Use legal encyclopedias and digests to locate citations for court opinions dealing with a particular subject. It is ALMOST ALWAYS best to start with a legal encyclopedia and then follow up with a digest, if necessary. Encyclopedias summarize what courts and laws have said and list selected court cases and statutes in footnotes. Digests provide a comprehensive listing of all court cases for a particular court, group of courts, or geographic area.
Encyclopedias and digests are arranged alphabetically by broad legal subject areas (such as Civil Rights or Constitutional Law). Start with the general index (for encyclopedias) or the Descriptive Word Index (for digests). Look up your subject (experiment with different terms).
The index gives you a subject chapter name and a section number. To find out what the abbreviations used in the index mean look in the table of abbreviations in the front of any index volume. Look up the chapter name alphabetically in the main volumes of the encyclopedia or digest. Each chapter is divided into numbered sections. There is a detailed outline at the beginning of each chapter for further help in finding what you want. Encyclopedias also have indexes for each chapter at the end of the volume.
ALWAYS LOOK IN THE POCKET SUPPLEMENTS to each volume for the latest material.