Nexis Uni

Nexis Uni (formerly called LexisNexis Academic) contains cases and statutes, and allows you to update them (called "Shepardizing.")  Nexis Uni is a great choice for online legal research, especially for primary sources like cases, statutes, and regulations.  Nexis Uni has:

• state and federal cases
• state and federal statutes
• state and federal regulations
• the Federal Register and select state registers
• law reviews
• news
• company information

Click on the tabs for instructions on how to perform searches in this database. There are also links to tutorials and YouTube videos below.

Nexis Uni Tutorials w/Certificate

YouTube Videos

• Nexis Uni: Searching from the Home Page (3 minutes)

  Using Boolean connectors (and, or, w/5) and filtering options when conducting a search.
• Nexis Uni: How to Use Advanced Search Form (4 minutes)

  Different search options when using the advanced search form.
• Nexis Uni: Navigating Your Profile Settings (4 minutes)
• Nexis Uni: How to Annotate and Share Documents (2 minutes)
• Nexis Uni: How to Select Sources and Create Permalinks (2 minutes)

If you want to only search specific sources, or if you just want to see what sources are available, click on "All Sources" under the "Menu" tab:

The sources are arranged alphabetically, but you can filter the sources by category, jurisdiction, practice area, and other areas:

Which search should I use?

• use "Advanced Search" if you know something about the document you are trying to retrieve but don't have a citation
• use "Get a Doc Assistance" if you know a citation, the party names of a case, or a docket number

How to search?

• in Basic Search and Advanced Search, you can use either natural language or Boolean search terms
• In both Basic Search and Advanced Search you can use AND, OR, and NOT in your searches.   
  • Search for documents that contain all of your possible words (for example: cocaine AND sentencing)
  • Search for documents that contain at least one of you possible words (for example: "climate change" OR "global warming")
  • Include a word but exclude others (for example: teaching NOT shortage). 
• If you want to search a phrase, put the phrase in quotes 
• Use a question mark and asterisk to expand word variations in your search
  • A question mark replaces a single letter in a word, so mari?uana would search for both marijuana and marihuana   
  • An asterisk can replace single or multiple letters, so walk* would retrieve walk, walks, walked, walkers, walking, walkway, etc. 
• Use /n to search for words that are near one another
  • For example, "stem cell" /5 research, retrieves documents that have "stem cell" within five words of "research"
  • You can also use /s to search for words that are within the same sentence or approximately 25 words of each other, /p to search for words that are within the same paragraph or within approximately 75 words of each other, and /seg to search for words that are within the same segment, or approximately 100 words of each other
• Use pre/n to search for documents where the first word precedes the second word by more than "n" words
  • For example, if you want to find documents where "overtime" precedes "compensation by not more than 3 words, search" overtime pre/3 compensation
  • You can also search pre/p to find documents where one word precedes another by not more than 75 words, and pre/s to find documents where one word precedes another by not more than 25 words
• For more information on searching, click on the "Tips" link, underneath the search bar:

The content of this guide has been edited from the Nexis Uni Guide from University of Arizona.  This guide was originally created by Michelle Penn, Law Library Fellow.