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GBA 335 Admin and Personnel Law: Home

Shepard's

Nexis Uni uses Shepard's Signal Indicators to provide context about point of law authority. Legal standing and authority can change over time, and it is important to verify that the points of law within cases are still valid, or "good law."  Shepard's Reports provide a comprehensive review of cases, statutes, secondary sources and annotations that cite the case's authority and validate the case's point of law. 

To view the treatment of a case, click on the Shepardize this document link under the Shepard's® box located on the right panel. This will provide a comprehensive list of treatment, if available.  

Shepard's® provides information such as

  • comprehensive report of the cases, statutes, secondary sources
  • annotations that cite your authority
  • includes more recent cases that rely on your starting case
  • Editorial analysis phrases that best fit the citing case within editorial guidelines, helping you make a "good law/bad law" determination

Shepard's® Status Flags

Red Flag         

 

  In cases and administrative decisions, a red flag warns that the case or administrative decision is no longer good law for at least one of the    points of law it contains. In statutes and regulations, a red flag indicates that the statute or regulation has been amended by a recent       session law or rule, repealed, superseded, or held unconstitutional or preempted in whole or in part.
Yellow   Flag    

In cases and administrative decisions, a yellow flag warns that the case or administrative decision has some negative history but hasn’t been reversed or overruled.

In statutes and regulations, a yellow flag indicates that the statute has been renumbered or transferred by a recent session law; that an uncodified session law or pending legislation affecting the statute is available (statutes merely referenced, i.e., mentioned, are not marked with a yellow flag); that the regulation has been reinstated, corrected, or confirmed; that the statute or regulation was limited on constitutional or preemption grounds or its validity was otherwise called into doubt; or that a prior version of the statute or regulation received negative treatment from a court.
 

Searching tips

Use a ? to find variations of a word
Use a question mark (?) to find variations of a word by replacing characters anywhere in the word, except the first character.  Use one question mark for each character you wish to replace.  Example: wom?n would find woman and women ;  p??erson would find both the ea and the ie spelling of the name

Using * or an ! to find variations of a word
Use an asterisk (*) or an exclamation mark (!) to find a root word plus all the words made by adding letters to the end of it.
Example: Employ* would find variations on the term employ such as employee, employer, employment, and their plurals
Tip: Use * only to find unique roots: fir! will find fired, firing and fires but will also find words which you may not want (ex. firment)
You can use an exclamation mark (!) in place of the * if you wish.  Both function in the same way but there must be at least 3 characters in from of the ! or you might receive unexpected results

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