Secondary sources are incredibly valuable when investigating legal problems. They explain the law, define terms (including those that may be used differently than their common usage), and connect you to primary sources. There are a variety of types of secondary sources, some of which are described on this page.
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Legal encyclopedias give broad overviews of legal topics. The two major, general American encyclopedias are American Jurisprudence and Corpus Juris Secundum (C.J.S.). The Legal Information Institute also provides a free online encyclopedia that may be a useful place to start researching more general terms.
Illinois also has its own encyclopedia titled Illinois Law and Practice. You can find this on the 6th and 9th Floors - KFI1265.IL6.
There are resources of varying depth in any area of law (e.g., family law, intellectual property, immigration law, etc.). They range from multi-volume treatises to hornbooks and ultra-concise nutshells.
An efficient way to find titles that may be useful to you is to search, in a general search engine, for "[topic] law research guide." Law libraries have created guides like this one for a whole range of areas of law that collect the most relevant resources, as well as primary law resources, for that topic. You can use our Treatise Finder to find authoritative treatises on a broad range of topics and their location in our collection.
Articles printed in law journals are also a useful resource for finding explanations of the law and links to primary sources. Many of these are available through Google Scholar using the article search.
These are generally more useful to practicing attorneys, but they may also provide some guidance to non-law users, especially those representing themselves in court. Like other legal resources, these may be federal in scope or specific to a state or other jurisdiction. These will guide you through the trial and appeals process, and there are many that deal with specific areas of the law.
It is likely best to have a librarian direct you to a relevant practice guide or set of forms, though you can also likely find relevant resources using a research guide like the ones mentioned in the above box.
Also, IICLEs (guides produced by the Illinois Institute for Continuing Legal Education) are extremely useful practice guides that are specific to lIlinois. You can find the full catalog of these on the main floor of our library.