I.   Primary Material

Statutes

Statutes provide the law as enacted by a legislative body. Generally, statutes are a good place to begin legal research.   The annotated statutes provide additional information that aids in understanding and supporting legal positions, including cites to digest topics, regulations, periodical articles, practice sources and case law.    Find particular statutes by using the index at the end of the set.   The annotated statutes usually have more detailed indexes.

Cases

Compilations of judicial decisions are printed in case reports or reporters. Reporters print cases in the order that they are received from the courts.   As with the statutes, there are both official case reports and commercially-produced reporters.   The commercially-produced reporters generally give additional editorial information and appear more quickly.   Most volumes include a table of statutes interpreted, cases decided, and other information. Judicial decisions first appear in slip opinions, then in advance sheets found at the end of the bound volumes.

Regulations (Administrative Law)

Agencies promulgate rules or regulations in order to implement and enforce statutes passed by the legislature.   It is important to keep in mind which agency is likely to create regulations on the subject being researched.   To find a regulation, use the index which includes entries by both subject and agency.   If this fails, try the list of titles in the beginning of any volume.

II.   Secondary Material

Legal Periodicals and Indexes

The library subscribes to most academic law reviews and state bar journals. Use Legaltrac (web version) or Index to Legal Periodicals (web version) to locate periodicals by subject or author.   Law review articles are typically detailed discussions on one topic and provide citations to cases, statutes, and other publications.

Treatises

This group of materials provides in-depth discussion of an area of the law. Treatises are typically written by experts in a particular field and treat the subject in detail.

Legal Encyclopedias

American Jurisprudence (Am Jur) and Corpus Juris Secundum (CJS) provide a comprehensive overview of legal case law topics. Typically the discussion is fairly general, does not include mention of statutes or regulations, and includes references to case law from many jurisdictions. These sets of books are the slowest to include changes or new trends in legal topics.

LKH 10/04