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PG 350: Judicial Process and Policy Making: Locate a Supreme Court Syllabus

Cornell Law vs. Lexis Nexis

Cornell Law Site

Searching the Cornell Law site for a Supreme Court syllabus can be easier than LexisNexis. You can search and browse by party name, time periods, and case topic. Syllabi will provide citation information, a summary, and the decision/opinion that was held.  
 

Nexis Uni Database

Searching in the legal section of our Nexis Uni database, one can search by legal topic, party name, and case citation but cannot browse. Sometimes abbreviated party names must be spelled out and searching can be very sensitive to spelling and name order. Like Cornell's site, Nexis Uni will contain citation information, summaries and decisions/opinion. However, unlike Cornell, it contains extras like lawyers notes and hyperlinks to specific statutes and codes. The hyperlinks are nice but the extra notes Nexis Uni provides tend to be confusing. 

Find using Cornell's Law Site

To find a case listed in the course handout using Cornell's Law Site:

-Under, “Archive of Decisions,” go to “By Party.” Here you can click on the “historic link” to browse older cases by name alphabetically. For newer cases, click “1990-present,” then on the next page click, “full alphabetical listing” to browse the entire list of cases alphabetically by party name.

If you can’t find it by browsing, return to the Supreme Court page and click “search” from the top menu to search for a case by name.

 

Once you find the case:

 -Click on the title of the case to see the case syllabus which contains a summary of the case.

 -If you searched for a case, be sure to select the title that has [syllabus] under the title.

Find using Nexis Uni

Relevant cases of your paper can also be located in Nexis Uni: 

 

 

From the main page, you can perform a basic search by clicking “Cases,” but it is recommended that you perform an advanced search.

Click “Advanced Search,” then click “Select a specific content type” and choose “Cases.” You Can then search by party name, court, citation, date, etc. 

 

*Be careful of names. If you must do a full search, you may try only typing the first party name v. (example: FDA v. ) and then hitting search if seaching both names does not produce results at either site.