Embedding a case in your course page is a great way to share case law with your students. Here's a few Web services that allow you to link a case to your course page.
Google Scholar, select case law--located under the Google Scholar search box--and enter your citation. For example enter 389 U.S. 347 to retrieve Katz v. United States. After your case is retrieved, copy and paste the URL and drop it into your course page.
Select LexisAdvanced and enter your case citation in the search box to pull up the case. Below the case name you will see a small box labeled copy citation.
Select copy citation. A new box will pop up giving you the URL that you need to link to the case. Copy the URL and paste into your course page or send the link via email. The student will be required to enter a password before being taken directly to the case citation.
Enter your citation into the search box in WestlawNext and copy the URL after the case is retrieved. The student will be taken directly to the case but will be required to enter a Westlaw password.
Pros and Cons: Both Lexis and Westlaw are great legal resources that puts a wealth of legal information at the student's fingertips, but the student must have a current password and have some training to use the database. Google Scholar makes case retrieval easy for students, it provides additional research features like cases cited and related articles, and a student isn't required to have a password, but Google Scholar is limited when you compare it to any premium legal database available to law students. You'll have to consider the advantages and disadvantages before you link a case to your course page.
For more on how to link case law to your course page, contact the Law Library.
Submitted by Jenny Zook, Reference Librarian on February 12, 2015
This article appears in the categories: Law Library
