Library Research Guide for History 97g: "What is Legal History?"

Brown, Oliver, -- 1918-1961 -- Trials, litigation, etc.
Criminal law -- New York (State) -- Cases.
Law reports, digests, etc -- Maryland
Topeka (Kan.). -- Board of Education -- Trials, litigation, etc.
Trial transcripts -- Canada.
Trials (Murder) -- Ukraine -- Kiev.

In HOLLIS in Advanced Search, if you choose Keywords from: Form/Genre and search “trials, litigation”, you get items that include actual trials (or excerpts thereof) rather than books about trials which are yielded by a Subject keyword search on the same phrase.

Transcripts of trial court cases are ordinarily not published.  In the 19th century accounts of, especially, sensational cases were often published as books or pamphets. Briefs are the lawyers' arguments presented to the court in written form.

Trials in collections: an index to famous trials throughout the world, by John M. Ross. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1983, 204 p.
FindIt@Harvard
--This book will guide you to many available trial transcripts.

HeinOnline World Trials offers transcripts and accounts of trials as well as secondary works and lawyer biographies. Partial contents.

Making of Modern Law: Trials, 1600-1926 contains published trial transcripts and popular printed accounts of American and British trials.

Famous Trials (UMKC School of Law) offers accounts, photos, transcript excerpts, etc., of over 70 trials from Socrates to the present.

Geography of Circuit Courts

LLMC Digital includes briefs from New York, California and the 7th Circuit
--Go to Search Collections, then select the Records & Briefs tab

Landmark records and briefs of the U.S. Courts of Appeals, 1950-1980 (Making of modern law)

Federal Appeals Court Records & Briefs: Digital Georgetown
--Selected records & briefs from the Supreme Court, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals and the 2d Circuit Court of Appeals 

Digital Georgetown: United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit - Records and Briefs: Selected briefs 1899-1929

Ninth Circuit Records & Briefs at Archive.org 1892-late 1960s

9Chris.org: Finding aid to the Archiv.org collection of Records & Briefs

Brown v. Board of Education Digital Archive (University of Michigan Library)

Brown v. Board of Education at 50. (University of Albany - State University of New York: Albany)

Meiklejohn Civil Liberties Institute Archives include legal "briefs," transcripts, and motions in cases reported in the Civil Liberties Docket since 1955-1966.

Studies in Scarlet: Marriage & Sexuality in the U.S. & U.K., 1815-1914 offers published accounts of sensational trials.

American state trials; a collection of the important and interesting criminal trials which have taken place in the United States from the beginning of our government to the present day. With notes and annotations [by] John D. Lawson, editor. St. Louis, Thomas Law Books, 17 v. 1914-36.
Google Books version
Law School | Harvard Depository | ROOT T LAW
Widener | US 42510.9
HathiTrust version (full text through v. 13 (1921))
HOLLIS Record
--Set of background and transcript segments from criminal trials in the United States from the 1600s to the early 1900s.

Reports of criminal law cases : decided at the city-hall of the city of New York, with notes and references, by Jacob D. Wheeler. Albany : Gould, Banks, 1851-1854. 3 v.
Law School Harvard Depository KFN6100 .A52 1823xb
Google Books version
--"The second and third volumes contain a large number of cases decided in United States Circuit and District courts."--Soule, Lawyer’s ref. manual, 1884.
--Reports cases from 1791-1825.

Reports of select cases decided in the courts of New York: not heretofore reported, or reported only partially, by John W. Edmonds. NY: Diossy, 1868-1883. 2 v.
Online version
Google Books version
Law School Harvard Depository KFN5048.A4 E3
--Contains cases from 1834-1853.

Crime in New York: 1850-1950 offers trial transcripts and images

HeinOnline New York Legal Research Library includes the reports and opinions of the New York Attorney General, the New York State Register, Tax Cases, New York State Session Laws, New York Law Journals, the New York State Bar Association Journal, legal classics from or about New York, and New York trials.

Research Guide: Finding Records, Brief & Court Filings (Harvard Law School)

Nineteenth Century Popular Trial Pamphlets

The Trials Pamphlet collection at the Cornell University Law Library consists of pamphlets ranging in date from the late 1600s to the late 1800s. Trial pamphlets are contemporary accounts of trials that involved prominent citizens or that dealt with especially controversial or lurid topics.

Most Horrible and Shocking Murders. "True Crime" Murder pamphlets in the collections of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

Slaves and the Courts 1740-1860 contains just over a hundred pamphlets and books (published between 1772 and 1889) concerning the difficult and troubling experiences of African and African-American slaves in the American colonies and the United States.

About trial pamphlets: Bloated bodies, bigamous love, and other literary pleasures of the 19th-century trial transcript, by Caleb Crain. Legal Affairs Magazine, July/August 2002

American dictionary of criminal justice : key terms and major court cases, by Dean J. Champion. 2nd ed. Los Angeles, Calif. : Roxbury Pub., 2001, 405 p.
Widener | WID-LC | HV7411 .C48 2001

Historic U.S. court cases: an encyclopedia, ed. by John W. Johnson. New York : Routledge, 2001.  (2 volumes) Information on a wide range of cases, both federal and nonfederal

State & Local Government on the Net: State Court Sites

For state-level research guides: Research Guides, Treatise Finders, & Tutorials (Georgetown)

When a case is appealed to a state or Federal appellate court, the opinion is often published and always published when appealed to the state supreme court. All US Supreme Court opinions are published. The opinions of appellate courts have the force of law within the jurisdiction of the court.  The body of these appellate decisions constitute common law.

NexisUni

• Choose Advanced Search
• Select a Specific Content type: Legal
• Narrow to Cases on left.
• Enter your search terms
• Narrow as needed on left

Guide.

This is a vast database, and searching All Fields often yields too many hits. Limiting to (Party) Names often is best.

Although Nexis Uni is the most comprehensive source we have available, many, especially older sources are not included. To see if a particular source is included:

• Top left:: Open Menu, choose  All Sources
• Narrow by:
• Category: Cases
• Choose Jurisdiction
  • i gives details of source
  • \/: Get documents retrieves all cases in source. Can narrow by date, search within results, etc.

The first part of the Case comprises secondary material added by NEXIS Uni, and, further down, by the state court. The actual opinion begins: OPINION BY: ... OPINION

Topical Searches: Subject terms for additional searches may be drawn from the preliminary secondary material. Note Core Terms. Under Advanced Options, then Build Your Own Segment Search, you can select Core Terms. You can limit the search to Legal Topics.

Note Shepard's on upper right of each case record. This box contains citations of your case by subsequent cases and in the law review literature.

Caselaw Access Project (1658-2018) includes all official, book-published US case law. Includes all state courts, federal courts, and territorial courts for American Samoa, Dakota Territory, Guam, Native American courts, Navajo Nation, and the Northern Mariana Islands.

LLMC Digital
Go to Online Services, then Browse Collections.  A rich source of legislative and judicial documents. Coverage varies widely by state or country.

HeinOnline New York Court of Appeals, Records and Briefs includes records and briefs from cases reported in the New York Reports.

HeinOnline New York Legal Research Library includes the reports and opinions of the New York Attorney General, the New York State Register, Tax Cases, New York State Session Laws, New York Law Journals, the New York State Bar Association Journal, legal classics from or about New York, and New York trials

State Cases and Codes offers links to state code and other resources. Terms vary, codes may be called consolidated law. The Administrative code is not it.

State Court Web Sites offers chart of court structure for each state