  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 sqrt(s) = 8 TeV 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
($\tilde\chi^\pm_1$) and next-to-lightest neutralino ($\tilde{\chi}_2^0$)
production with decays to lightest neutralino ($\tilde{\chi}_1^0$) via either
all three generations of sleptons, staus only, gauge bosons, or Higgs bosons,
$\tilde\chi^\pm_1$ and $\tilde{\chi}_2^0$ masses are excluded up to 700 GeV,
380 GeV, 345 GeV, or 148 GeV respectively, for a massless $\tilde{\chi}_1^0$.
