Primary and Secondary Sources of Legal Material

Legal encyclopedias offer excellent insight into various legal topics. For example, if you`re not sure what a secure transaction is, or if you`re not sure about the difference between condos and co-ops, a legal encyclopedia will give you a solid, basic understanding. It will also provide you with quotes on primary authority that may be helpful. To research a particular problem within a jurisdiction, having your own jurisdictional legal encyclopedia is a good place to start. If the jurisdiction does not have its own legal encyclopedia or if you would like a national overview, contact the two general encyclopedias, American Jurisprudence 2d and Corpus Juris Secundum. For example: Many secondary sources have value that goes beyond citability in a legal argument. In particular, many titles offer valuable information about current court decisions or new laws. Some may analyze new legal authorities to break down their meaning into more digestible terms, while others consider the potential impact of a new judgment or law. Even more secondary sources may examine current legal trends or the current state of a particular area of law, based on recent court decisions or updates to legislation.

Essays are also useful tools if you are not familiar with a particular legal topic. In a way, a treatise is like an extensive legal encyclopedia that covers only one area of law. For example, one of the most important treatises on tort law is Prosser and Keeton on tort law. For contracts, many lawyers refer to Williston on Contracts. Some treaties are general and deal with national treatment of areas of law; Others focus specifically on a specific jurisdiction. However, all contain quotes about primary authority. American Law Reports contains lengthy articles on specific legal topics, some of which are narrower than others. Articles, commonly referred to as ALRs, often provide an overview of the national treatment of a topic and contain detailed annotations. Notes are usually divided by jurisdiction, subtopics are referenced, and most articles contain references to other ALR articles that are related or may be of interest. Legal research sources are divided into two categories: primary and secondary.

Primary sources include laws, rules, regulations and jurisprudence. Secondary sources are much more diverse and include law journals and journal articles, legal encyclopedias, treatises and law summaries. Primary sources are not necessarily binding – it depends on the jurisdiction in which your case is pending. You learned about binding and persuasive authority in the chapter on the structure of justice in the United States. Binding authority binds the court, but persuasiveness is not binding. Not all primary sources are binding authorities, i.e. not all primary sources are necessarily binding. For example, court decisions are primary sources, but they can only be a persuasive authority, depending on the jurisdiction. No secondary source is an authoritative authority – they are only persuasive authorities. There are a number of reasons why secondary sources are so important to the practice of law. One of the main reasons is that secondary sources may reflect the prevailing view of how courts interpret primary sources. Some secondary sources are so authoritative that the courts themselves base their decisions on them.

Note on the use of legal research sources: As mentioned earlier, law is an ever-changing entity that could theoretically vary from day to day, week to week, month to month, or year to year, rendering some publications obsolete. In order to remedy this situation and to keep the researcher informed of current developments in the law, publishers publish a so-called pocket part, which completes a certain volume of a publication. Pocket coins are located at the back of the volumes and are inserted into a pocket inside the volume – hence their name “pocket coins”. Given the importance of secondary sources for understanding the law, you may not need to convince that they can improve your legal practice. However, you may be less clear about exactly how they can be used for this purpose. The North Eastern Reporter also includes court decisions from Illinois, Indiana, Massachusetts and Ohio. Judicial decisions of the Connecticut Supreme Court can be found in both the official Connecticut Reporter (the quote is Conn.) and the Atlantic Regional (commercial) Reporter (the quote is A.). Other business journalists include the South Western Reporter (SW) and the Southern Reporter (So.). These and other journalists are included in the later subchapter on the legal citation. Regional journalists were created to reduce the number of different publications that a law library had to accommodate in order to be complete.

For example, you wouldn`t need the reports from New York, Illinois and Indiana; only the North Eastern Reporter is needed to have the most important decisions of all these states. The benefits don`t stop there; As diverse and extensive as secondary sources are the many ways they can add value to your law practice. They should always be a central part of any research process to ensure that the resulting product is of the highest quality. Secondary sources can be cited in legal briefs and briefs, but a court will not be influenced simply because, for example, Prosser and Keeton (two respected specialists in tort liability) have argued that parents should not be liable for their children`s torts. Secondary sources are useful when there is legal uncertainty – for example, when the trial courts of a jurisdiction have different opinions on a particular issue (called “division of opinion” or “division of power”). They are also useful for citing general trends in the law, whether national or local. Overall, if authorities such as the laws and jurisprudence that establish the law are primary sources, anything that discusses and analyzes primary sources is more than likely secondary sources. Although they cannot be directly invoked as a legal authority, secondary sources remain among the most important authorities that can be used in legal arguments. In short, because secondary sources reflect how the law is perceived, they are really important for a fuller understanding of the law. As most lawyers have learned during their first year of law school, secondary sources are authorities who explain various legal issues, but who do not themselves bear the weight of legal education.