Abstract: A search for the direct production of charginos and neutralinos in final states with three leptons and missing transverse momentum is presented. The analysis is based on 20.3 fb(-1) of root s = 8TeV proton-proton collision data delivered by the Large Hadron Collider and recorded with the ATLAS detector. Observations are consistent with the Standard Model expectations and limits are set in R-parity-conserving phenomenological Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Models and in simplified supersymmetric models, significantly extending previous results. For simplified supersymmetric models of direct chargino ((chi) over tilde (+/-)(1) ) and next-to-lightest neutralino ((chi) over tilde (0)(2)) production with decays to lightest neutralino ((chi) over tilde (0)(1)) via either all three generations of sleptons, staus only, gauge bosons, or Higgs bosons, (chi) over tilde (+/-)(1) and (chi) over tilde (0)(2) masses are excluded up to 700GeV, 380GeV, 345GeV, or 148GeV respectively, for a massless (chi) over tilde (0)(1).