Legal Question in Family Law in New York

Re: information

For a more comprehensive guide to researching New York case law presedent court decisions than can be provided in a relatively short answer format, type the following Internet search phrase: "new york legal research pathfinder". (Use lowercase letters, NOT uppercase CAPITALS, and enclose the phrase between QUOTATION MARKS "" which causes the Internet search function to "see" the phrase as a single indivisible word.) This search should bring up several websites including the website of Georgetown University Law Center's library which may also be worth looking at.

However, the Rutgers University Law School Library's website with the pages containg Rutger Univ. Law School Law Library's "New York Legal Research Pathfinder" is the website which will probably prove to be most helpful to you and which should be brought up by the "new york legal research pathfnder" search phrase. (New York Law School also provides a similar New York legal research guide).

As regards your question on how to make effective use of law libraries to find case precedents: You may find the following to be espeically relevant in Rutger Univ. Law School's "New York Legal Research Pathfinder" (although it may be worth your while to read the entire guide): The reference to CASE FINDING digests such as "West's New York Digest" which indexes case law precedents alphabetically by keyword topics; and, to "McKinney's Annotated New York State Consolidated Laws" which lists New York's statutory laws with notes referring to precedent court cases which have decided questions and issues raised by the statutes; and, the "REPORTERS" which are hardcopy collections of court cases.

As regards online computerized legal research, the "New York Legal Research Pathfinder" lists the various excellent computerized legal research systems cited in Ms. McAlister's answer such as Loislaw and Lexis and Westlaw, and others as well, some of which are provided free of charge.

When you are resaerching case law precedents you will need to be able to check whether cases are still valid law, whether or not they are still "good" law, and have not been overruled; therefore, be sure to check the "New York Legal Research Pathfinder"'s references to SHEPARD and to Shepardizing and to Keycite.

Note that Lexis provides a scaled-down version called LexisOne which provides up to the last five years of case law free of charge. (Earlier cases are also availble but must be paid for). Signing up for LexisOne is free of charge and I believe non-lawyers like yourself can sign up for LexisOne.

If you have any questions on the above, for example how to costruct queries in Westlaw or Lexis, feel free to e-mail me or to telephone me and I will be glad to assist. You can access my telepone number and e-mail address from LawGuru's database f questions and answers by referring to your question. However,I will be out of town until July 5, and I will be unable to respond unitl then.

Re: information

Court Law Libraries, Law School Libraries and Online Subscription Law Libraries, including but not limited to West, Lexis, Lois Law, Versus Law, etc, are all good places to go to research the materials and case law helpful to you. Librarians generally are excellant sources for information and will assist you in more ways than you can imagine.

You should also take your attorney's direction and advice respecting the applicable case law and references.

Good luck,