Michigan Legal Research: Secondary Resources

This lesson shows how to research Michigan state law using secondary sources. This lesson assumes the audience has access to WestlawEdge, Lexis Advance and HeinOnline. We will walk through a research scenario together using a few major types of secondary resources discussing Michigan state law, including encyclopedia, American Law Reports, treatises, journals and law reviews and free online resources.

Learning Outcomes

On completion of the lesson, the student will be able to:

1. Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of some distinctive features of each of the major types of secondary sources on Michigan state law discussed in the lesson.
2. Apply basic skills to construct useful search strings.
3. Identify the pertinent and relevant information in the resources consulted.