations' or 'Treaties & International Agreements'. Each country has different offerings.
You can track backwards to other levels by using your search history just above the search box. The example below is Legal > Find Laws by Country or Region > Australia > Case Law > Australian Commonwealth, State & Territory Case Law.

Type your search words into the box. Choose to search using 'Terms and Connectors' or 'Natural Language' or 'Easy Search'.
The Terms and Connectors search is best for articles on specific topics and for finding cases, as you can combine terms in a more focused way.
Natural Language is useful for general issues or concepts. It allows you to type plain English into the search box, such as can employers screen employees (workers) for drug use. Use parentheses to look for synonyms or alternative words.
Easy Search means you can type in your keywords without using connectors. Results are likely to be much greater in number if you use this method.

Combining your terms

Use AND to find all terms in the same document, such as deregulat! and bank!
OR finds one or both terms, as in merger or takeover.
Exclude terms by using AND NOT, such as trust and not charitable.
Use ! for truncation. regulat! finds regulate, regulates, regulated, regulating, regulatory, regulation and regulations.
A wildcard * replaces one character. bank** finds bank, banker, banked.
PRE will find two terms where the first one precedes the second one by a specific number of words, as in cable pre/2 television or tv.
duty of care w/5 directors finds directors within five words of the phrase duty of care.
Use /s for words in the same sentence, as in circumstances /s mitigat!
To find words in the same paragraph use /p.
Sometimes your words have to be capital letters. Try allcaps (aids).

Limiting your search

Suggest Terms for My Search finds terms related to your search word. You can choose to add these terms to your search.
Restrict by Segment means you can search for words in a specific part (or segment) of a document. This is a useful way to find particular judges, courts and cases. The segments vary according to the type of document, so a journal article will be different to a case. If you know the segment names then try typing, for example, author (dietrich) and torts in Australian Journals. If you don't know the proper segments click on the + sign to see your choices. For Australian Case Law select the segment JUDGE, type Kirby and press ADD. Then choose the segment CATCHWORDS and type immigrat! Click on 'ADD' and then 'Search'.
Restrict by Date using the options offered. You can also enter dates in the 'From and/or To' boxes in the format mm/dd/yyyy.

Some examples

To find the Australian case Wong v R (2001) 185 ALR 233 choose your source.
Legal > Find Laws by country or Region > Australia > Case Law > Australian Commonwealth, State & Territory Case Law
Type name (wong) and cite (185 ALR 233) to go straight to the case.
To find a UK case use the path Legal > Find Laws by Country or Region > United Kingdom > Case Law > UK Cases, Combined Courts
To find Dunlop Pneumatic Tyre Co, Ltd v New Garage and Motor Co, Ltd look for the case name by typing
name (pneumatic and garage)
Alternatively find the citation by typing cite (1915 AC 79)
To find cases about internet defamation try the search title (internet) and title (defam!). An alternative is title (internet) /s defam!
If you want the regulations about the duty of care of directors in a takeover, try title (merger) or title (takeover) and regulat! and duty of care w/10 directors

Viewing your results

Your results are displayed as a list. If you want to further narrow your results use FOCUS™ Terms (at the top of the results screen) to add more search terms.
There are four choices of format for viewing. Cite displays basic details in a list of records. KWIC (keywords in context) shows each document with 25 words either side of your terms. Full is each complete document. Custom allows you to decide which segments you want to see.
To see the full details of an item click on its linked title or citation.
If you like a particular document and want others, click on More like this.

Marking records

You can create a list of marked records by ticking in the boxes next to each item in the 'Cite' list or at the top of each document where it says 'Select for FOCUS™ or Delivery'. When you choose to print, save or email your results 'Selected Documents' (your marked ones) will be automatically be chosen as the 'Document Range' to be retrieved.

Printing, saving and emailing your results

Click on Print at the top right of the LexisNexis screen. You can choose how you want your records to look (Cite, KWIC, Full or Custom).
FAST Print is an easy way to print Cite, KWIC and Full formats. However, Javascript has to be enabled in your browser and you have to set up a default printer for it to work.
To save, click on Download.
Click on Email and fill in your full e-mail address, such as username@une.edu.au. Please note that your e-mail details will remain there until another person uses e-mail delivery.
Text only removes graphics from the web page you are viewing. You can then use your browser's File menu to Print or Save the page.

Help

Click on Help at the top right of the LexisNexis screen.
To learn about journal indexes as a useful tool try eSKILLS UNE and help finding legal articles is here.