Q. How do I find case law? I have a case citation, how do I find the decision?

Case Citations:

Case citations follow a standard form:

Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. 137 (1803)  

• More on Bluebook Case citations

To decipher a reporter abbreviation, try the Cardiff Index to Legal Abbreviations

Finding an opinion when you have a citation:

Harvard Law School faculty, staff and students

U.S. caselaw databases include:

• Westlaw
• LexisAdvance
• BloombergLaw

​Contact the reference desk for password information. 

Other Harvard University affiliates

• Nexis Uni

Free Caselaw Sources:

• Harvard Law School's Caselaw Access Project (CAP)
  • Database of U.S. court decisions freely available to the public online, in a consistent format, digitized from the collection of the Harvard Law School Library.
• Fetch PDFs (from CAP) 
  • Tool for quickly finding and downloading cases from  a list of citations or block of text
• Google Scholar 
  • select Case Law and limit to your court)

For more options, explore our guide to Free Legal Research Resources.

Always remember to check the validity of your case before relying on it as legal authority.