Criminal Law & Procedure: 1L PA Stalking Memo

State legal research guides provide an excellent introduction to conducting legal research in particular state. The law library has the following Pennsylvania legal research guides in print:

PENNSYLVANIA CASES

• Search the Descriptive Word Index volumes of West's Pennsylvania Digest using keywords to find relevant Topics and Key Numbers. Then use your Topics and Key Numbers to locate Pennsylvania stalking cases in West's Atlantic Reporter, which contains appellate cases from Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Maine, Maryland, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Vermont.   

• Lexis, Lexis Advance, Westlaw and WestlawNext also have case law databases for Pennsylvania.  

** Be sure to update your case law research by checking pocket parts in back of print reporter volumes, and using a citator like Shepard's (Lexis) or KeyCite (Westlaw) to ensure your case is still good law **

Pennsylvania statutes are available in annotated (containing editorial notes and research references) and unannotated (text of the law only) versions:  

• Pennsylvania Consolidated Statutes - unannotated official version; less useful for research purposes.

Legal Encyclopedias offer concise explanations on subjects from the broad to the specific, and help lead you to other relevant primary and secondary sources (be sure to consult the footnotes). 

Pennsylvania Legal Encyclopedias:

Summary of Pennsylvania Jurisprudence 2d is available on Westlaw.

Pennsylvania Law Encyclopedia is available in Lexis.