Chapter 16 Legal Research

• Library: Chapter 13 Bankruptcy (Nolo) (2020 Ed.)

CHAPTER 16: Legal Research

Where to Find Bankruptcy Law

Bankruptcy Background Materials: Overviews, Encyclopedias, and Treatises

The Internet

The Law Library

Other Background Resources

Finding Federal Bankruptcy Statutes

The Internet

The Law Library

Finding the Federal Rules of Bankruptcy Procedure (FRBP)

Finding Local Court Rules

Finding Federal Court Bankruptcy Cases

The Internet

The Law Library

State Statutes

The Internet

The Law Library

State Court Cases

The Internet

The Law Library

Other Helpful Resources

While your bankruptcy lawyer will be an excellent resource for finding out what the law is, especially in your district, there are times when you might want to look into something yourself. In particular, if you are still in the initial stages of considering bankruptcy, you might want to learn more about a particular issue before you plunk down the money to see a lawyer.

Even if you plan to get a lawyer or already have one, knowing how to find the law if you need it is still valuable. Being informed about the law will allow you to ask the right questions of your lawyer and better equip you to make decisions about your case. Reading this book is an excellent way to get informed, and in most cases, this will more than suffice. But if you're facing a significant or cutting-edge issue not covered in this book, you can do additional legal research on your own.

Legal research can vary from the very simple to the hopelessly complex. In this chapter, we stay on the simple side. If you would like to learn more, we recommend getting a copy of Legal Research: How to Find & Understand the Law by the Editors of Nolo (Nolo). It's a plain-English legal research tutorial that will teach you about using the law library and searching for legal answers online.

Where to Find Bankruptcy Law

Bankruptcy law comes from a variety of sources:

• federal bankruptcy statutes passed by Congress
• federal rules about bankruptcy procedure issued by a federal judicial agency
• local rules issued by individual bankruptcy courts
• federal and bankruptcy court cases applying bankruptcy laws to specific disputes
• laws (statutes) passed by state legislatures that define the property you can keep in bankruptcy, and
• state court cases interpreting state exemption statutes.

Not so long ago, you would have had to visit a law library to find these resources. Now you can find many online. However, if you can visit a law library, your research will be better for it. Reading relevant cases that interpret the underlying statutes and rules is crucial to getting a clear picture of what the law really means.

Another important reason to visit the law library is that many offer access to one or both of the major online legal research libraries: Westlaw and LexisNexis. With proper training, you can find just about anything in these online libraries that you could find in the law library itself. In fact, some libraries have started replacing hard copy books with online materials to save money and space. When visiting your local library, ask the librarian whether it has access to Westlaw or LexisNexis and, if so, for some tips on using the bankruptcy materials the online library carries. For example, Westlaw offers a set of bankruptcy materials with forms, cases, articles, and treatises, all searchable by keywords. Learning how to use these materials will be an enormous timesaver in your research.

Below, we show you how to get to the resources you'll most likely be using, whether you are doing your research on the Internet or in the law library.

Bankruptcy Background Materials: Overviews, Encyclopedias, and Treatises

Before digging into the primary law sources (statutes, rules, cases, and so on) that we discuss below, you may want to do some background reading to get a firm grasp of your issue or question.

The Internet

Several online sites contain extensive collections of articles written by experts about various aspects of bankruptcy. Good starting places are the bankruptcy sections of Nolo's website, at www. nolo.com, or AllLaw.com—both of which offer lots of information and resources.

How to Use Law Libraries

Law libraries that are open to the public are most often found in and around courthouses. Law schools also frequently admit the public at least some of the time (typically not during exam time, over the summer, or during other breaks in the academic year).

Almost without exception, law libraries come with law librarians. The law librarians will be helpful as long as you ask them the right questions. For example, the librarians will help you find specific library resources, such as the federal bankruptcy statutes or rules, but usually won't teach you the ins and outs of legal research. Nor will they give an opinion about what a law means, how you should deal with the court, or how your particular question should be answered. For instance, if you want to find a state case interpreting a particular exemption, the law librarian will show you where your state code is located on the shelves and may even point out the volumes that contain the exemptions. The librarian won't, however, help you interpret the exemption, apply the exemption to your specific facts, or tell you how to raise the exemption in your bankruptcy case. Nor is the librarian likely to tell you what additional research steps you can or should take. When it comes to legal research in the law library, self-help is the order of the day.

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