Library Guides: Library Guide for Law School Faculty Research Assistants: Other Resources

VitalLaw, Practical Law Company & Practising Law Institute

VitalLaw This link opens in a new window
Superb content, including statutes, administrative law, cases and commentary, in tax, antitrust, banking, finance, commercial law and intellectual property law.
Includes primary sources and secondary sources for antitrust, corporate and securities, banking, intellectual property, and tax law, including the Federal Securities Law Reporter, the Trade Regulation Reporter, Standard Federal Tax Reporter, U.S. Tax Treaties Reporter, and many other looseleaf services, treatises, guides, and newsletters.
Practical Law This link opens in a new window
Transactional law resource with sample documents, current awareness, practice notes and step-by-step checklists in the areas of corporate law, securities and finance.
Transactional law resource that provides model documents (with legal drafting and negotiating tips), step-by-step checklists, timelines, handy overviews of transactional practice areas, and legal updates on the latest market developments. PLC focuses on corporate, securities, and finance law. Free accounts are available for Law School students, faculty, and staff; sign up on the PLC website.
Practising Law Institute (PLI) Plus This link opens in a new window
Treatises, course handbooks and forms in a wide variety of legal topics.
Collection of legal practice focused material on a variety of legal topics from the Practising Law Institute.

IICLE SmartBooks

Illinois Institute of Continuing Legal Education (IILCE) practice guides and course materials summarize current Illinois law in many areas of law. While their coverage is not intended to be exhaustive, IICLEs present the fundamentals in a clear and straightforward manner, providing citations to relevant statutes and cases and sometimes sample forms.

Print copies of the current editions of IICLE practice guides are located in the stacks, with a small number shelved in the Reserve Reading Room, beginning with call number XXKFI. Search for specific titles in the Library catalog using “Illinois Institute of Continuing Legal Education” as the author.

IICLE Online Library This link opens in a new window
Online version of Illinois Institute of Continuing Legal Education course handbooks. You can browse the list of titles or search by keyword, and print PDF files of relevant sections or chapters. Forms are usually included.

Use of this resource requires logging in with a University of Chicago IP address. To logon to a University of Chicago IP address remotely, please use the cVPN.

Current Awareness Sources

In addition to working with your professor, you may also want to consult some of the following current awareness sources to generate ideas for paper topics.

Bloomberg Law (BLAW) This link opens in a new window
Bloomberg Law publishes newsletters covering current issues in a variety of areas of law. Bloomberg News is the online successor to BNA's looseleaf services and is heavily used in practice for staying current in particular subject areas.
From the well-known provider of business and financial news data and includes in-depth legal analysis, filings, judicial opinions, real-time and archival news, and company and biographical information in a single, integrated database. Bloomberg Law includes customized Practice Centers for the following areas of law: Antitrust, Banking & Finance, Bankruptcy, Benefits & Executive Compensation, Corporate, E-Discovery, Health, International Trade, Labor & Employment, Legal Ethics & Professional Responsibility, Patents & Trade Secrets, Privacy & Data Security, Securities, Tax, Tech & Telecom, and Trademarks & Copyrights.

United States Law Week
This BNA publication reports on the activities of the Supreme Court, those lower court decisions expected have a broad and significant impact on the law, and other noteworthy legal news items. The "Circuit Splits" feature might be especially helpful in locating a topic.
& more less...
U.S. Law Week reports on the activities of the Supreme Court, those lower court decisions expected have a broad and significant impact on the law, and other noteworthy legal news items. The "Circuit Splits" feature might be especially helpful in locating a topic.

Westlaw Precision This link opens in a new window
Topical Highlights databases (e.g., WTH-SEC for securities law topics; WTH-FL for family law topics) provide summaries of recent decisions in particular areas of the law.

Legal News and Blogs
Major Newspapers
Major newspapers (e.g. New York Times, Washington Post, etc.) - use ProQuest Newsstand to find full-text articles from most major newspapers
Government Agencies
Websites of government agencies (state and local, federal, or international) often have news of current developments in that area of law.

Other Law Databases

Law Databases page
See the Law Databases page for other electronic databases available on legal topics.