Where the law is : an introduction to advanced legal research

This newly updated law school textbook and course reference is designed specifically for advanced legal research classes and for upper-level students who want to achieve a better understanding of how to use the sources of legal information that they learned in their introductory courses. It provides in-depth guidance through the research process, advice on format selection, and details about the tools and techniques needed to function as skilled legal researchers. Up-to-date discussion of all media is fully integrated throughout. It focuses on the types of information the researcher needs, rather than on descriptions of particular information products.

• Location of Tables p. xix
• Chapter 1 Advanced Legal Research: Getting Started p. 1
• 1.1 What This Book Is About p. 1
• 1.2 What This Book Is Not About p. 2
• 1.3 Why You Must Make a Research Plan p. 2
• 1.4 Documenting What You Find: Citations p. 3
• 1.5 Documenting What You Find: Formats p. 4
• 1.6 What Source to Use? p. 5
• 1.7 Following Tangents: How Much Is Too Much? p. 6
• 1.8 How to Make a Research Plan p. 7
• 1.9 Best Uses of Full Text Searching p. 9
• 1.10 Best Uses of Field-Limited Searching p. 10
• 1.11 Best Uses of Searching Subject Indexed/Edited Data p. 10
• 1.12 What You Are Going to Look For p. 12
• Table 1.A  p. 13
• Chapter 2 Statutes p. 14
• 2.1 Statutes First p. 14
• 2.2 Codes p. 14
• 2.3 Working With a Statutory Code Index p. 15
• Table 2.A Selected Sources for the United States Code p. 16
• 2.4 Terms to Look Up in Code Indexes p. 18
• 2.5 Distinctions Between Code Indexes p. 19
• 2.6 Using a Code Index Online p. 20
• 2.7 Finding the Statute by Finding a Case p. 22
• 2.8 Working With the Structure of the Code p. 22
• 2.9 Code Currency p. 25
• 2.10 Choosing a Format in Which to Do Your Code Research p. 27
• 2.11 Choosing a Code Source p. 28
• 2.12 Codes of the Past p. 29
• 2.13 Renumbered Codes p. 30
• 2.14 Session Laws p. 31
• 2.15 Using Session Laws to Update the Code p. 31
• Table 2.B Sources for United States Session Laws p. 32
• 2.16 Using Session Laws to Find New Laws Without Reference to Earlier Code Sections p. 34
• Table 2.C Sources for New Federal Session Laws p. 35
• 2.17 Citations to Session Laws p. 37
• 2.18 Choosing a Source for Session Laws p. 38
• 2.19 Finding Laws That Will Never Make It Into the Code p. 40
• 2.20 Updating Uncodified Session Laws p. 41
• 2.21 Statutes More Conveniently Discussed in Their Original Session Law Form p. 42
• 2.22 Session Law Nomenclature vs. Code Nomenclature p. 42
• 2.23 Session Laws as Authentication of Code Language p. 43
• 2.24 Getting From a Code Section to Its Source in the Session Laws p. 45
• 2.25 Monster Session Laws: Omnibus Statutes p. 46
• 2.26 Reading the Session Law as an Aid to Understanding the Code p. 47
• 2.27 Finding Statutes by "Name" p. 48
• 2.28 Getting From a Session Law to the Corresponding Code Sections p. 49
• 2.29 Finding Bills p. 50
• 2.30 Finding a Bill by Subject p. 50
• Table 2.D Online Sources of Congressional Bills p. 51
• 2.31 Finding a Bill by Bill Number, by Date, or by Sponsor p. 52
• 2.32 Cases Interpreting Statutes p. 53
• 2.33 Finding Cases in an Annotated Code p. 53
• 2.34 Currency of the Case Annotations p. 55
• 2.35 Revision of the Annotations p. 56
• 2.36 Cases Included in the Annotations p. 56
• 2.37 Case Annotations in Specialized Sources p. 57
• 2.38 Using a Citator to Find Cases Interpreting a Statute p. 57
• Table 2.E Examples of Specialized Sources of Statute Annotations and How They Work p. 58
• 2.39 Using Full Text Searching to Find Cases Interpreting a Statute p. 59
• 2.40 Special Issues in State Statutory Research p. 60
• Table 2.F Some Sources of Comparative State Statutes p. 62
• Chapter 3 Legislative History p. 63
• 3.1 Legislative History: When and Why? p. 63
• 3.2 Compiled Legislative Histories p. 63
• 3.3 Types of Legislative History Documents p. 64
• Table 3.A Selected Sources of Compiled Federal Legislative Histories p. 65
• 3.4 Committee Reports p. 67
• Table 3.B Sources for Committee Reports p. 68
• 3.5 Identifying Committee Reports About a Known Statute or Bill p. 70
• 3.6 Accessing Congressional Committee Reports p. 74
• 3.7 Finding Committee Reports by Subject p. 74
• 3.8 Identifying Congressional Committee Hearings p. 76
• 3.9 Accessing Congressional Committee Hearings p. 78
• Table 3.C Sources of Committee Hearings p. 79
• 3.10 Unpublished Hearings p. 80
• 3.11 Identifying and Locating Committee Prints and House and Senate Documents p. 81
• 3.12 Identifying and Locating Bills as a Source of Legislative History p. 82
• 3.13 The Congressional Record p. 83
• Table 3.D Sources of the Congressional Record p. 85
• 3.14 Congressional Record Pagination p. 86
• 3.15 Congressional Record Indexing p. 87
• 3.16 State Legislative History p. 88
• Chapter 4 Introducing Secondary Sources: Law Review Articles p. 89
• 4.1 Law Reviews as a Tool for the Legal Researcher p. 89
• 4.2 Finding Law Review Articles p. 90
• Table 4.A Selected Legal Periodical Indexes p. 91
• 4.3 Looking for Articles by Subject p. 92
• 4.4 Looking for Articles by Case Name or Citation p. 93
• 4.5 Looking for Articles About a Statute p. 94
• 4.6 Looking for an Article by a Particular Author p. 95
• 4.7 Evaluating the Usefulness of Law Review Articles p. 96
• Table 4.B Examples of Sources for Working Papers in Law p. 99
• 4.8 Using the Footnotes in Law Review Articles p. 100
• Table 4.C Selected Dictionaries of Legal Abbreviations p. 101
• Chapter 5 Cases p. 103
• 5.1 The Core of Our Enterprise p. 103
• 5.2 Finding All the Right Cases p. 103
• 5.3 Full Text Searching of Case Law Databases p. 104
• 5.4 Using Subject Indexes to Case Law: Digests and the Key Number System on Westlaw p. 107
• Table 5.A Principal Components of the American Digest System p. 108
• 5.5 Finding a Topic and Key Number p. 109
• 5.6 Changes to the Topics and Key Numbers p. 111
• 5.7 Working With Key Numbers p. 111
• 5.8 Getting the Most Recent Key Number Indexing p. 112
• 5.9 Other Subject-Based Searching for Cases p. 113
• 5.10 Finding Cases by Name p. 114
• Table 5.B Some Examples of Non-West Subject Indexes to Cases p. 115
• 5.11 Finding Cases by Citation p. 116
• 5.12 Nominative and Other Unfamiliar Reporters p. 116
• 5.13 Docket Numbers p. 117
• 5.14 Other Citation Wrinkles p. 118
• 5.15 Using Indexed and Full Text Searching Together: The Heart of the Case Research Process p. 119
• 5.16 Researching the Authority for What Seems Like a Hoary or Even Self-Evident Well-Established Principle p. 120
• 5.17 Proving the Negative p. 120
• 5.18 When to Stop p. 120
• 5.19 Federal Case Law p. 121
• 5.20 Supreme Court Cases p. 121
• Table 5.C Selected Sources of Scotus Opinions p. 123
• 5.21 The United States Courts of Appeals p. 124
• Table 5.D Selected Sources for Scotus Records and Briefs p. 125
• Table 5.E Selected Sources for Scotus Oral Arguments p. 126
• Table 5.F Selected Sources for Federal Courts of Appeal Cases p. 128
• Table 5.G Selected Sources of Court of Appeals Records and Briefs p. 129
• 5.22 United States District Courts p. 130
• Table 5.H Selected Sources of Federal District Court Cases p. 131
• 5.23 State Case Law p. 132
• 5.24 Updating Case Law Research p. 134
• Chapter 6 Introducing Secondary Sources: Treatises and Other Overviews p. 137
• 6.1 Treatises p. 137
• Table 6.A Sources for Lists of Prominent Treatises p. 138
• 6.2 Restatements of the Law p. 140
• 6.3 Encyclopedias p. 141
• 6.4 American Law Reports: The ALR p. 142
• Chapter 7 Introducing Secondary Sources: Form Books and Jury Instructions p. 144
• 7.1 Form Books p. 144
• 7.2 A Word of Caution About Forms p. 145
• 7.3 General Collections of Forms p. 145
• 7.4 Subject-Specific Collections of Forms p. 146
• 7.5 Jurisdiction-Specific Collections of Forms p. 147
• 7.6 Pattern Jury Instructions p. 147
• Chapter 8 Sources of Administrative Law p. 149
• 8.1 Introduction to Administrative Law Research p. 149
• 8.2 Sources of Administrative Law: The Federal Register p. 151
• Table 8.A Where to Find the Federal Register p. 153
• 8.3 Rules and Regulations Section of the Federal Register p. 155
• 8.4 Proposed Regulations Section of the Federal Register p. 157
• 8.5 Notices Section of the Federal Register p. 157
• 8.6 Reader Aids Section of the Federal Register p. 158
• 8.7 How the Federal Register Is Actually Used in Legal Research p. 158
• 8.8 Sources of Administrative Law: The Code of Federal Regulations p. 160
• 8.9 CFR Basics p. 160
• Table 8.B Where to Find the Code of Federal Regulations p. 161
• Table 8.C Dates of Annual Revision of CFR Titles p. 163
• 8.10 Structure of the CFR p. 164
• 8.11 Titles of the CFR p. 164
• Table 8.D Titles of USC and CFR Compared p. 165
• 8.12 Chapters of the CFR p. 167
• 8.13 Parts of the CFR p. 168
• 8.14 Sections of the CFR p. 168
• 8.15 How to Use the CFR p. 169
• 8.16 Updating a CFR Section p. 170
• 8.17 A Better Way: The List of Sections Affected p. 170
• 8.18 Electronic CFRs With Rolling Updates p. 171
• 8.19 Administrative Hearings and Other Quasi-Judicial Proceedings p. 172
• 8.20 State Administrative Law Research p. 174
• Chapter 9 Introducing Secondary Sources: Looseleaf Services p. 176
• 9.1 Introduction: What This Chapter Is About p. 176
• 9.2 What Are Looseleafs Used For? p. 177
• 9.3 The Different Kinds of Looseleafs p. 179
• 9.4 Using a Newsletter-Style Looseleaf p. 182
• 9.5 Using an Interfiled Looseleaf p. 183
• 9.6 What Is Not in Looseleafs? p. 184
• 9.7 Finding a Looseleaf on Your Topic p. 185
• 9.8 Online Versions of Looseleafs p. 186
• Chapter 10 Court Rules p. 189
• 10.1 What Are Court Rules and Why Do They Matter? p. 189
• 10.2 Federal Court Rules p. 190
• 10.3 Finding Annotated Federal Court Rules, General and Local p. 190
• 10.4 Secondary Sources and Federal Rules p. 191
• Table 10.A Selected Sources of Annotated Federal Court Rules p. 192
• 10.5 Federal Court Rules Judicially Considered p. 193
• 10.6 Using Citators for Updating Federal Court Rules p. 194
• 10.7 State Court Rules p. 194
• 10.8 Annotated State Court Rules p. 195
• Chapter 11 Legal Ethics Research p. 196
• 11.1 Introduction to Legal Ethics Research p. 196
• 11.2 Model and Uniform Laws Generally p. 197
• 11.3 Sources of Authority-American Bar Association Ethical Codes and Rules p. 198
• 11.4 Sources of Authority-State Law p. 199
• 11.5 Sources of Authority-"Case Law" Publications p. 199
• 11.6 Sources of Authority-Secondary Sources p. 201
• 11.7 How Legal Ethics Research Really Works p. 202
• Table 11.A Recommended Websites for Legal Ethics Information p. 204
• Chapter 12 Foreign Law Research p. 205
• 12.1 Introduction to Foreign Law p. 206
• 12.2 Major World Legal Systems p. 206
• 12.3 Guides to Legal Research in Foreign Jurisdictions p. 207
• 12.4 Methods of Foreign Law Research p. 208
• Table 12.A Selected Online Foreign Law Research Guides p. 209
• Chapter 13 International Law p. 211
• 13.1 Sources of International Law p. 212
• 13.2 Treaty Research p. 212
• Table 13.A Recommended Treaty Websites p. 214
• 13.3 Intergovernmental Organizations p. 215
• 13.4 The European Union p. 216
• 13.5 European Union-Secondary Sources p. 216
• 13.6 European Union-Statutes p. 217
• 13.7 European Union-Case Law p. 218
• 13.8 European Union-Summing Up p. 218
• Chapter 14 Municipal Law Research p. 220
• 14.1 Municipal Law: When, Why and How p. 220
• 14.2 Municipal Charters p. 221
• 14.3 Municipal "Session Laws" p. 221
• 14.4 Municipal Statutory Codes p. 222
• 14.5 Municipal Decisional Law p. 222
• 14.6 Doing Comparative Research on Municipal Law p. 223
• 14.7 Administrative Regulations and Decisions on the Municipal Level p. 224
• Chapter 15 Where the Law Is p. 225
• 15.1 General Principles p. 225
• 15.2 Look for Basic Structures p. 225
• 15.3 Estimate What Form Your Answer Will Come In p. 226
• 15.4 Your Strategy Will Depend Upon Your Starting Point. What Do You Know Now? p. 227
• 15.5 The Less You Know, The More Certainly You Need Secondary Sources p. 227
• 15.6 Secondary Leads to Primary, But There Are Other Ways Around the Circle p. 227
• 15.7 Official Publications Often Less Useful p. 228
• 15.8 Human Ordering vs. Machine Recall p. 228
• 15.9 It Is Very Difficult to Do Effective Statutory Research Online p. 229
• 15.10 Know Exactly What Legislative Histories Are, and What They Are For p. 229
• 15.11 Let Someone Else Do the Work for You p. 229
• 15.12 But Don't Be Afraid to Be the First, If Necessary! p. 230
• 15.13 Evaluating Sources p. 230
• 15.14 An Afterward: The World of Unpublished Information p. 232
• Table 15.A Selected Directories of Helpful Phone Numbers p. 233
• Appendix. Selected Legal Research Guides for Each of the Fifty States p. 235
• Index p. 251