Intro to Legal Research & Secondary Sources
What is a "secondary source"?
What are "case digests"?
A chronological publication of federal session laws.
What is the United States Statutes at Large?
A set of rules that govern civil action in United States federal district courts
What are the "Federal Rules of Civil Procedure"?
The publication that includes new and proposed regulations, public comments, hearing notices, executive orders, and presidential proclamations
What is the "Federal Register"?
This type of authority refers to legal precedents that a court must follow and apply in similar cases within its jurisdiction
What is "binding" or "mandatory" authority?
Brief summaries of key legal points or issues in an opinion that appear at the top of a case page
What are "headnotes"?
Brief editorial summaries or notes that contain case interpretations and cross-references to other information related to a statute.
Annotations
This set of rules only apply to individual district courts that have adopted them
What are "local court rules"?
This publication is a subject arrangement of final federal regulations
What is the "Code of Federal Regulations"?
These books contain a scholarly analysis of a single area of law, often including in-depth commentary and citations
What are "treatises"?
This reporter contains published federal district court cases.
This type of court document asks the court to decide the case without having a trial
What is a "motion for summary judgment"?
These executive branch organizations create rules that help enforce statutes
What are "government agencies"?
This type of secondary source contains annotated research briefs with jurisdiction-specific summaries of cases related to a legal topic
What are "American Law Reports"?
This citator feature allows you to find legal materials that have cited the law you are researching
What are "citing references" or "citing sources"?
This tool allows you to use the short title of a law to locate all statutory citations associated with the entire act
What is a Popular Names Table?
Use these type of books to help find examples of commonly used discovery documents
What are "form books" and/or "treatises with forms"?
Most regulations are issued by government agencies under this type of authority
What is "statutory authority"?
For a state issue being litigated in the state's highest court, the U.S. Supreme Court has this type of authority
What is "persuasive authority"?
This citator symbol color indicates some negative subsequent treatment of a law
What is the color "yellow"?
This legislative document often provides a summary and analysis of a bill's content, purpose, and intent
What is a "committee report"?
These comments accompanying federal rules discuss procedure under prior law and explain the purpose of a new rule or amendment
What are "Advisory Committee Notes"?
This summary note is published in the Federal Register to help researchers understand the background and purpose of a proposed or final rule
What is the "preamble"?