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Researching the Law in the United States for LLM Students

Resources for LLM students for research, the U.S. legal system, and studying at law school

Ask us anything!

Law librarians and library staff are available to help you find your way around the library and its legal materials, provide research support, and assist you in locating materials that are not in our library. You can find the latest information about our hours and services on the library homepage. There are several ways to contact us:

Email us

In Person: The Borrowing Services Desk and Reference Office are on the main floor of the law library. Online and in-person appointments with the reference staff can be made from the library homepage. 

Call us:

Borrowing Services Desk: (650) 723-2477
Reference Desk: (650) 725-0800

Introduction

This page provides an overview of some of the non-legal research resources available to you through the Stanford libraries. Because of the myriad types of sources available, these are only a sampling of what's available. We encourage you to contact the reference librarians (reference@law.stanford.edu) if you have specific research questions or are looking for specific types of sources not covered on this page.

Major Databases

The major databases for non-legal research include:

  • EBSCO
    • Includes a broad variety of historical, humanities, and social science articles, as well as music, information sciences, and more. Browse the list of databases for the full list of resources.
  • Gale
    • Historical archives of several major newspapers; the Gale Directory Library; and the Women's Studies Archive are just a few of the resources available through Gale.
  • Graduate School of Business Business Databases
  • JSTOR
    • Collection of academic journal articles, books and some primary sources. Best for social science research.
  • ProQuest
    • Similar to Gale in its breadth of resources; includes business resources, environmental science, historical newspapers, and sociology resources, among many others.

Please also see the Secondary Sources: Legal Research section of this guide for information about using Searchworks, Articles+, and Google Scholar (all of which include both legal and non-legal secondary sources).