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Guide for Law Review Members: Preemption Checking

This guide will assist students who serve on the Pace law reviews. It provides a basic overview of cite checking, circulation policies, interlibrary loan request procedures, preemption checking, and finding a paper topic.

Preemption checking requires searching beyond the world of Westlaw and Lexis because neither has exhaustive coverage - some full-text coverage goes back to only the 1990s. Look at the resources for preemption checking--it includes other databases you should consult before spending time researching and writing your case note or comment.

If you find a paper on your topic that appears to preempt you, it may just be a matter of revising your thesis to avoid preemption.