We received a great student question recently: What can I do if I need something for work and I cannot access it on my academic Westlaw/Lexis/Bloomberg account due to use restrictions?
Answer: Each of the legal vendors imposes use restrictions on your academic account. The restrictions vary, but generally limit use of your account to educational purposes related to law school coursework. If you need to conduct research for work or for another purpose outside of your coursework, however, the library has a number of resources you can utilize without worrying about violating a license agreement:
WestlawNext Patron Access (accesisble on four public computer workstations in the library’s reading room)
WestlawNext Patron Access resources include state and federal primary law (cases, statutes, and regulations), select secondary resources including law review articles, and legal forms. You can e-mail or download up to 20 documents from this online resource.
LexisNexis Academic (accessible on campus and remotely via ASURITE)
LexixNexis Academic provides access to state and federal primary law (cases, statutes, and regulations), select secondary resources including law review articles, news sources including newspapers, and business resources such as company directories and financial reports.
HeinOnline (accessible on campus and remotely via ASURITE)
HeinOnline provides full-text page-image (PDF) format access to law reviews and journals; historical volumes of federal documents like the Federal Register; classic legal texts from the 17th through early 20th centuries; U.S. treaties; Supreme Court cases as they appear in U.S. Reports; and Attorney General opinions. HeinOnline’s Law Journal Library offers access to pre-1980 legal-periodical scholarship that is not available on LexisNexis or Westlaw as well as recent articles.
BNA (accessible on campus and remotely via ASURITE)
BNA resources provide access to news, practice tools, and expert analysis for a broad range of legal practice areas including tax, labor & employment, intellectual property, banking & securities, trade, health care, environmental law, and family law.
