Nexis Uni is the primary tool for discovering and reviewing legal cases and rulings in the United States. The page provides an overview of its legal Case search features.
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Note: It may be necessary for you to log-in to the library on the home page, before you can use Nexis Uni, especially if you are off campus. Please use this link to log into One Search if experience difficulty accessing Nexis Uni.
Nexis Uni is a powerful tool for looking up legal cases and associated information. Nexis Uni also contains a large collection of national and international newspapers and (peer-reviewed) law review journals. The first step to using Nexis Uni for legal research is to select the appropriate Cases section, detailed below.
Select Cases
Choose Federal Cases or State Cases
Choose a keyword or keywords that match your topic in the Search in all Cases for box
Your keyword(s) should describe the case or cases for which you are looking
Avoid typing more keywords than necessary, and focus on the most important terms
Optionally, set a date range (see All Dates)
The date range filter will only return cases within the range you specify. Be sure to use this feature with care.
You may continue to refine your search once you receive your results. Select the case you are interesting in reviewing for the full text of the ruling.
In addition to reviewing the text of each case, Nexis Uni provides information about the case's history, including citations by later cases and any appellate history. See below for details.
Review the report on the right side of case for more information about the case's history after being decided. The above case was decided in 1984, and thus has a long history. More recent cases may have less information in that area. Notice the Caution and Positive citations. Some cases might also have Negative citations or an Appellate history.
Notice the option to "Shepardize" in the image above. This feature opens all the citation and appellate information summarized above the link. Below is an example of Nexis Uni's "Shepard" interface for the South Carolina v. Regan case (above).
This is a famous example of a case that was overruled by the United States Supreme Court. Notice how the appellate history for Roe v. Wade links to the Dobbs v. Jackson decision that overruled the former decision.
