• Trial Courts (Courts of First Instance) are the first level. Trial courts make determinations of law and fact in both civil and criminal cases.  Juries are generally involved in these cases. Most of these cases are unpublished decisions, meaning you may need to contact the specific court in which the case was tried in order to gain access to any available transcripts of the case.
  

• Circuit Courts (Courts of Appeal) are the second level.  Appellate courts examine cases for errors in the law in the records of the lower courts.  Decisions are made by judges, no juries are involved.

• Supreme Court (Court of Last Resort) is the highest appeals court.  A loser in an appellate court case can appeal the case to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court decides which cases it will hear.  It can refuse to hear a case if they feel it is without merit.

A Reporter is a collection of court decisions for a particular court or group of courts. To find a case in a Reporter, you must know its legal citation [e.g. Roe v. Wade 410 US 113 (1973)].  

If you don't know the legal citation:

• Look in a Digest, which is used to locate cases on a particular subject. (American Jurisprudence is a well-know Digest.) Digests provide summaries of and citations to cases, but do not provide access to the cases themselves. To access the cases, refer to the appropriate Reporter.​
• Search for your case by Parties or Topic in Nexis Uni/LexisNexis Academic. See images below for two searching options.

The example citation shown here is Roe v. Wade 410 U.S. 114 (1973). The citation breaks down like this:

Note on Title Abbreviations: Standard abbreviations are used throughout case law. Some of the abbreviations you may come across in the Cofrin Library include:

• AmJur2d = American Jurisprudence 2nd Set (in LexisNexis)
• US = United States Reports (Remote GVP US Ju 6.8/A and online)
• USC = United States Code (Ref GVP US Y 1.2/5 and online)
• USTC = US Tax Cases (GVP US JU 11.7)
• Wis = Wisconsin Reports (Ref GVP Wis Cou.1 and in LexisNexis)
• Wis 2d = Wisconsin Reports 2nd Series (Ref GVP Wis Cou.1 2d Ser. and in LexisNexis)

A complete Table of Abbreviations is available in Black's Law Dictionary (Ref KF156 .B53 2004X).

In general, you will not find transcripts for cases from circuit courts and lower courts.

Shepard's Citations is a tool that provides comprehensive case citation and treatment history to verify the validity of case law, statutes, agency opinions, and other legal documents. The process of validating a case using Shepard's Citations is referred to as Shepardizing.

See images below for three options to find a Shepard's Citation in LexisNexis Academic.