PUBLIC SCHOOL LAW Part 18: LOISLAW

It can be tedious and frustrating to to search in these Digests or ALR volumes

But you do not have to search in those paper Digests because you have LOISLAW!!!!

What is LoisLaw? Loislaw is a leading provider of legal research services in the U.S., and a Wolters Kluwer brand, within the Law and Business unit. Wolters Kluwer is the second largest worldwide provider of content to the legal market. Wolters KluwerWolters Kluwer Loislaw is a comprehensive, easy-to-use, and affordable online legal research service. From its beginning in the late 1980s, Loislaw has pioneered new products and new technology for the digital legal information market. Or to put it simply, LoisLaw is where you can find caselaw, statutes and regulations

What is in LoisLaw? Federal Case Law Contains all cases from the Supreme Court, (1754- pres) Appellate Courts (Federal Reporter) (1924-pres) and District Courts (Federal Supp) (1921-pres) Can search by case citation, case name, docket number, lower court, attorneys on appeal, justice of majority opinion, text of majority opinion, justice of dissenting opinion, and text of dissenting opinion, plus the entire document

What is in LoisLaw? State Case Law Contains case law for all 50 states Can search by case citation, case name, docket number, lower court, attorneys on appeal, justice of majority opinion, text of majority opinion, justice of dissenting opinion, and text of dissenting opinion, plus the entire document Can search all 50 states at once, or select the states that you want to search in Can search for published opinions, unpublished opinions, or both

What is in LoisLaw? Federal Statutes Contains US. Code that is current Contains Statutes at Large— from the 105 th (1997) Current through Public Law (May 12, 2011)

What is in LoisLaw? State Statutes LoisLaw contains the state statutes of all 50 states Also contains Federal Statutes Can browse through the table of contents (each title) Can search the entire document, by heading, by words in the text, or statute history Under the state laws, there are two choices, Acts and Statutes. Acts is more current than Statutes Oklahoma 2010 Acts Acts - Texas Acts Acts - Current through Acts approved by June 19, 2009, of the 81st Regular Session.

What is in LoisLaw? Federal administrative rules and regulations Code of Federal Regulations—. Federal Register

What is in LoisLaw? State administrative rules and regulations The regulations and administrative rules for all 50 states are on LoisLaw You can browse the administrative rules You can search the administrative rules by topic(keyword)

How do you access LoisLaw? Go to Library main page at: Click on Electronic Resources Scroll down page until you find the link for LoisLaw Click on the LoisLaw link You should be taken to the LoisLaw main page, shown on the next slide

LOISLAW MAIN SCREEN

How do you access LoisLaw from off campus? Go to Library main page at: Click on Electronic Resources Scroll down page until you find the link for LoisLaw Click on the LoisLaw link You will be taken to the proxy server page, where you will have to put in your username and password before you can access LoisLaw

What is my Proxy Server Userid and password? Your Proxy server username and password consists of: Username: First letter of your first name + entire last name + last two digits of your student ID Password: your birthdate

What should I do if my username and password don’t work? Go to this page: resources/proxy-server/ resources/proxy-server/

When you don’t go to the LOISLAW main screen, click on continue

How do you use LoisLaw? 4-step Searching Step 1. Choose a database Step 2. Construct a search Step 3. Evaluate results Step 4. View documents

Step 1. Choose a database Do you want to search in case law, statutes and Acts, or Administrative Rules and Regulations? Do you want to search in federal or state jurisdiction? You can search in more than one database at once

Step 2. Construct a search

Key to constructing a relevant search is to know how to search When you type in a phrase, such as free exercise, LoisLaw interprets it as a phrase LoisLaw also uses Boolean searching to search

WHAT IS BOOLEAN SEARCHING? Boolean searching is named after a system of logic invented by a British Mathematician named George Boole

Connectors (boolean)

Steps to Boolean Searching Begin with a simple search Use Caution with terms that might narrow the search Use specific fields whenever possible When searching for proper names, use the NEAR connector Narrow the search criteria if results are too numerous Expand the search criteria if results are too few. If phrase searching produces too few (or no) results, use the ‘near’ connector

Examples of boolean connectors Establishment clause AND schools Schools OR education Discipline NOT teenagers Example of search

Complex searching For maximum refinement of search results, users may combine two or more connectors in a single query. As queries become more complex, search terms and multiple connectors may, in turn, be grouped by parentheses. Parentheses affect the priority in which search criteria are evaluated, and may drastically alter the results. In search expressions with parentheses, Loislaw evaluates the innermost parentheses first, then (moving outward) proceeds to the next set of parentheses Example: discipline and (school or education)

. In search expressions without parentheses, Loislaw evaluates the connectors in a particular order that is prescribed by Boolean logic: 1. not 2. near 3. and 4. or

Step 3. Evaluate results After the search is completed, you will be presented with the results

If results are not what you expected, then have to redo search, changing search terms

Step 4. View documents

Other features of LOISLAW

Searching Published and Unpublished Opinions Sometimes opinions are not published in a Reporter. In LoisLaw you have the option to limit your search to just published opinions, unpublished opinions, or both. Loislaw marks unpublished opinions with special formatting. A light blue background appears behind each excerpt from an unpublished opinion. The word "Unpublished" will appear directly above the shaded excerpt.

Find a case by citation Enter an official citation into Find A Case near the top of the Loislaw screen. Example Find A Case 531 U.S. 98 or 531us98 Note that Find A Case does not require a formal official citation. Users may omit spaces and punctuation, or enter lower case characters, for easier retrieval of case law.

Find a case by name Enter the plaintiff and defendant names into the Case Name field on a case law Search Page. Example Case Name Goss v. Lopez Goss v. Lopez

Find a statute by citation Enter an official citation into the Heading field on a Search Page for statutes. Example Heading 26 U.S.C. § 1 The section symbol (§) may be entered by engaging the Num Lock key, holding down the Alt key, and typing the number 21.

Find a Statute by Popular name Popular Name Table You can search for a law by popular name, such as: No Child Left Behind Act Go to the U.S. Code At the bottom is the Popular name table listed in alphabetical order

Using other symbols to find variant forms of a word LoisLaw automatically retrieves most variant forms of a word Expanders– LoisLaw uses the asterisk * to retrieve all variant forms of a word that is more than three characters long The Wildcard Symbol—use to replace any letter in a word : Wom?n retrieves woman and women

Thesaurus The thesaurus is a new feature that allows you to search for a term and any term that means the same thing The symbol is ~ ~murder retrieves kill, homicide

We are now done with LOISLAW. Doesn’t it make finding cases easier? We are now ready to move to Part 19