Choose a topic that interests you because you will be spending a lot of time working on this. Don't bore yourself.
Pick a timely topic, but not so timely that the issue will be resolved before your paper is finished.
Develop an original thesis. Remember you should be analyzing a subject, commenting on a problem or potential solution, or identifying a significant trend, not just reciting what the law is on your topic.
A good place to begin the topic selection process is to identify current developments in your area of law. Check the resources on this page, or consult these additional guides on topic selection:
Law Review & Journal Practice Center (Lexis). This resource provides students with hands-on experience in legal writing and editing, fostering their skills in scholarly research while contributing to the publication of critical legal analyses.
Guide to Law Review Research (Westlaw). This guide offers comprehensive insights and practical strategies for effectively navigating legal scholarship and enhancing research in academic law journals.
Keep up to date using the news sections of Lexis and Westlaw. The UIC Library also provides access to the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. Find information for registering an account for those papers with your UIC credentials in the UIC Newspapers Guide.
Blogs can also be a great place to find information about developments in the law that are so new that nothing has been published yet in traditional legal publications like law reviews and journals. Blog posts are not subject to the same editorial review process as journals, so be sure to consider their credibility. You wouldn't want to cite blog posts in your paper, but they are extremely useful in the beginning stages of your research.
To find a blog about your area of law, check these legal blog directories:
A great strategy for selecting a topic is to focus on areas of law where courts have reached different conclusions. These disagreements, known as circuit splits, occur when federal appellate courts interpret legal issues in conflicting ways. Such inconsistencies create significant legal uncertainty, making them ideal subjects for law review articles. These conflicts often lead to Supreme Court intervention to establish a uniform national standard, and scholarly analysis can greatly influence this process.
By exploring the various approaches and reasoning behind different circuit decisions, law review articles can propose alternative solutions and contribute to the ongoing evolution of legal thought. Ultimately, these articles play a crucial role in shaping legal understanding and guiding future judicial decisions by examining these important areas of disagreement.
For research purposes, consider using caselaw databases like Lexis or Westlaw. You can search with queries such as "court" or "circuit /s split" to find relevant cases.