Secondary Authority Category 1
The first step to ensuring an authority is "good law" is to use this.
What is a citator/Shepard's Citations/Westlaw's KeyCite/Shepardize?
Law review articles and state bar association journals are examples of this type of secondary authority.
What are legal periodicals?
The address of a web site.
What is a uniform resource locator (URL)?
The two most frequently used commercial legal research services.
What are Westlaw and LexisNexis?
American Jurisprudence Second (Am. Jur. 2d) and Corpus Juris Secundum (CJS) are examples of this type of secondary authority.
What are legal encyclopedias?
This secondary authority provides the spelling, pronunciation, and legal meanings for terms used in the law.
What are legal dictionaries?
A free internet source for legal research, such as www.findlaw.com.
What are non-fee-based law-related websites?
Tools used to narrow the search results when using commercial Internet research services.
What are filters?
Type of secondary authority that provides a comprehensive analysis of a single area of law, such as family law or criminal law, and can range from a single-volume to multivolume sets.
What are treatises?
Often used as a guide for a researcher proposing or drafting legislation.
What are uniform laws/model acts?
An email discussion group that links people with common interests and allows them to share information on a topic or area of expertise.
What is a listserv?
Also referred to as a Boolean search, this allows you to conduct a search using key workd of the issue and symbols.
What are terms and connectors?
Although not an authority that a court will rely on to interpret law, this set of books is a case finding aid that organizes the law by topic and subtipics, providing brief summaries of court opinions that have addressed the subtopics.
What are digests?
This type of secondary authority is composed of the work of competent scholars in each area of law with a goal of defining what the law is for basic legal subjects.
What are Restatements of the law?
The first step in conducting legal research using free internet sources.
What is determine the scope and objective of the research project?
The most critical step in the research process.
What is framing the issue in the context of the specific facts of the case?
Type of secondary authority that publishes the text of leading state and federal court opinions addressing specific issues as well as an analysis and summary of cases from every jurisdiction that have dealt with similar issues.
What is the American Law Reports (ALR)?
Often used to determine the required elements for a particular legal cause of action.
What are jury instructions?
Bluebook rule that addresses how to cite content from the Internet, electronic media, and other nonprint sources.
What is Bluebook Rule 18?
Many state bar associations provide its members access to this fee-based Internet research source.
What is Casemaker?