Educational Leadership

Search for case by topic

1.  Click on Cases

2. Identification jurisdiction Federal or State

3.  Choose what you are looking for in the about field.  For example: cases concerning “special education”.  Indicate a date range using the drop down list under "All Dates"

4. Click search
5. Narrow results by date, court, tribal affiliation, sources, publication status, practice areas, attorney, law firm most cited, keyword, judge
6. Click on the case name to access information about the case
7. You will see the following once you click on the case name

Use the following method when searching a known case.  For example: Arlington Central School District Board of Education v. Murphy

1.  Click on Cases

2. Identification the jurisdiction Federal or State

3.  Enter the name of the case in the About box.  In this case: Arlington Central School District Board of Education v. Murphy

4.  In this case, we received 16 cases which are sorted by relevance and are in some way related to the Arlington Central School District Board of Education case

5.  Once can narrow your results further by:

• Search within results
• Adjusting the timeline
• Narrow to more specific court
• Publication status (Reported or unreported)
• Sources
• Practice areas and topics
• Attorney
• Law firm
• Most cited
• Keyword
• Judge

Use the Shepardize feature to find additional information about the case.  In this case we will Shepardize: Board of Education v. Rowley, 458 U.S. 176  When you access a case, you will notice a box on the right side of the page like the following:

Click on the link which says "Reason for Shepard's Signal."   A new window opens.  In this case it tells me that it has been superseded by another statute

Option 2:  Use the shep Command

1. In Nexis-Uni, click on cases, then Federal, type shep: Phyllene W. v. Huntsville City Board of Education
2. Click search
3. Get 2 results
4. Click on case name to read Shepardized information about the case

From within the case, I may Shepardize the case by clicking the link on the right side of the screen which says

Once you click on the link, you will see the Shepardized case

The information can be narrowed further using the categories on the left side of the page.  They include:

• Analysis - Including warnings, caution, positive, neutral and cited by information You may select multiple items in the category
• Federal OR state courts OR multiple federal or state courts
• Publication status: reported or unreported
• Discussion including the following types of discussion
  • analyzed means:  the entry fully considers the cited reference;
  • Discussed means: it discusses the cited reference with some measure of analysis;
  • Mentioned means:  the cited reference is only briefly mentioned; and
  • Cited means:  it cites to the reference with minimal if any discussion
• Headnotes for the case
• Search within the Shepardized results
• Time period