Nexis Uni User Guide

This guide will show users how to navigate the Nexis Uni database to find over 10,000 full-text business, legal and news sources.

Search for Legal Cases

You can use the Nexis Uni database to search for federal and state cases; law review articles; as well as federal and state statutes and regulations.

There are a few ways to search for legal cases in Nexis Uni:

  • Perform a search in the main search box on the database homepage
  • Perform an advanced search

Using the Main Search Box

Using the main search box to look for legal cases will give you many filters that can help you limit your search.

  1. Enter your keywords into the main search box on the database's homepage.
  2. Select the "All Content Types" dropdown menu.
  3. Click on Legal.Nexis Uni search bar All Content Types dropdown menu where you can select the Legal option.
  4. After you select Legal, you have the option to select a country under the Cases or Legislation headings. Alternatively, at this stage you could also search for Law Reviews, Briefs, Legal News, etc... To find United States Cases, select US under the Cases heading.Nexis Uni Legal Search Dropdown Menu. Filters for Cases or Legislation listed by country. To find US Cases, select US under Cases heading.
  5. Selecting US Cases will open up to even more filters where you can check off boxes to search by Court, Circuit, and by States & Territories.

Selecting US Cases gives you more filters where you can limit your search by Court, Circuit and/or State.

Advanced Search

You can use the Advanced Search form to search for very specific legal fields, such as:

  • Party Name - Finds all case party names
  • Disposition - Finds the final court decision
  • Attorney Name - Finds the names of the individuals, law firms and organizations representing the interested parties
  • Judges - Finds the names of the judges hearing the case
  • Opinion - Finds the full text of the majority opinion 
  • Dissent - Finds the full text of the dissenting opinion

To access these specific legal search fields for United States Cases: 

  1. Click on the Legal tab in the top navigation menu.
  2. Select Cases from the lefthand navigation menu.Select Legal and Content Type Cases Tab to open up Advanced Legal Search form.
  3. Selecting Cases will open up to an Advanced Search form for Legal Cases. Scroll down to see all the Document Fields you can search. Type your keywords into the search bar next to the field/s you'd like to search.
  4. The Advanced Search page for Cases includes a link to Search Field Examples. This document will open up in a pop-up window and visually breaks down all of the legal fields that Nexis Uni searches for.

Open the Search Fields Examples document from the Advanced Search to see what subjects Nexis Uni searches for.