Chapter 2 · Educational
Using Databases for Legal Research
Two situations cover almost all database work. Either you already have a citation and need to retrieve a known source, or you don't and need to search for one. This module walks both, then lets you build live searches to feel how each connector changes what comes back.
Stage 1
Read a citation
A citation tells you three things at a glance: what kind of source it is, where it lives, and how much weight it might carry. Click each part of this case citation to see what it means.
Tip: the court and year, tucked in the parenthetical, are what let you judge authority before you ever open the case.
Statutes and regulations follow the same logic — a location you can look up — just pointed at a code instead of a reporter:
42 U.S.C. § 12112(b)(5)(A)
29 C.F.R. § 1630.2(o)
Stage 2
Retrieve a known source
When you already have a citation, you don't search — you retrieve. Enter only the location portions. The party names and the year are descriptive, not address: typing them in can actually interfere with a clean retrieval.
The full citation
What you type to retrieve
Press “Build it” to see which parts you actually enter.
Stage 3
Two ways to search
Natural language lets you describe your issue in plain words; the database ranks results by how well they match. It's a good way to start when you don't yet know the legal vocabulary. Terms and connectors (Boolean) is precise: you tell the database exactly which words must appear, which may appear, and which to exclude. Most research starts natural and gets more precise as your questions sharpen.
The builder below does both, over a small sample database, so you can watch the difference for yourself.
Stage 4
Terms & connectors, live
Build a query and run it against the {N}-document sample database. Tap a connector to insert it, or type your own. Then tick “compare with natural language” to see how the same words behave without the logic.