Introduction
Many opinions are not published at all, especially state trial level court opinions which are generally never published. Some appellate court opinions are published, and the opinions of courts of last resort (the Mississippi Supreme Court, for example) a re published the most often. The judges decide which opinions to publish. Unpublished appellate court opinions may be found on subscription databases and sometimes on the Internet. Published opinions are usually issued in chronological order. As a result, other sources must be used to locate cases by topic. There are several ways of researching case law by topic; one way is by using digests. Digests provide subject access to all r eported cases. A digest is both a subject index and a topical outline of American law. In the digests, similar cases are grouped together under a topic and "key number." Brief case summaries are provided, and at the end of each summary is a citation to the full judicial opinion. Digests exist for many areas, both jurisdictional (for example, state or federal courts) and topical (for example, bankruptcy). Most digests are published by West Group, which has classified the entire body of American law into approximately 400 topics. Each topic is then subdivided into "key numbers." The same topic and key number can be used for research throughout the West di gest system. In each digest, the topics are arranged alphabetically.

Definitions
Citation: A reference to authorities, such as statutes, cases, and law review articles. A case citation includes the names of the parties, the abbreviation of the reporter, volume number of the reporter, the initial page number where the case ca n be found, and the year of the decision.

Example:	Roe v. Wade,	93	S.Ct	705	(1973)
	case name	volume #	reporter	page #	year

Headnote: A description of a point of law. It precedes the printed opinion in a reporter. Headnotes are designed to assist the researcher in locating relevant material in the opinion and usually serve as part of the digest system. They are als o helpful when looking for subsequent judicial decisions that cited the opinion.

Jurisdiction: The geographic area (for example, northern Mississippi) in which a court has power or the types of cases (for example, patent) a court has the power to hear.

Finding Cases in Print Format (Using a Digest)

1. Choose the correct digest, either by jurisdiction or topic. In this library, we have the digests for the federal courts (range 322), for several states, and the "regional" digests (Atlantic, Pacific, Northwestern), which pull together decisions of several states' courts (in alphabetical order, ranges 322-324). The Mississippi Digest is along the front wall, to the left of the library entrance when looking out of the library. If you are not sure which digest to use, look at pages iv and v at the beginning of any hardbound volume. The courts that are covered by the digest are listed there with their abbreviations as used in the digest. Some digests, such as the Federal Practice Digest, have separate series that cover different periods. Generally, you should use the latest series. However, if you are interested in finding older cases, check the inside cover to see if the period you are interested in is included.

2. Think of terms that relate to your topic. You might want to use a thesaurus. We have a few at the reference desk:

KF156 .B856
AUTHOR Burton, William C
TITLE Legal thesaurus

PE 1591 .R63
TITLE Roget's international thesaurus

Z695.1.L3 S9 1990
TITLE Subject headings for the literature of law and international law, and index to LC K schedules : a thesaurus of law subject terms /compiled by Tillie Krieger>

KF156 .S7 1985
AUTHOR Statsky, William P
TITLE West's legal thesaurus/dictionary : a resource for the writer and the computer researcher

3. Using the Descriptive Word Index volume (at the end of the set), look up your terms to see how your subject is indexed. You will get one or more West topics and key numbers.

4. Look up the topic and key number you found. (The topics and key numbers contained within the volumes are printed on the spines.) Here you will find case summaries and citations to the full opinions.

This is part of the "Prisons" topic, key number 4.

5. Write down the citations of any cases that sound promising. (Note: the abbreviations for the reporters are listed on page vii of each hardbound volume.) Occasionally, there may not be any citations and there will be a note instructing you to use the Decennial Digest, which means that any cases on the topic, if any, are very old. If this happens, before going to the Decennial Digest, scan the topic outline to see if any other key numbers are appropriate. If you still want to use the Decennial Digest, ask a reference librarian for assistance.

6. Turn to the topic outline, which is located at the beginning of the topic. Scan the outline to see if any other key numbers are appropriate. Look them up as well.

7. Check the volume's supplement, if any. It will be either in a "pocket" in the back of the book or in a separately bound paperback. The supplement contains cases that were published after the main digest volume was published. Then check the cumulat ive supplements, which should be located at the end of the set if we have one. (Depending on the time of year, we may have no cumulative supplements or we may have several.) Then go to the corresponding reporter and check the digest sections in the last bound volume and any paperback supplements. (For example, if you're using the Federal Practice Digest, go to the Federal Reporter.)

Locating the Case
Remember, a case citation consists of the volume number, the reporter, and the page number in that order.

Example:	Roe v. Wade,	93	S.Ct	705	(1973)
	case name	volume #	reporter	page #	year

Abbreviations for reporters are located in the front of each hardbound digest volume. All the reporters in this library are on the library's main floor, along the back wall in roughly alphabetical order. (The federal reporters follow the state reporters.) The reporter title (Federal Reporter), series number (2d), and volume number are printed on the spine of each volume.
The reporters most often used in this library are:

Title	Abbreviation	Location
Federal Reporter	F., F2d, F3d	ranges 316-317
Southern Reporter	So., So.2d	ranges 311-313
Southern Reporter (MS cases only)	So., So. 2d	range 332
United States Reports	U.S.	range 118
Supreme Court Reporter	S.Ct.	range 117
United States Supreme Court Reports, Lawyer's Edition	L.Ed.	range 117

Locating Cases on the Internet

All U.S. Supreme Court opinions are now on the Internet, hosted by several different sites. Most other courts have at least the last few years' opinions on the web as well, but the coverage and searchability varies depending on the court. Researching ca se law is convenient and can be very quick, but there are a few drawbacks: the free sites do not include annotations and each site has different search capabilities. The Ole Miss Law Library's "Internet Resources" (http://www.olemiss.edu/depts/law_lib_research/) that is designed to help researchers locate legal information on the Internet. On the web site's opening page, select the appropriate link "U.S. Supreme Co urt" if you are looking for Supreme Court cases, "Federal Courts" if you are looking for non-U.S. Supreme Court cases, "Mississippi" if you are looking for Mississippi cases, or "State Links" if you are looking for state court cases from states other than Mississippi. On these pages we have links to the most popular sites that contain court information.

NOTE: If you are going to cite the case(s) you found in a document to be filed in court or rely upon them legally, you must update the case(s). You can do this by using a set of books called Shepard's. Shepard's is also available for a fee through Lexis. Another subscription on-line service, Westlaw's Keycite, can also be used to update cases. If you need help using Shepard's, we have a guide to using Shepard's at the Reference Desk.