Legal
Research Class Notes
Today
we’ll go over secondary sources.
Bring
Bluebooks tomorrow for a big fat Bluebook class.
What
is the difference between primary and secondary sources? It’s not a distinction that’s unique to the
law. Primary materials are the actual
(in this case) law, while secondary materials are writing about primary
materials, or in this case writing about the law.
What
is the difference between mandatory and persuasive authority? Mandatory authority is what must be
followed; it’s what the courts above you have said. Persuasive authority, on the other hand, is
not as well defined. Some non-mandatory authorities
may be more persuasive on courts than others.
Quizzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!!!!
What’s
the difference between F.Supp. and P.? P. is a regional reporter for state court
cases, while the F.Supp. contains
United States District Court cases.
What
does the Federal Register contain?
Regulations, proposed regulations, executive orders,
notices of hearings, and presidential proclamations.
How
many federal circuits are there? There
are 13 federal circuits.
Where
can you find a statute or regulation online besides Lexis and Westlaw? You can look at THOMAS or GPO Access.
How
do session laws differ from the statutory code?
Session laws are in chronological order, while codes are in subject
order.
What
is the difference between a reporter and a code? A reporter contains cases, while a code
contains statutes.
Where
do rules and regulations come from? They
are made by the executive branch of the federal government.
What
is a parallel citation? There are two
different places you cite a case, like to a state reporter and a regional
reporter.
More
on general sources
·
ALR is an annotated reporter that came out to
compete with West’s Reporters. They did
it differently. ALR prints selected
cases and talks about them at length.
ALR became obsolete as a reporter, but it’s useful as an encyclopedia
about specific issues.
·
Encyclopedias like OJur
and AmJur are very broad. OJur, though a
secondary source, some courts of appeal cite to OJur as
law. Very interesting.
·
Dictionaries such as Black’s are good for looking up
Latin and French phrases.
Stuff
for us law students
·
Nutshells give a broad overview of any subject from
the perspective of expert authors who are usually law school faculty.
·
Hornbooks are sort of the same thing except more
specific. It’s a detailed overview of a
detailed subject. Sometimes professors
teach right out of hornbooks but won’t tell you. If a professor says “you might want to read
the hornbook”…do read the hornbook.
·
Treatises are any book or books on a single subject. They can encompass anything from a Nutshell
to a 30 volume set. They can be in print
or in electronic format. Huge treatises
are for practitioners. Little treatises (monographs)
are for us kids.
Articles
·
You can get articles in print or electronically.
·
Lexis and Westlaw have a lot of journal and review
articles.
·
There are some online-only journals.
·
Articles may either be theoretical or practical, but
practitioners usually don’t have much time to read articles.
Law
reviews
·
This is where most articles are published.
·
They are the main forum for scholarly publishing.
·
There are “lead” articles (by law professors or very
rarely practitioners who are trying to break into law teaching) as well as
student “notes” or “comments” (usually students who work on that particular law
review).
·
You can use them for in-depth analysis of a narrow
issue.
·
Law review articles cover policy issues and may
offer support for change in law.
·
You can use the citations in the article. Even if the article isn’t good, the citations
are often nice.
If
you don’t write on a journal, you’ll do a seminar. You’ll have to write a long paper. Write it about something new, and after you’re
done with it, try to send it off to a journal.
As long as you write it, try to get it published.
West
has a Nutshell about writing contests. Whaaahooo!
Don’t
cite to Time Magazine in a law review article.
If you use citations, track them down!
Index
to Legal Periodicals & Books
·
Also known as “ILP”
·
Its coverage starts in 1908.
·
It’s available in print and online.
·
It covers journal articles.
·
It’s been around a long time and covers a lot of
journals.
·
On the other hand, it has rather broad subject
headings and its coverage is narrow.
LegalTrac
·
It’s on Lexis and Westlaw, and it also has
stand-alone web access.
·
It covers the dates 1980 to the present.
·
The coverage is very broad, from law reviews and
legal newspapers to bar journals and more.
·
The Current Index to Legal Periodicals is the
print version of LegalTrac which is limited to law
reviews and substantive journals
Other
indices or text sources
·
Lexis & Westlaw
·
Law reviews have web sites, where you can usually
access the contents of recent editions for free.
·
You can also check out Jurist which can be found at
jurist.law.pitt.edu.
Restatements
·
They were started by the American Law Institute in
the 1920s.
·
They cover 14 subject areas and are written by
judges, practitioners and eminent scholars.
·
They distill American law and are considered strongly
persuasive authority.
·
They are sometimes criticized as being not an
accurate depiction of the law as it is but rather a view of how the law should
be.