Secondary Sources
An alphabetical list of subjects or names with references to the relevant pages or sections within the secondary source that discuss these terms or concepts.
What is an index?
Regulations (or rules) of administrative agencies are considered this type of authority.
What is primary authority?
Method to use when you already have a relevant case, to find additional cases for your research.
What is the One Good Case Method?
Federal slip laws published together in a hardbound set of volumes at the end of each congressional session.
What is the United States Statutes at Large?
A LexisNexis subsidiary that delivers breaking legal news and analysis across various practice areas, industries, and states.
What is Law360?
A list of the chapters and section titles within a secondary source.
What is a table of contents?
This official publication contains proposed and final regulations of federal administrative agencies in chronological order.
What is the Federal Register (FR)?
Systems that organize cases by topic, allowing you to quickly find cases related to a particular issue.
What are Key Numbers on Westlaw and Topics on Lexis?
Codification by subject matter of the general and permanent laws of the United States. It is divided by broad subjects into 53 titles and published by the Office of the Law Revision Counsel of the U.S. House of Representatives.
What is the United States Code (USC)?
A feature within Westlaw that allows users to create and manage alerts based on saved searches.
What is Westclip?
Ways to search or browse for secondary sources on Westlaw or Lexis.
What is by:
1. Source Type (e.g., legal encyclopedia)
2. Jurisdiction (e.g., federal)
3. Topic or Practice Area (e.g., Intellectual Property)
4. Publication or Publisher (e.g., Nimmer on Copyright)
This official publication contains the codified regulations of the federal administrative agencies.
What is the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR)?
Annotations written by attorney editors that summarize important cases interpreting a statute or regulation, giving you a more complete picture of how the law has been applied.
What are Westlaw Notes of Decisions or Lexis Notes to Decisions?
Unofficial versions of the United States Code.
What are Westlaw's United States Code Annotated (USCA) and Lexis' United States Code Service (USCS)?
Lexis company that offers more in-depth analytics, especially in federal court litigation, with a focus on case outcomes, timing, and entity data, and updates more frequently.
What is Lex Machina?
Sources to locate secondary sources on your legal research issue.
What are legal research books, libguides, librarians, Westlaw/Lexis practice area pages.
Agency information that is produced and distributed outside of traditional academic publishing channels, is not readily available in standard legal journals or textbooks, and is often difficult to locate due to its dispersed nature.
What is legal grey literature?
Brief summaries of key legal points from a court opinion, typically found at the beginning of a case.
What are headnotes?
Titles of the U.S. Code that have been enacted as federal statutes by Congress. This means the authority language is the title itself, and it constitutes legal evidence of the text of the law.
What are positive law titles?
Example of how attorneys can use legal analytics.
What is: to know the probability of a specific motion outcome, to know how seemingly unrelated cases connect, or to know how much a settlement award could be?
Source that offers in-depth analyses of specific legal issues, citing and organizing cases from across the US
What is American Law Reports (ALR)?
Source for federal agency authority to promulgate regulations.
What is a federal statute?
Identify the key number below:
297 Antitrust and trade regulation
29TIII Statutory unfair trade practices and consumer protection
29TIII(C) Particular subjects and regulations
29Tk204 Warranties and service contracts
In Lexis, the signal indicating that citing references in the Shepard’s Citations Service contain strong negative treatment of the Shepardized section (for example, the section may have been found to be unconstitutional or void).
What is the red exclamation point.
These reports should not be older than 5 years. Case summaries from before that time may not give you an idea of current trends, and don’t account for inflation.
What are verdict & settlement reports?