The Researcher’s Law Dictionary potx

The Researcher’s Law Dictionary A legal dictionary with emphasis on the tools and resources of legal research, of particular interest to researchers, students, and librarians, with definitions more in-depth than found in any other dictionary Edward B Sadowski, MLS The Researcher’s Law Dictionary Page Copyright 2010 by Edward B Sadowski All rights reserved abbreviation Citations in primary and secondary sources and documents use abbreviations of case reporters, codes, courts, law reviews, and other legal resources Proper forms of abbreviations are required by courts for all submitted legal documents Abbreviations of courts and publications used in legal citation are often completely inscrutable, akin to trying to decipher hieroglyphics Before you can track down a publication in a citation, you need to figure out its complete title There is not a standard set of abbreviations used by all law reporters and reference guides Such sources as Shepard’s, Black’s Law Dictionary, and citation manuals such as The Bluebook may vary in their forms of abbreviations The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation has a section in the back of the book with the most common abbreviations of legal publications The blue pages in the middle of The Bluebook has the proper citations for the various states The front of the state Digests has the abbreviations for that state’s courts Black’s Law Dictionary is also a helpful resource, with a section on abbreviations.There are reference books devoted exclusively to legal abbreviations There is an excellent British website for legal abbreviations in the English language (including US): the Cardiff Index to Legal Abbreviations at www.legalabbrevs.cardiff.ac.uk Another site: www.legal-abbreviations.org An online list of abbreviations and links to additional abbreviation resources is at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_legal_abbreviations act Another term for a law After a bill is sent from the House of Representatives to the Senate, it may be referred to as an act After enactment by the Senate, the act becomes law, and still may be referred to as an act action A lawsuit, or litigation actionable Grounds for legal action; based on facts in the complaint, sufficient cause for a lawsuit; a filing of a lawsuit that meets legal requirements adjudication The final decision, or final judgment, of the court that ends, terminates the case A case is adjudicated in favor or against a plaintiff or defendant administrative agency A government body, also known as a regulatory agency, or government agency, may have the name administration, board, commission, corporation, department, office, service Agencies are usually created by statute to implement or enforce the law Agencies have regulatory functions and the power to promulgate rules, issue decisions, opinions, and adjudicate disputes The Researcher’s Law Dictionary Page Administrative agencies are generally an independent part of the executive branch of the government, but may also be part of the legislative or judicial branch, or not part of any branch Examples of agencies are the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, General Accounting Office, National Labor Relations Board, United States Postal Service, US Commission on Civil Rights Administrative agencies may publish annual reports discussing the operation and activities and accomplishments of the agency Before accepting a company as a client, a law firm may need to know what administrative agencies affect the company’s operations Although a company can be affected by a web of federal, state, and local agencies, much of this information is found in the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), which is available in the legal databases and is free on the Web at gpoaccess.gov/cfr By browsing the various titles of the CFR the researcher can locate the agencies that could affect the client A research tool, the Congressional Quarterly’s Federal Regulatory Directory, provides profiles of agencies, including background information and responsibilities, legislation administered by the agencies, and where to locate rules and regulations enforced by the agencies The appropriate agencies are located using the index of terms that identify the different areas of responsibilities or functions of agencies administrative decision Administrative rules and regulations are enforced by administrative judicial tribunals, created by Congress, who issue decisions through administrative hearings The Administrative Procedure Act (APA), enacted by Congress in 1946, sets forth administrative law procedures to comply with Constitutional due process administrative law Laws made by administrative agencies, including rules, regulations and quasi-judicial decisions Also known as administrative code Collectively these can be referred to as regulations, and are created both on the federal, state, and local levels Statutes cannot cover every detail of every aspect of legally defined behavior of individuals and entities These additional rules and regulations of societal behavior are left to administrative agencies Administrative law—the rules, regulations and codes—are issued by governmental agencies at all levels—municipal, county, state and federal These rules and regulations are directed to the general public, businesses and other agencies Some of the better known agencies whose regulations get into the public spotlight are the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) Federal government agencies are usually part of the executive branch, also called executive agencies Some agencies are part of the judicial and legislative branches Sometimes agencies are referred to as the “fourth branch of the government.” Regulations have the force of law under the mandate of legislative statutes, in The Researcher’s Law Dictionary Page other words, statutes establish or limit agency powers Federal agencies are authorized by Congress to promulgate rules and regulations Administrative regulations are enforceable, with penalties for violations handed out through decisions by administrative judicial tribunals Federal rules and regulations made by government administrative agencies are available in print, microfiche and on the Internet First, regulations are issued daily, chronologically, in The Federal Register, then codified topically in the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) Some federal regulations and procedural rules are included in some of the primary sources of federal statutes, such as the US Code Congressional and Administrative News Service (USCCAN) and the US Code Service (USCS) Federal regulations on the Internet are available from the government websites at GPOAccess.gov and FirstGov.gov, as well as agency home pages Also useful are websites such as FindLaw.com and The Cornell Legal Information Institute at www.law.cornell.edu State regulations may be harder to find Many states publish regulations included with statutes, as well as in the form of “administrative codes” and are available on the Internet by combining “administrative code” with the name of the state Many states publish state versions of the Federal Register and Code of Federal Regulations State websites also have links to administrative codes which may be available centrally or from individtopual departments and agencies administrative rules and regulations advance sheet The same as administrative law Hard copy reporters and statute collections are kept up to date with advance sheets Advance sheets are temporary pamphlet publications of enacted statutes and case opinions, issued within a couple of weeks of case opinion or enactment of statute Advance sheets are also issued for administrative opinions Court opinions may be revised or withdrawn before their reporter is published West Regional Reporter advance sheets are published weekly Other advance sheets are published biweekly, monthly and semimonthly Advance sheets of statutes are preceded by the publication of slip laws, while case decisions are first printed as slip opinions Advanced sheets are placed next to the hardcover volumes they relate to and are discarded when a permanent hardcover volume is published with the identical information and same volume number and pagination Some libraries keep advance sheets behind the Reference Desk to prevent theft West reporter advance sheets feature a subject index, a key number digest, and a cumulative table of words and phrases The Researcher’s Law Dictionary Page construed in the cases reported Lawyers’ Edition, 2d advance sheets for the US Supreme Court Reports feature a “table of classifications to the U.S Supreme Court Digest” and a table of statutes cited in the cases reported advisory committee affirm A group set up to study an issue for the government and may issue special reports or annual reports agency amendment See administrative agency American Bar Association The American Bar Association (ABA) (www.abanet.org), founded in 1878, is the nation’s major association for lawyers, a voluntary professional association organized to promote improvements in the American justice system and to provide guidelines for the advancement of the legal profession and legal education Its membership of over 400,000 consists of practicing and nonpracticing lawyers, judges, law professors, and administrators (but only half of the nation’s lawyers are members) Other legal associations are state bar associations as well as organizations based on specialty and ethnicity A higher court’s confirmation, as valid, a lower court’s decision; to uphold a lower court’s judgment or actions An appeals court affirms a lower court’s decision A change to a bill, law, or Constitution Laws get amended over the years, meaning that parts of statutes or regulations are changed, added to, or deleted The amended version of the law is the most current Part of a law that has been changed is also known as a statutory amendment The ABA publishes books, manuals, and, through its ABA Journal, articles on legal topics The ABA has formulated rules of professional conduct, responsibility, and ethics and has participated in the development of model acts The ABA provides accreditation to law schools and paralegal education The ABA cannot discipline lawyers nor can it enforce its rules The word “bar” in the association’s name derives from the bar in the courtroom—the railing that serves as a physical barrier between the spectators and judge, attorneys, defendants, and court staff American Law Reports The American Law Reports, or ALR, published by West, contains selected (that is, significant, leading, but not all) state and federal appellate cases and comprehensive essays on legal issues, as well as typical illustrative cases This differs from the general legal encyclopedias that cover all legal topics ALR is a primary source in that it contains cases, albeit in a selected, not comprehensive collection of law, although it does cover a wide range of topics, with a narrow focus ALR is most valuable as a secondary source as a finding tool as well as for its outstanding annotations ALR also covers practice issues with cross-references to practice manuals and the American Jurisprudence Legal Forms books Supposedly ALR is quoted and cited more than any other secondary authority The Researcher’s Law Dictionary Page ALR is valuable not so much for text of cases (case reports are also published in a number of other resources) but for in-depth essays (annotations) of high caliber that follow each case The annotations are written by staff lawyers and not by prominent scholars, thus ALR is not to be used as persuasive authority, but as a help to understand the law Its annotations include discussions of a topic in different jurisdictions, following different rules and approaches, using key facts, bringing together relevant authorities Some ALR annotations are 150 pages long! Most of the latest annotations cover new topics not covered in previous volumes Some of the recent annotations cover topics found in earlier volumes, thus superseding the earlier annotations “Annotation” is a misleading term for ALR content in that its annotations are very detailed and lengthy articles, unlike the annotations in digests, which are one-sentence summaries of cases The ALR includes scope notes, summaries, practical practice pointers, outlines of cases, in-depth index, sample terms for electronic searches, and table of cited statutes and cases Probably the best starting point in ALR is the index to locate a topic If a key primary authority is known, annotations discussing that authority can be found in the tables in the ALR Index or ALR Federal Tables volumes Pocket parts should always be checked as they may indicate if annotations have been superseded, also indicated in the Annotation History Tables The American Law Reports, started in 1919, is published in two separate collections ALR covers state cases while ALR Federal covers the federal cases There are five separate series of ALR Each series is a separate collection of material, not cumulative in other words, each subsequent series does not replace the previous series, unlike encyclopedias Six to ten ALR volumes are published each year for each current series, with each volume containing about ten annotations There are helpful cross-references to other sources that discuss the specific issues, such as legal encyclopedias, treatises, practice manuals, law reviews, and digests and indexes There is a separate Shepard’s Citations for ALR Starting with volume 111 (in the year 1993, which is the first year of the fifth series) cross-references are made to West’s key number system and electronic queries for Westlaw online searching The complete ALR is only available electronically on Westlaw ALR has a telephone hotline for case updates for cases not yet published: 800-225-7488 annotated (codes, statutes) The commercially-published collections of laws that contain notes added by editors to the text of statutes These notes by the editors include summaries of cases that interpret or discuss particular sections of the code The notes also contain references to other relevant statutes, cases, law review articles and other resources Annotated codes are published for federal and state laws, but generally not for regulations The Researcher’s Law Dictionary annotation Page A description, explanation, or overview of a topic in the form of a note, editorial comment or summary that helps explain statutes and cases is an annotation Annotations have cross references to related primary sources and secondary resources Annotated statutes contain “case blurbs” explaining sections of statutes Annotations in digests summarize case decisions Digest annotations in West digests summarize a subtopic (identified by key number) under a larger topic The American Law Reports (ALR) annotations, on the other hand, are lengthy and detailed essays on points of law Annotations in codes delineate statutes within a legal context of how the statute has been interpreted by the Judicial branch and enforced by the Executive branch Code annotations include a “Historical Note,” providing legislative history of dates when the law was originally enacted and amended; cross-references to related Executive branch regulations; “Notes of Decisions” summarizing court cases interpreting the statute; and references to secondary resources, such as law review articles, treatises, or encyclopedias that discuss the particular law appeal A legal proceeding where an appellant, or defendant, requests that a case decision be reviewed and reversed by a higher court The losing party in the court of appeals can attempt to appeal the decision to the United States Supreme Court through a “writ of certiorari.” The Supreme Court may decide not to hear the case Most court cases are not appealed, especially because they are time-consuming and costly appellant The party, formerly a plaintiff or defendant in a lower court, requesting that a higher court review actions of a lower court appellate brief A written legal argument submitted to an appellate court asking that a trial court decision be upheld or reversed Appellate briefs are very helpful in understanding legal issues raised in a case on behalf of a plaintiff or defendant Unfortunately, only briefs for the US Supreme Court are regularly published Selected full-text briefs are available in the Landmark Brief series Summaries of briefs for all US Supreme Court cases reported are found in the Supreme nd Court Reports, Lawyer’s Edition, appellate court Same as appeals court Federal or state higher court which hears appeals from a lower court An appeals court See appeal The U.S Court of Appeals is the intermediate federal appellate court, consisting of 13 circuits appellee The party, formerly a plaintiff or defendant in a lower court, against whom an appeal is taken to a higher court appendix A supplementary section at the end of a law book or legal document The appendix of a law book often includes statutes, rules, charts and tables An appendix in an appellate brief often includes parts of the record, such as the opinion The Researcher’s Law Dictionary attorney general opinion Page The federal and state government’s chief counsel and highestranking lawyer is the attorney general State attorneys general issue advisory opinions when requested by state officials when court cases are unclear or lacking on a particular issue or problem In some states these advisory opinions are binding law, or otherwise have persuasive authority Sometimes the only authoritative source available for a legal researcher on a certain issue may be an attorney general opinion Attorney general opinions usually come out in slip form, then are bound, and are indexed quarterly, semi-annually or annually Attorney general opinions are available on some state attorney general websites Attorney general opinions are available online on Findlaw (www.FindLaw.com) and in the legal subscription databases attorney of record authority Attorney whose name appears in the permanent files or records of a case authorizing statute background check A statute defining the authority and responsibilities of a government agency A legal writing or resource stating the law, such as a judicial opinion, which also can influence or bind a court (Generally, a case that has been reversed on appeal cannot be cited as authority.) Authorities are citations in primary and secondary sources of statutes, regulations, decisions, and scholarly writings (particularly treatises and law review articles) that support a legal argument Thus one “cites an authority.” Binding is done by a mandatory authority, while influencing is rendered by a persuasive authority Background research on a person—simple contact information or more detailed data—can be accomplished online through free and fee-based services This information may be needed by the practitioner for debt collection, tracking of beneficiaries in estate proceedings, locating witnesses, experts, researching potential clients, adversaries in litigations, corporate officers, and so on The extent of legal accessibility to public records varies from state to state, yet generally a significant amount of public information is available One method of obtaining information—“pretexting”—is uniformly prohibited by federal law: the use of false pretexts to obtain unlisted phone numbers, financial information, credit history, medical records, and other types of personal information Disclosure of certain personal information is restricted by federal law, obtainable only under specified conditions with required notification to the consumer Free resources start with online phone directories such as switchboard.com and AnyWho.com Reverse phone lookups are available at sites such as AnyWho.com Using Google, Yahoo! and other search engines can yield significant information for some individuals News articles from current and archived files can also be useful These news sources are available from Google, newspaper websites, and library subscription databases The Researcher’s Law Dictionary Page Fee-based resources containing public records databases, for contact and background information about individuals and companies, include Accurint, AutoTrackXp, ChoicePoint, Merlin, as well as LexisNexis and Westlaw These database provide information on asset ownership of real estate property, motor vehicles, airplanes, and boats Also available from these services are criminal and court records, including bankruptcy filings, judgments and liens Business information includes UCC filings, corporate and Ltd partnerships, and small business ownerships Professional license information for various occupational and business fields are available from individual state agencies Vital (birth and death) and marital information are also available free from government sources such as the various state vital records departments and the Social Security Death Index (http://ssdi.genealogy.rootsweb.com) Military records are available free at www.archives.gov/research_room/obtain_copies/veterans_service_r ecords.html Fee-based services for military records include www.MilitarySearch.org and www.MilitaryUSA.com/us_locator.html bad law When a law’s positive value to support an issue has, through subsequent history and treatment, becomes undermined and invalidated Statutes, regulations, and rules can be modified amended, repealed or otherwise treated negatively (criticized) by courts and other authorities Cases can be modified and overruled in the appeal process, as well as invalidated or treated negatively (criticized) by courts and other authorities The issue of whether a law is constitutional can come into play A case-in-hand becomes bad law when it is (a) modified or reversed on appeal; or (b) criticized, distinguished in a decision in a different later case In addition, if (c) a case on which the case-in-hand relies on is over-ruled, criticized, distinguished in a later case Or (d) if a case on the topic, which is neither the case-in-hand nor a case on which the case-in-hand relies, is over-ruled, criticized or distinguished in a later case Or if (e) a subsequent statute, regulation, or rule enacted by a legislature states a rule contrary to or different from the rule in the case-in-hand (over-turning the rule) These case history developments can be generally researched through the use of citators, primary and secondary authorities Citators are not foolproof tools to catch all instances of bad law, and cannot be relied upon solely in all of these situations Relying on additional research tools (such as secondary authorities) will prevent shortcomings of a citatory For instance, citators will miss situation d A citator may miss situation e unless it is indicated in a citating case Situation c can be caught by using the citator table-ofauthorities (A table-of-authorities feature is part of LexisNexis and Westlaw This function acts as a reverse citator, citating cases referred to in a case-in-hand.) The Researcher’s Law Dictionary bar Page 10 The word bar refers to attorneys as a group, or the profession of law As a verb, to bar means to nullify, defeat, prevent a claim or action The word “bar” in a bar association’s name derives from the bar in the courtroom—the railing that serves as a physical barrier between the spectators and judge, attorneys, defendants, and court staff belief A subjective feeling or conviction about an idea or fact, but not based on concrete knowledge or verifiable information bill Proposed legislation introduced into the House of Representatives A bill must be passed (enacted) by both houses of Congress or the state legislatures to become law, signed by the President (federal) or governor (state), or passed over a veto of the President or governor Bills may be private or public, and when passed, become public or private laws Bills are designated by HR (House of Representatives) number or S (Senate) number, depending on the chamber in which they were first introduced Examining bills is part of researching legislative history Bills and pending legislation are listed in the US Code and Administrative News, as well as on the Internet binding authority Mandatory authority, or mandatory precedent, meaning decisions of superior courts are usually binding on lower courts in a common jurisdiction black letter law Statutes are sometimes referred to as “black letter law,” wellestablished legal principles that have withstood the test of time A well-known guide to black letter law is the Black Letter Series, a set of books on legal subjects, from Antitrust to Wills, that identifies and summarizes the rules of law that apply to various cases blawg Shorthand for blog (weblog) Denise Howell is credited by some for coining the term blawg The most recent news and cutting edge legal analysis, as well as practical advice and guidance from experts, before it reaches journals and other publications, can be found in blawgs, and can be very instructive for practitioners and students alike Subject directories of blawgs include abajournal.com/blawgs and blawgs.com, Blawg subject areas that can be accessed include those specific to lawyers, paralegals, and librarians, and by practice area Specific blawgs for legal research include Legal Research Plus legalresearchplus.com, LLRX.com llrx.com, Legal Research Blog law.onecle.com/archives, Legal Research 101 The Researcher’s Law Dictionary Page 66 After reaching a large number of volumes, the publication may start at volume one again, with a new series number to distinguish its volumes from the previous volumes For example, after the Pacific Reporter reached 300 volumes, a second series starting at volume one was started After 999 volumes, this second series was followed by a third series starting at volume one again The citation 131 P.3d 1158 means the cited case is found in volume 131 of the third series of the Pacific Reporter on page 1158 Currently the Federal Reporter is also in its third series (F.3d) session law Session laws (also called “statutes” or “acts and resolves” by some states) are state statutes compiled chronologically in bound volumes at the end of a state’s legislative session The bound state session laws are analogous to the United States Statutes at Large, both of which are preceded by laws in slip form Just as the federal Statutes at Large are then reprinted topically as the United States Code, state Session Laws are reprinted topically in bound volumes of state statutes The session laws allow you to see the original wording of the statutes and how the statutes have changed over time as they are amended and modified Shepardize To trace the history of a legal issue through recent time to its present status, as manifested and treated by laws and secondary authorities and resources By law it is meant federal, state, and local cases, statutes, rules, and regulations Secondary authorities and resources include law review articles, treatises, and American Law Reports As part of the legal research process, determining the latest status of an issue or law (“updating” the law), as well as finding relevant cases that cite a prior case to determine negative or positive impact The widely used (some people may say overused) verb “to Shepardize” arose from the use of Shepard’s Citations as a primary tool in this regard and has become a generic term for cite checking, just like Kleenex and Xeroxing have become generic terms Thus someone who says they are Shepardizing may be “KeyCiting” (Westlaw’s KeyCite) or “Loisizing” (Lois Law’s GlobalCite) Shepard’s Citations Shepard’s Citations is a cite checking tool, a citator It has a dual function: as a validating tool and as a finding tool, to trace the history and treatment of cases and the law Shepardizing allows you to make sure cases and statutes cited are still valid as “good law” and is also great research tool that leads to citations of your case in other cases and discussions of the cases, statutes and points of law in other resources Shepard’s will let you know if your case has not been overruled or reversed, and also if it has not been criticized, limited or distinguished on facts similar to your client’s Shepard’s lets you know if your statute has not been declared invalid or unconstitutional, by having been repealed by legislation or ruled on by a higher court Frequent Shepardizing is necessary to ensure citation currency, even after checking pocket parts and supplements of print resources The Researcher’s Law Dictionary Page 67 All statutes can be shepardized, as well as statutes, regulations, and constitutional provisions There are also Shepard’s for ALR and law reviews The online LexisNexis Shepard’s also citates the Restatements Many law firms no longer subscribe to Shepard’s in print and instead subscribe to the online version of Shepard’s Citations available from LexisNexis or use the Westlaw KeyCite service (Westlaw created KeyCite in 1997 after Shepard’s/McGraw-Hill was acquired by Westlaw competitor LexisNexis ReedElsevier, which shortly thereafter terminated its licensing agreement with Westlaw, as expected by Westlaw.) Both the online Shepard’s and Westlaw’s KeyCite are faster and easier to use than the print Shepard’s The online citators are also superior than print in the currency of their information, updating both federal and state cases within a few days of an opinion, or, for the US Supreme Court, within 24 hours Pamphlet updates of the print Shepard’s will still have lag times of weeks or months, as the date on the supplement is the publication date, not the date of coverage of the laws Both online citators can provide alerts to notify you as soon as a new opinion is released that cites your case short title The name that a statute is known under, or the name of certain sections of a statute E.g., an entire statute: the “Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (USA PATRIOT ACT) Act of 2001” or sections of a statute: “Government Employee Rights Act of 1991.” A short title is similar to a popular name slip law The first printing of a law enacted by Congress and state legislatures as a sheet or pamphlet, usually 2-3 days after enactment, without editorial annotations Federal slip laws are then collected and subsequently published chronologically as advance sheets, then as Statutes at Large (federal), or Session Laws (state), then codified by subject as the US Code (federal) and as state statutes slip opinion The first printing of case decisions, issued by the courts and printed as pamphlets several days after a decision, containing also any dissenting and concurring opinions Slip opinions precede advance sheets Some courts also release decisions immediately on their websites Slip opinions not have enhancements of headnotes or final citations Slip opinions are identified by their docket number, receiving a citation when they appear in the weekly advance sheet shortly afterward After the slip opinions are collected and reprinted in the advance sheets, they eventually become published in the bound reporters One has to be careful about citing slip opinions, as they can be cancelled if a rehearing on a case is accepted by a higher court Slip opinions become final when the filing deadline for motions has The Researcher’s Law Dictionary Page 68 passed special law A private law, local law, or temporary law A legislative act applying to a particular county, city, town or district, individual or group of individuals and not general in nature stare decisis The Latin term for legal precedent, meaning “to stand by a decision.” Stare decisis is considered to be “the foundation of the American legal system.” When a higher court’s ruling establishes a certain principle, future cases with substantially similar facts must follow the precedent and abide by the principle (the precedent is binding) Sometimes compelling social arguments have dissuaded courts from applying stare decisis state law comparisons Despite some national uniformity, standardization, and overlapping of laws, significant differences exist in the state laws and constitutions, in their terminology and practices Even so-called uniform laws are not perfectly uniform, with some significant differences present from state to state Legal research may require an assessment of how a topic and issue is treated in various states An extensive examination across many jurisdictions can be challenging and time-consuming Fortunately there are resources that have compiled comparative surveys of state laws But because state laws change frequently, care must be used in the presence of outdated information In addition to the fee-based Westlaw, there are some print resources and free Web sites with surveys of state laws Comparative information is available on LexisNexis and Westlaw as well as in some print resources and Web sites A list of such resources is found on the Harvard Law School Library site at www.law.harvard.edu under “Comparing State Laws and Constitutions.” statute Statutes are laws (codes) enacted by state legislatures and by Congress (legislative acts) Bills are introduced by legislators, go through debates and committees, then become enacted as statutes State statutes are first published chronologically as Session Laws, then codified by subject as statutes Congressional statutes are first published chronologically as Slip Laws, then as Statutes at Large (with their Public Law numbers), then codified by topic (chapter, title, section) and published as the US Code When related statutes are grouped to a particular subject, they are identified by their own title and are called “statutory schemes,” e.g., Title VII of the Civil Rights Act (which forbids employment discrimination and sexual harassment) Statutes at Large The laws (codes) and resolutions passed by Congress in their original, official form (public laws), published chronologically (that is, in the order they were passed) in an annual official series of books called the Statutes at Large Until 1948, all treaties and international agreements approved by the Senate were also published together with the Statutes at Large The Statutes at Large, which go back to 1789, are published topically in the United States Code about a year after enactment The Researcher’s Law Dictionary Page 69 statutory law Laws that are passed by legislative bodies (state legislators and the federal Congress), as opposed to case law, which is based on judicial opinions Law that is published as statutes substantive law The statutes and cases that define rights, obligations, duties, and liabilities—defining what behavior and actions are legal and illegal This encompasses public and private law, including the law of contracts, real property, torts, and criminal law The other type of law is procedural law, which defines rules for judicial enforcement or administration Most legal matters involve both procedural and substantive law The issues you sue someone over is substantive law, while the “nuts and bolts” or blueprint of how that suit is brought about by the rules of procedural law suit A lawsuit Superior Court A court of higher rank over a lower court, or inferior, court, such as an appellate court or supreme court, where the trial court is the lowest ranked court A superior court is also the name of municipal or county courts that have general jurisdiction for most civil and criminal cases, as opposed to limited jurisdiction supplement An update to published legal materials, published as softcover pamphlets and pocket parts, later replaced by the bound (hardcover) volumes Supreme Court The highest court in the federal and state judicial systems (above trial courts and lower appellate courts) Supreme Court decisions are definitive and binding for all federal or state courts For federal cases, it is called the United States Supreme Court, or Supreme Court of the United States See also United States Supreme Court Many subject areas rarely reach the Supreme Court level Sometimes there are only old cases on a subject, but can be very important as they indicate the evolution of issues and as a precursor of current trends and predictor of future developments in doctrine Supreme Court reporter US Supreme Court decisions are published—reported—in reporters (or court reports) There are three such reporters, one officially published by the US Government Printing Office, and two commercially-published reporters, by West and LexisNexis The official Supreme Court reporter is called the United States Reports (citation: xxx US xxx) The other two (unofficial) reporters are West’s Supreme Court Reporter (citation: xxx S Ct xxx) and LexisNexis US Supreme Court Reports, Lawyers Edition (citation: xxx U.S L Ed xxx and xxx U.S L Ed 2d xxx) Citations to court cases in the reporters first give the volume, the title of the reporter, and then the page number For a case, the three reporters are usually referenced together with an official and parallel cites, such as Roe v Wade The unofficial Supreme Court reporters are published sooner than the official one, which is updated with slip opinions, but takes about The Researcher’s Law Dictionary Page 70 two years to be published in bound volumes syllabus At the start of a case opinion, a brief summary of the case, a synopsis of the majority opinion and decision A syllabus is not part of the official opinion, but prepared by an editor (such as a West editor or Supreme Court editor) as an aid to the researcher U.S Supreme Court syllabi are officially-published and in the public domain, and therefore accessible online through such sites as the Legal Information Institute of Cornell Law School supct.law.cornell.edu/supct table of authorities A list of legal resources cited in legal reference books, briefs, and memos; a legal bibliography A table-of-authorities feature is part of LexisNexis and Westlaw This function acts as a reverse citator, citating cases referred to in a case-in-hand table of cases If you know the name of a case in point (and its state or federal jurisdiction), it can be located in the Tables of Cases of the various digests and reporters If only the topic and key number is known, you must look through the overall indexes in hard copy known as the Decennial Digests or, much easier yet, search by topic in legal databases such as Westlaw and LexisNexis The table of cases list alphabetically the title of each case (by both plaintiff, defendant, appellant, respondent names, or only by plaintiff in some older publications), parallel citations (volume and page number of Reports it is published in), subsequent case history (affirmed, reversed, or modified) and Topic and Key Numbers of the case The Table of Cases in the Supreme Court Reporter lists plaintiff, petitioner, and appellant If you not know of a case in point, you must find relevant cases through scanning the alphabetical list of topics or through Descriptive Words and Phrases, thereby identifying the appropriate Key Numbers and cases text The actual wording of a statute or judicial opinion (excluding editorial annotations and commentary) In a reporter, the text of a case is called the body of the opinion, containing the full text Also, another term for textbook textbook A legal textbook, used in law schools, can take the form of a number of different types of books: treatises, monographs, hornbooks, nutshells, casebooks Also referred to as a “text.” ThomsonWest The corporate name of West Publishing legal materials Thomson Corporation, a Canadian company, acquired West in 1996 Other noteworthy legal acquisitions by Thomson include Lawyers Cooperative Publishing and the Findlaw website (Findlaw is part of the Thomson Reuters division) An anti-trust settlement to allow the acquisition of West required Thomson, owner of the Lawyers Cooperative, to divest itself of Lawyers’ Edition print reporters and The Researcher’s Law Dictionary Page 71 digests, which were then acquired by LexisNexis Thomson is the world’s largest publisher of legal materials, with a 39 percent market share, as of 2003 (followed by Reed Elsevier, 26 percent, and Wolters Kluwer, 17 percent These three publishers, with their massive ownership of various legal publishers acquired through mergers and acquisitions, accounted for 82 percent of total US sales of legal information in 2003) title A subject heading number for a law, where related statutes and sections are grouped together State and federal statutes, federal regulations, and municipal codes organize their laws alphabetically by subject areas identified by title names and numbers For instance, the federal statutes and regulations are divided into 50 statutes, from Agriculture to War For example, Title 42 designates the civil rights statutes in the US Code The title is included in the citation: title, section numbers, subsection letters, and the name of the source where it is found E.g., the Civil Rights Act of 1964 citation is 42 USCA 2000 a-h Here the statute is found in the as Title 42, Section 2000 a-h, in the United States Code Annotated Title also can denote a group of statutes within a larger set of statutes, e.g., Title IX of the Civil Rights Act (which is found in Title 42 of the US Code) The title of a case is also known as the case name.Title of a case is a way of retrieving a case by case name in Westlaw, by searching by the names of the parties in a case, as in Roe v Wade Enter the case name in the “Find a document by Title" search box topic name and key number West legal publications such as its reporters, digests, and legal encyclopedias use the West Key Number System to identify legal issues and points of law The topics and key numbers are found throughout the text of these publications, and also identified and accessed through indexes to these publications, such as in the Tables of Cases and Descriptive Words The topic and key number system is also integrated into the online Westlaw database West’s topics and key numbers are remarkably consistent and reliable in locating the same points of law across federal and state jurisdictions, digests and reporters, ranging in time from 1658 to today Topic names are broad categories, while key numbers are aspects and subcategories of the legal topics as defined by the West editorial staff The most general subjects are divided into seven areas: persons, property, contracts, torts, crimes, remedies, and government Each of these subjects are further subdivided into over 400 broad topics, with each topic or subtopic having aspects or points of the legal issues, and these are assigned key numbers so they are consistently treated across all West publications in their National Reporter System using West’s own topical system Each issue is summarized in a paragraph that is called a headnote, each with its own key number Each case may contain numerous headnotes and key numbers, reflecting multiple issues and points of The Researcher’s Law Dictionary Page 72 law Within the broad topics, thousands of specific legal issues and points of law have been isolated and assigned key numbers—there are over 100,000 key numbers in this system Some broad topics may have thousands of subdivisions and key numbers Occasionally key numbers will change with changes in the law and terminologies To identify new key numbers, West provides conversion tables at the end of the revised topic outlines Key numbers are paired with the broad topics (arranged alphabetically, from Abandoned and Lost Property to Zoning and Planning) Thus the topic of Corporations (101) and the specific issue of Assumption of Transferor’s Liabilities (Key no 445.1) would be listed as 101K445.1 (which is the key number format for the Westlaw database) A specific issue with a key number can be a subheading under an intermediate heading, in this case Corporate Powers and Liabilities Relevant cases by topic and key number can be retrieved from Westlaw with the West digest system This can be done by starting with a known case through a keyword search or entering a citation, or by browsing through the Westlaw West Key Number Digest Outline (each digest topic is translated by Westlaw into a number for online searching) Accessing from a known case After locating a case by doing a Find This Document by Citation search, click on the topics and key numbers in any relevant headnote The resulting search screen will allow you to find other cases with the same topics and key numbers Topic/key numbers entering a headnote topic and key number into a database search box Example: 115k101 Use field searches to find specified information classified according to specific fields, which can also be combined with search terms, as shown below: Topic field Cases classified under headnote topics—use a topic field (to) restriction to combine topics Example: to(162 /p 409) Topic field/terms Combine topic field and terms Example: to(81 /p residen! /p tuition fee) Headnote field/terms Combine headnote and terms He(right free! /5 travel) Digest field Use the Digest field (di) to restrict information found in the topic plus all the headnotes in a case This helps prevent retrieving cases with irrelevant terms with multiple meanings topical publication Collections of laws or legal information arranged alphabetically by subject are topical publications Examples are the US Code, encyclopedias, and state statutes This contrasts to chronological publications, such as collections of statutes or cases which are The Researcher’s Law Dictionary Page 73 issued as they are enacted or adjudicated tort A civil, not criminal, wrong (excluding contracts), intentional or negligent, causing injury to a person, property, or character, giving rise to a claim for damages and compensation A victim of a tort has the right to sue the "tortfeasor" (the person committing the tort) for damages The three types of torts are intentional torts, negligent torts, and torts based on strict liability (regardless of fault) Tort law is a separate category of law from criminal law—a tort is a civil wrong against an individual, whereas a crime is a wrong against society or the state “Tort” is often used interchangeably with “personal injury” as an area of law Torts can involve liability and include negligence, trespass, assault, battery and defamation Personal injury lawyers specialize in torts Some torts, like assault, battery, and fraud, can be both a civil wrong and a crime Tort law originated in England from common law, and is increasingly being defined through statutory law From the Latin word “tortus,” which means wrong (“tort” in French also means wrong) treatise Loosely defined, a treatise is an in-depth scholarly book, an authority, on a legal topic More precisely, a treatise is a book that is comprehensive, footnoted, and more in-depth than a textbook, although they can be used as textbooks Treatises come in single and multivolume sets; multivolume sets may be abridged Treatises may be organized topically or chronologically, with indexes and various tables Most treatises are still only available in hard copy, but online services such as LexisNexis, Westlaw, and Loislaw offer numerous treatises Treatises are not popular treatments meant for consumers and general audiences Some define treatises to include hornbooks and black letter series Treatises often have the name of the author in the title, such as Farnsworth on Contracts or Prosser and Keaton on Torts The quality and reputation of treatises varies The better treatises are cited by primary and secondary sources and have been published in multiple-editions Treatises with high stature may be cited in judicial opinions or as persuasive authority Authors who are highly-regarded are published widely and may have authored textbooks Highly reputable publishers of treatises include Aspen; LexisNexis; Matthew Bender; Pratt; RIA; Warren, Gorham and Lamont; and West The Bender collection of treatises in LexisNexis is excellent Some treatises have pocket parts with updates of the law or supplements, but not all treatises are up to date and may have limited value Looseleaf treatises are updated with newly-inserted pages Check the preface or cover of a treatise to determine date range and currency Treatises and law review articles give you the most in-depth The Researcher’s Law Dictionary Page 74 analysis of legal topics, compared to the introductory treatments of encyclopedias or textbooks For some research projects, treatises may occasionally be good aids to familiarize yourself with the issues before trying to make sense of the primary sources, but for other topics treatises are usually not the first type of resource to be consulted Treatises in print form are found in law libraries by using the online library catalog and searching by title, author, subject or keywords Some treatises are listed in the Index to Legal Periodicals and Books An online tool, IndexMaster, lists hundreds of treatises with tables of contents and indexes, searchable by keywords, authors, and title Treatises are found in the subscription online legal databases such as LexisNexis, Westlaw, and LoisLaw Treatises are for the most part not available on the free Web trial court The first court to hear a case (as opposed to an appellate court), where most civil and criminal cases begin Part of the lower court system In the federal court system, the US District Court is the trial court State trial courts can have various names and can be divided into two levels, depending on the type of case or location of the case Cases from trial courts are generally not published in reporters tribal law American laws relating to American Indians A tribal law website with tribal court decisions and links is at tribalinstitute.org/lists/decision.htm Tribal law links are also at the University of Montana School of Law umt.edu/law/library/Research%20Tools/Tribal%20Law.htm and FindLaw findlaw.com/01topics/21indian/gov_agencies.html Uniform Commercial Code A standardized set of commercial and business laws used in all states, covering all commercial transactions except real property The Code, with some variation, has been adopted by all the state legislatures, starting in the 1950s through the 1960s It became a federal law in 1972, and is constantly being revised The UCC contains nine articles covering a wide range of transactions, including sales contracts, banking, investment securities, as well as legal remedies for breach of contract Some of the articles have supplanted earlier commercial laws Available online: www.law.cornell.edu/ucc/ucc.table.html with listings of state statutes corresponding to UCC articles at www.law.cornell.edu/uniform/ucc.html Uniform State Laws Uniform laws are the laws of individual states that have been expressly enacted to be identical or substantially the same across all states Uniform laws also refers to a reform movement and process to foster the ideal of uniformity of state laws Uniformity of state laws is seen as advantageous for all areas of law that are impacted by interstate commerce and individual movement Some legal areas have been successfully homogenized by the passage of federal law, such as the Securities Act of 1933, which The Researcher’s Law Dictionary Page 75 remedied conflicting state laws Other areas have been covered by both federal and state laws, while still other subjects have been left to be addressed primarily by the states The movement to homogenize the laws across all states began in 1892 at the urging of the American Bar Association The resulting non-governmental body, the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws, has overseen the preparation of over two hundred proposed uniform laws since that time About half of the proposed uniform laws have not been adopted by a single state (examples are the Uniform Franchise and Business Opportunities Act [1987], the Uniform Construction Lien Act [1987], and Uniform Putative and Unknown Fathers Act [1988]) Only a few have been widely adopted approaching uniformity, the most notable example being the Uniform Commercial Code In many other cases, proposed uniform laws have been adopted by only a small number of states, or those widely adopted have rarely been truly uniform An outgrowth of this process of creating uniform state laws has been variously successful efforts of revising or reforming certain laws A fairly successful example of such a reform, despite limited adoption by states, is the Uniform Residential Landlord and Tenant Act Related to this effort has been the inception of model acts whose focus is more on reform rather than uniformity Model acts have been proposed by the National Conference as well as by the American Law Institute, whose Model Penal Code is perhaps the best known and most influential United States Code The compilation and codification of federal law passed by both houses of Congress and signed by the President is published in the United States Code (USC) in both official and commercial forms: the US Code (US), United States Code Annotated (USCA), and United States Code Service (USCS) Laws are published in the USC about a year after enactment of a law in a topically-arranged series of books, starting with Title (General Provisions) and ending with Title 50 (War and National Defense) The USC integrates the statutes at large (public laws) into its volumes as they are passed The resulting US Code is a re-worded version of the original statutes at large, with its own numbering system to identify individual statutes The complete set of the USC is published every six years with continuous supplements Judicial opinions and legal documents usually cite statutes compiled in the official USC as well as the original Public Law numbers (Statutes at Large) Thus the USA Patriot Act might be cited as follows, with the Public Law number first, then the United States Code citation: P.L 107-56, 115 Stat 272 (2001) Hence the USA Patriot Act is Title 115, section 272 (enacted in 2001) of the U.S Code Two commercially-published, unofficial versions of the US Code are West’s United States Code Annotated and the LexisNexis US Code Service Each are superior to the official USC, and each have their own strengths and weaknesses when compared to each other The Researcher’s Law Dictionary Page 76 The US Code is the government’s codified publication of the Federal law after it is initially and officially published as the Statutes at Large, also called public laws The USCS maintains the same title and section numbering found in the U.S Code (USC) However, the US Code Service follows more closely the context and language used in the session laws, i.e., Statutes at Large (using notes for clarification) USCA uses language taken from USC USCS has a more detailed index than USC The USC has no citations to CFR, no annotations, no court rules, no uncodified law, and is usually at least two years behind in updating the law The US Code Service is annotated selectively, avoiding repetitive decisions, while USCA contains more annotations The annotations supplement the statute They provide historical notes, which can be used to research the language of the statute as it was enacted and its amendments The notes give the date of enactment, the public law number, and the Statutes at Large cite There are also brief comments about amendments, or revisions made to the statute The US Code Service includes an index of keywords as well as an index of Popular Names There is also a table of parallel citations to Statutes at Large The US Code Service contains annual pocket parts and pamphlets and interim supplements, and is more current (timely) than official US Code publication Throughout the year, advance annotation supplements are issued containing the most current annotations Monthly, advance sheets are published which has the text of recently enacted laws, executive documents, court rules, and selected regulations with tables indicating which code sections have been affected by recent legislative action (USCA issues quarterly supplements) USCS publishes its court rules in a separate volume, while USCA includes court rules within the body of the code These pamphlets, which are like paperback books, also have a convenient listing of the newest laws in the table of contents of each pamphlet volume Also contained in the US Code Service are some agency procedural rules, with citations and cross-references to the Code of Federal Regulations Covers the constitution, with annotations While USCS cites administrative agency decisions, USCA only cites court decisions USCS provides a Table of Authorities listing CFR sections, while USCA cross references CFR within annotations Separate volumes contain uncodified legislation (not available in USCA) USCS cites ALR and Am Jur 2d, while USCA cites CJS and West Digest Key Numbers Online versions of the US Code are at www.law.cornell.edu/uscode and www.access.gpo.gov/uscode/uscmain.html United States Supreme Court The highest court in the land Once an appeal reaches the US Supreme Court, it can go no further The court consists of the Chief Justice of the United States and eight Associate Justices, nominated by the President and approved by the Senate, appointed to serve for life The court’s yearly term lasts from October to June The Researcher’s Law Dictionary Page 77 or July unpublished case Not all federal and state court decisions or opinions are published in the various reporters because a court may not consider the case important or significant enough Only cases that raise new issues or have complex facts are considered worthy of official publication A judicial decision or opinion that a court does not designate for official publication is called an unpublished, or non-published, case Most trial court decisions are not published Most appellate cases are published, while all supreme court cases are published Memorandum decisions (decisions without opinions, or explanations for the decisions) are not officially reported, but may be made available on certain court sites as well as published by commercial reporting services Some cases not officially published in reporters are referenced in online databases such as LexisNexis and Westlaw, and available on some court websites In addition, some unpublished cases may be printed by commercial reporting services, such as in looseleaf form A small percentage of United States District Court cases after 1932 are published in the Federal Supplement (F Supp.) and, for decisions up to 1932, in the Federal Reporter (F) Some appellate decisions are not published because they lack value as precedents, i.e., the decisions not establish any new rules of law, change or criticize existing law Some unofficially published cases are also available in Westlaw and LexisNexis A decision is likely to be published if a new legal rule is established, an existing rule is significantly explained or developed, existing law is questioned or criticized, conflicting case law is resolved, an old rule is applied to a new situation, a little-discussed rule is discussed, or if there is significant public interest A sensational case may be reported heavily in the media, but still not be published in the case reporters In the field of legal practice, being “reported” is not defined as being published in newspapers or covered in any mass media Do unpublished cases have persuasive or precedential authority? A couple of federal court rulings have disagreed on whether unpublished cases can have binding precedent, but the Supreme Court has stated that unpublished opinions can be cited in federal courts unreported case update the law See unpublished case uphold To sustain, affirm a prior court decsion, as where a higher court upholds the ruling of a lower court To make sure a case or statute is still “good law,”—that it is still valid and has not been changed or negatively impacted by subsequent cases or statutes Updating is done by thorough research of primary and secondary sources, including cite checking or Shepardizing The Researcher’s Law Dictionary US Court of Appeals reporter Page 78 The intermediate federal appellate court, consisting of 13 circuits by geographic area: circuits numbered 1-11 are for the fifty states A twelfth circuit covers Washington, D.C., while the Federal Circuit handles patent and customs cases US Court of Appeals cases are published as advance sheets then hardbound in the Federal Reporter (F), the Federal Reporter, Second Series (F.2d), and the Federal Reporter, Third Series (F.3d), part of West’s National Reporter System US Supreme Court reporter US Supreme Court decisions are published in three reporters: United States Supreme Court Reports (U.S.), West’s Supreme Court Reporter (S.Ct.) and the LexisNexis Supreme Court Reports, Lawyer’s Edition (L.Ed.) The United States Supreme Court Reports is the official reporter, commissioned by Congress Most courts require a citation to this reporter in court documents This reporter is first printed as slip opinions, then advance sheets and then hardbound, but does not come out as quickly as the two unofficial Supreme Court reporters This official reporter does not have headnotes, which the other two reporters have, and are not part of the official opinion The Supreme Court Reporter contains decisions since 1882, while the United States Supreme Court Reports, Lawyers’ Edition has decisions since 1789 Summaries of briefs by counsel in these reporters are helpful in determining the relevancy of a case, but should not be confused with the actual opinion of the court, which follows the name of the justice The US Supreme Court Digest, with its index of summarized cases, is a helpful tool for finding relevant supreme court cases An online guide to Supreme Court legal research is at www.llrx.com/features/supremectwebguide.htm Versuslaw A low-cost legal database alternative for smaller law firms Similar to Loislaw, with a flat-rate subscription price (one-day subscriptions are also available) Its V Cite citatory is an alternative to Shepard’s and KeyCite Contains decisions from 19 different American Indian tribal courts (a tribal law website is at tribalinstitute.org/lists/decision.htm) V Cite VersusLaw’s online citator One selects a jurisdiction for cases that cite a case in question, most likely addressing similar issues Terms can be added to a V Cite search to restrict results to relevant cases that discuss the term For example, one can add the term “damages,” which will locate citing cases that discuss damages vacate When a judge sets aside or voids an order, judgment, or verdict Web legal resources West topic and key See Internet legal resources West’s topic and key number system accesses the law consistently and reliably across all time periods, jurisdictions, and West publications, starting in 1658 The Researcher’s Law Dictionary number system West Publishing Page 79 West classifies and outlines the law, first divided into seven main divisions (persons, property, contracts, torts, crimes, remedies, government, and then further subdivided), then further subdivided into over 400 topics and thousands of subtopics, resulting in over 100,000 key numbers Each legal issue of a court case is summarized as a “headnote” in the Reporter, with its own key number West Publishing, a part of Thomson West, is the largest publisher of various legal books and electronic databases West is best known for its National and Regional Reporter System, Digests, and Westlaw online service, and has been known as “crown jewel of legal publishing.” West Publishing was founded in 1872 in St Paul, Minnesota by John B West and his brother Horatio Coverage of Minnesota court cases was quickly expanded into the National Reporter System with its Topic and Key Number System West placed itself on the auction block in 1995, and after much controversial anti-trust legal wrangling, was acquired by the Canadian publishing giant Thomson Corporation in 1996 (Thomson had lost out to Reed Elsevier in 1994 to acquire LexisNexis.) Part of the anti-trust settlement to allow the acquisition required Thomson, owner of the Lawyers Cooperative, to divest itself of Lawyers’ Edition print reporters and digests Westlaw Thomson West’s Westlaw (www.Westlaw.com) is the online subscription legal research service containing West’s collections of statutes, case law, public records, news, and business information Many of the primary law materials are enhanced with West’s annotations and topic and key numbers Westlaw offers the KeyCite cite checking tool, the equivalent of Shepard’s Citations Also accessed by Westlaw are federal and state appellate briefs, pleadings, motions, memoranda, litigation history reports, expert testimony documents, law review articles, and forms Westlaw also has the major encyclopedias Corpus Juris Secundum (CJS) and American Jurisprudence 2d., as well as American Law Reports (ALR) The primary competitor to Westlaw is LexisNexis Westlaw, like LexisNexis, offers legal researchers many advantages over print resources For many kinds of research, especially with their advanced search features, the online services can be faster and easier, with greater currency LexisNexis, like Westlaw, offer cite checking to verify good law and as a research tool William S Hein & Co Wolters Kluwer Legal publisher and world’s largest distributor of legal periodicals Developer of the HeinOnline legal database A Dutch company, the third-largest publisher of legal information Its holdings, and dates of acquisition, include: Aspen Law & Business (1994), Commerce Clearing House (1995), Little, Brown treatises (1996), Wiley Law Publications (1997), Loislaw.com (2000), Bowne The Researcher’s Law Dictionary Page 80 Publishing (2002), Casenotes Publishing Company (2002) writ A written court order to perform or stop a specific act, or giving authority to have it done The order may be directed at another court, a sheriff, an individual, or a business An example is a writ of execution Other writs include attachment, certiorari, ejectment, habeaus corpus, mandamus, possession Words and Phrases Ambiguous or questionable words and terms that have been interpreted, defined (construed) by the courts as part of a decision These words have been defined in the context of surrounding circumstances and relevant laws and legal writings These words and phrases can be both legal and non-legal The definitions use actual quotes from the cases Words and Phrases are one of the case-finding indexes in reporters and digests They are found in each reporter volume for the cases in the volume, and in separate volumes of Words and Phrases for a whole set of digests ... dictionaries: The Merriam-Webster Dictionary of Law on Findlaw dictionary. lp.findlaw.com /dictionary. html, Answers.com legal dictionary answers.com/library /Law% 2 0Dictionary, Duhaime’s Law Dictionary. .. issue is solved by ? ?the law. ” Similar to ? ?the black letter law. ” law journal law librarian A law review law library The place of the library and its very nature has changed as the nature of legal... to “case law? ?? (“judge-made law? ??) rather than statutes More specifically, the basis of the Anglo- The Researcher’s Law Dictionary Page 19 American legal system, common law is substantive law originated