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Our Legal System
Legal Research Process
Print Research
Electronic Research
The BlueBook
100
Researching this means finding the rules that govern conduct in our society?
What is researching the law?
100
These are the two preliminary steps that you will want to take before heading out on your search for authority.
What are: (1) define the scope of the project (2) generate search terms
100
Print research tools are generally organized by type of authority AND by this distinction.
What is jurisdiction.
100
This type of searching is possible in electronic research sources and is a powerful strategy because it provides greater flexibility that using the index or table of contents in print research sources.
What is a word search?
100
This Bluepages Table contains the abbreviations for words commonly found in the titles of court documents.
What is "BT.1"
200
These are otherwise known as the four main sources of primary law that exist at both the state and federal levels.
What are: (1) Constitutions (2) Statutes (3) Court opinions (also called cases) (4) Administrative Regulations
200
These three categories of authority are useful to think about when planning your research.
What are: (1) Secondary authority (2) Primary mandatory authority (3) Primary persuasive authority
200
In print research this generally includes the name of the book in which the source is published, the volume of the book containing the specific item, and the page or section number where the item begins.
What is a citation?
200
These two electronic research sources are the most commonly used full text sources.
What are Westlaw and Nexis?
200
This Bluepages Table refers you to sources for local citation rules relevant to the jurisdiction in which you may be working.
What is "BT.2"?
300
(1) This first type of authority refers to constitutional provisions, statutes, court opinions, and administrative regulations, whereas (2) the second type of authority refers to to journals, treatises, and scholarly articles.
What is: (1) Primary Authority (2) Secondary Authority
300
These types of sources are helpful in generating search terms and figuring out which authorities or combination of authorities will be useful in the research process. These include sources such as ALR and CJS.
What are secondary sources.
300
In print research these are the two most commonly used subject searching tools.
What are the: (1) Index (2) Table of contents
300
This electronic research source uses a system of "headnotes" to provide brief descriptions of legal issues within a particular case and to also provide links to other cases involving the same legal issue.
What is Westlaw?
300
This rules provides guidance when citing authorities published in electronic format.
What is Rule 18?
400
The term is used as reference to secondary authority because this type of authority it is not binding on the courts and only provides a goods reason for the court to depart from or reject previously established legal rules.
What is persuasive authority
400
This type of authority will rarely, if ever, provide a useful starting point for your research because it is not controlling authority and lacks analysis or commentary explaining the law.
What is Primary Persuasive Authority?
400
These are supplementary pamphlets placed in the back of a print resource and are used to provide periodically updated information.
What is a "pocket part"?
400
In this electronic source, to "shepardize" is to check a particular case to ensure that it is still good law and has not been overturned.
What is LexisNexis?
400
This rule discusses the proper format for quotations.
What is Rule 5?
500
In the federal court system: (1) This court issues decisions that are legally binding on all lower courts. (2) This court issues decision that are only persuasive against the two higher courts. (3) This court issues decisions that are binding on the lower court and persuasive on the higher court.
What are: (1) The US Supreme Court (2) The US District Courts (3) The US Court of Appeals
500
Once you have completed the preliminary steps of your research you will need to decide these two things.
What are: (1) probable sources of information (2) the sequence in which you plan to review these sources
500
Deciding to use print research or electronic research will depend largely on factors including these four:
What is: (1) Resources available in your library (2) time you have for your project (3) depth of research required (4) amount of money your client can spend.
500
When out on co-op this presents the biggest challenge to using electronic research sources and can be mitigated by attending all available electronic research trainings and by using precise search terms and connectors.
What is cost to the client?
500
(1) This is explained in Rule 10, and; (2) This is explained in Rule 12
What is: (1) The proper way to cite a court opinion? and; (2) The proper way to cite a statute?