Goal
The idea of a preemption check is simply to check to see if your topic has been covered before. Sometimes paper authors get far into their research before discovering that their topic, thesis, and focus was sufficiently covered in others' works.
Find papers on your subject? Good! Now you can refocus your paper and you now have an excellent source. Consider:
- Deeper analysis than other articles
- Different jurisdiction
- Alternate approach to same problem
- Different parties' rights
- Different constitutional provision
- Different point of view
Run a preemption check early and you will not only save yourself time and disappointment, but will certainly end up with a better focus and scholarship. "Run a preemption check" simply means searching for articles on the same topic you intend to write about - but be sure to look further than Westlaw and Lexis as other databases may have wider coverage dates and include more non-legal journals.
Preemption Tools: Journal Articles
- Academic Search Premier This link opens in a new window A comprehensive, scholarly, and multi-disciplinary full-text database, with more than 12,000 periodicals and 4,700 peer-reviewed journals.
- HeinOnline This link opens in a new window HeinOnline is a research database with more than 100 million pages of legal history and law journals available in an online, fully searchable, image-based format.
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- JSTOR This link opens in a new window Full-text archive of over 1000 historical academic journals in the Arts and Sciences. In some cases, coverage dates back to middle of the 17th century.
- JSTOR Text Analyzer The tool analyzes the text within a document you upload to find key topics and terms used, and then uses the ones it deems most important — the "prioritized terms" — to find similar content in JSTOR.
- LegalTrac This link opens in a new window Indexing for more than 1,400 titles including major law reviews, legal newspapers, bar association journals and international legal journals, plus full-text access to over 100 law reviews.
- Lexis This link opens in a new window Lexis is a legal research platform that provides access to primary and secondary sources, including state and federal cases and statutes, news, a powerful citator, and treatises. Lewis & Clark law school students, faculty and staff should contact Meredith Kostek for registration instructions.
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- Westlaw This link opens in a new window Westlaw is a powerful search platform that allows you to search primary and secondary sources, including state and federal case law and statutes, news, legal encyclopedias, and treatises.
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Preemption Tools: Current Scholarship
- bepress Legal Repository This link opens in a new window The bepress Legal Repository offers working papers and pre-prints from scholars and professionals at top law schools around the world.
- SSRN Legal Scholarship Network This link opens in a new window Working papers related to law, economics, and business in 61 different subject areas. Part of the larger Social Science Research Network (SSRN).
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