PACER provides online access to federal appellate, district and bankruptcy court dockets and documents. Widener Law Library does have a subscription to PACER in case you need a copy of a federal complaint or brief. Because PACER charges by the page we do not make the password publicly available. If you need something from PACER please ask at the reference desk and we can do the search for you.
Other sources for dockets
Both Lexis and Westlaw have some docket info although not everything is available on an academic subscription. Usually you can look at the docket but you can’t download documents.
A good free starting point for federal dockets is Justia. Justia lets you search for cases on the federal dockets and sometimes has full text documents available. If they don’t have the documents they include a handy link to PACER.
Don’t forget that all Widener Law students have access to CALI. CALI’s interactive lessons, created by law professors, review many areas of law. CALI also has a convenient list of lessons for first year classes and lessons for upper level classes.
You’ll need to create an account with CALI if you don’t already have one. Please email Janet Lindenmuth at jslindenmuth@widener.edu or call the reference desk at 302-477-2114 for Widener’s CALI authorization code.
Index to Legal Periodicals is a great source for finding law review articles. You can do a keyword search for your topic and find a list of related law review articles. To find a full text copy of your article click on the LinkSource logo 
which will connect you to our A to Z Electronic Journal List and will find the full text for you.
If you are looking for older information be sure to tick the box for Legal Periodicals Retro which covers legal articles published from 1908-1981.
JSTOR provides access to scholarship published in high quality academic journals. It can be very helpful if you’re doing interdisciplinary research or need articles in a non-legal field. Need articles on economics, history, health policy, psychology or other fields? JSTOR has them.
JSTOR, like most of the databases Widener Law Library subscribes to, can be accessed off-campus by entering your name and Widener ID barcode number.
Imagine you need an article from Air and Space Lawyer or The Economist. You know Widener Law Library must have an online subscription to the journal but where to look. Is it on Lexis or Westlaw? Or maybe even EbscoHost? Just look the journal up in the A to Z list and you’ll find it in no time.
Type the title of the journal or newspaper you are looking for in the search box on the A to Z list. You’ll get a list of every database Widener subscribes to that has your journal. Click on the name of the database you want to use and you’ll be taken directly to the journal.
There is a handy link to the A to Z list right on the main Widener Law Library web page. It’s right under Research Tools.
HeinOnline‘s World Constitutions Illustrated was recently named one of the Outstanding Academic Titles of 2010 by Choice. World Constitutions Illustrated provides access to contemporary and historic constitutions from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, as well as law review articles and other scholarly commentary on the constitutions. HeinOnline can be accessed from the law library database page.
Other 2010 Outstanding Titles owned by the Widener law library are:
The Annotated U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence, ed. by Jack N. Rakove. Belknap, Harvard, 2009.
Changes in law and society during the Civil War and Reconstruction: a legal history documentary reader, ed. by Christian G. Samito. Southern Illinois, 2009.
Encyclopedia of human rights, ed. by David P. Forsythe. Oxford, 2009.
Johns, Adrian. Piracy: the intellectual property wars from Gutenberg to Gates. Chicago, 2009.
Shesol, Jeff. Supreme power: Franklin Roosevelt vs. the Supreme Court. W.W. Norton, 2010
Drakeman, Donald L. Church, state, and original intent. Cambridge, 2010.
Epp, Charles R. Making rights real: activists, bureaucrats, and the creation of the legalistic state. Chicago, 2010
Gordon, Sarah Barringer. The spirit of the law: religious voices and the Constitution in modern America.
Mendelson, Richard. From demon to darling: a legal history of wine in America. California, 2009.
Under Databases on the Law Library’s homepage there is a link to the A to Z Electronic Journal List. By entering the title of a journal, you will be given links to wherever there is an electronic version, from Lexis and Westlaw to ProQuest or EBSCO to HeinOnline or the publisher’s own website. Law reviews, other academic journals, or popular magazines may be found through this database. Because of space limitations, many libraries, including Widener, now rely on electronic access to serial publications and keep only the past few years on their shelves, if they subscribe to the print version at all. Links to online journals can also be found in the Widener catalog, when the Library subscribes to either the print or electronic version.
It is easy to establish an ILLiad (Interlibrary Loan Internet Accessible Database) account for use throughout the year. Through ILLiad, you
can submit requests for materials not found in our library 24 hours a day from any place that has Internet access, and you can track them from start to finish. To set up an account, start at the Library’s home page. Go to Library Services, click on Interlibrary Loan, and then click on Interlibrary Loan Form. Select Law Library — Delaware. Click on the button for First Time Users. Make sure you enter a Username and Password–-anything you like. Use these whenever you log on to request an ILL. Click on the Submit Information button at the bottom of the page. Make a note of your Username and Password, and you will not have to supply any other information when you want to make an ILL request. You’re in the system!
The Full Database List accessible from the Law Library homepage begins with BNA Databases, the online versions of the trusted and prestigious Bureau of National Affairs reporting services.These services can be accessed on computers outside the library by following the prompt to enter your name and the 14-digit barcode number on the back of your student ID card. You can also sign up for free e-mail summaries of daily or weekly BNA services of your choice. There are over 120 services to choose from, dealing with a wide variety of legal topics. United States Law Week is a service that specializes in U.S.Supreme Court cases, tracking every case andanalyzing the significant ones. There are also summaries and analyses of other court decisions and circuit splits. Take advantage of free access to these costly services while you have a student ID barcode!