Over the course of your first year you will encounter many different types of legal resources. The subpages here will explain some of the basics of them.
Before looking at any specific legal resource though, there are a few basic concepts which apply to all legal resources. Keeping these concepts in mind might help you understand these sources better.
The concepts below are simplified, and nearly every positive statement below has some sort of exception which would increase this page to book length; but as you study different legal resources you might keep in mind how they fit with the concepts below.
As you study different legal resources ask yourself if it is primary or secondary? Mandatory or persuasive? Chronologically arranged or by topic? Annotated? Official? How do you update it?
Any legal issue you research is going to have its own specialized vocabulary. For a simple example, are you searching for "Cars" or are you searching for "Automobiles" or more broadly, "Vehicles"? Perhaps "Conveyances"? Often the very first words you use to search turn out to be either too broad or too narrow, or the wrong term entirely.
It helps as you do your legal research on any particular issue to keep notes (a research diary) of synonyms and similar terms you find, and every resource you consult. This will make it much easier for you later as you pull your research together, both to ensure that you aren't doing the same work twice and to keep track of complete citation information. When you're up against a deadline you don't want to have to take time out of writing your paper to go run down an exact page or volume number.
Primary versus Secondary Resources: Most legal resources can be either be classified as primary or secondary. Primary materials, very simply put, are "the law". Primary materials include Constitutions, statutes enacted by a state legislature or Congress, opinions written by a court in a case, city ordinances, and other types of law you'll find out about through the semester.
Secondary materials attempt to either describe what the law is, or say what it should be. They can take the form of legal encyclopedias, articles appearing in law review publications, series like American Law Reports (A.L.R.) and other materials.
Finding Tools - Finding Tools (or Finding Aids) are resources which exist only to get you to Primary and Secondary materials. For example, "LegalTrac" is a service which acts as a search engine only for law review articles. It doesn't generally search the full text of law review articles, only the author, title, subject and a few other fields. Once you've used LegalTrac to find an article in which you're interested, you then go find the article itself, either online or on the shelves of the MLIC.
Examples:
Primary: The Oklahoma Statutes, The U.S. Constitution.
Secondary: Law review articles, legal encylopedias, A.L.R.
Finding Tools: A digest.
Mandatory v. Persuasive - Mandatory authority is law which the court must follow, i.e. statutes and precedents from the same jurisdiction. Persuasive authority is authority which the court can choose to follow. It includes cases from other jurisdictions. An Oklahoma court could be persuaded to rule the same way as a Texas court in an identical case, but it doesn't have to.
Examples:
Mandatory Authority: The U.S. Constitution (to any U.S. jurisdiction), the Arkansas Statutes (to an Arkansas court), an Oklahoma Supreme Court case (to a lower Oklahoma court)
Persuasive Authority: An Arkansas case (to an Oklahoma court).
Chronological v. Subject - Primary Authority is created and published chronologically. There's a problem however, in that a statute passed 80 years ago is (as long as it's never been repealed or overruled) is just as valid today as the day it was passed. How are you going to find out the existence of an 80 year old statute?
Most primary authorities have some sort of associated resource which is arranged by subject. The subject based arrangement is much easier to use when you're researching the law. For example, the Oklahoma Legislature might have passed a law regarding landlords in 1932, and then amended it in 1962, 1992 and just last week. Without a topical arrangement of the laws passed you'd literally have to look at every statute passed to see if yours was affected.
Statutes: Session Laws v. Codes: While statutes are created (and printed/released) chronologically, as sessions laws, someone came up with the idea to arrange the statutes by topic, no matter when they were created, and call that arrangement a Code.
Cases: Reporters v. Digests: Cases are published chronologically, in full, in Reporters. These cases are stripped down to just the essential elements and arranged by topic in Digests. You use the Digest to find a case on your topic, then the Reporter to read the full text of the case. The Digest is a finding tool for the Reporter.
There are many types of Reporters - West publishes Regional Reporters (several states all in one), State Reporters, and even topical reporters (Education Law Reporter, Military Law Reporter). Almost every reporter has an associated digest. The exceptions are listed in your textbook.
Examples:
In Oklahoma, the session laws are published as "The Oklahoma Session Laws". The code is "The Oklahoma Statutes."
Oklahoma cases appear in full, in chronological order in The Pacific Reporter. You can find specific Oklahoma cases by topic in either the Pacific Digest or the Oklahoma Digest.
Annotated v. Not Annotated: Many Primary Authorities come in two flavors- annotated and un-annotated. Sorry, we haven't come up with a better word for the second category.
The word annotated literally means, "with a note added". In legal resources, 'annotated' means that in addition to the raw, bare-bones primary authority, you're getting additional content chosen by an editor. Different sources have differing quality and quantities of annotations. The additional content can mean anything from "a few cross-references to get you to other related places" to "lengthy discussion and interpretation."
N.B. Even "not annotated" resources usually have at least some extra material, but it's never as extensive.
Yet Another Duality - Official v. Unofficial - Historically (i.e. pre-internet) private publishers went into the business of competing with the 'official' statutes and cases published by the government, because they could publish the material faster and usually added in material (annotations). Lawyers were willing to pay a premium for the faster service and additional, helpful annotations. These privately published books didn't have the force of law- that is, if somehow a typo crept into the unofficial statutes a lawyer could get in trouble relying on it. Because of this, always cite to the official source if you possibly can.
For example, in Oklahoma our official, published-by-the-State of Oklahoma statutes are called "The Oklahoma Statutes", and the set is about ten or so volumes. Each statute is followed by short notes on its history- when it was first enacted and when and how it's been amended.
The West Publishing Company publishes its own set, titled "Oklahoma Statutes Annotated", and is about seventy volumes. Each statute is followed by: historical notes, references to several types of secondary materials and cases which have interpreted the statute.
Something else to remember: Just because a source is annotated, does not mean it is unofficial. In some states the state government has said the equivalent of, "West is doing such a good job, we're going to stop publishing and let them do it."
Un-annotated: The United States Code. These are the federal statutes of the United States. This set is usually out of date.
Annotated: The United States Code Annotated (U.S.C.A.). Published by West, the U.S.C.A. contains references to cases which have interpreted the statute, history of the statute, and cross references to legal periodicals and West products.
Annotated: The United States Code Service (U.S.C.S.). Published by LEXIS, the U.S.C.S. contains references to cases which have interpreted the statute, history of the statute, and cross references to legal periodicals and LEXIS products.
Currency - Whether you're researching in print or online, you should be very aware of how current the material you're searching is. If you're searching cases, will the source you're using tell you about a case decided last month?
Print: Due to the time it takes to publish a physical book, mail it to us, process it and put it on the shelf, print publications are always at least a little out of date. Each print source has its own publishing schedule and unique system for determining if there is newer material, and you'll need to learn these for each legal resource you study. The quick-n-dirty way to check for currency of a book is to just look at the front matter for an MLIC check-in stamp and/or a copyright date. If the book was received by the MLIC in January you can assume there won't be any January (or probably even December) material in that book.
Online: Online resources, whether paid or free, often breathlessly act like they're "completely up to date", without quite telling you what that means exactly. Always try to find out. In Westlaw and LEXIS you can generally find this information. Other services often make this a bit harder to find out.
Updating: Once you've completed your research you need to keep making sure that the authority you've relied on continues to be "good law".
Updating is a critical step in doing print research. If you are reading and relying on a case decided ten or even a hundred years ago, there is nothing to indicate in the Reporter whether that case is still valid. It might have been overruled. Or, it might have been just partially overruled and still good for at least one point of law.
Researching case law in Westlaw or LEXIS is a bit simpler than in print, in that you'll often see an indicator which tells you if there's some question about the continuing validity of the case; but you still need to investigate for yourself how other sources have treated your case.
There's a horror story passed down from older lawyers about the young attorney who discovered, at 9am on a Monday in front of a judge, that the case on which he was relying was overruled on Friday.
You probably won't run into a situation that extreme in your career- but it's certainly possible to be a month or even year out of date and not be aware of it.
Citators: "Citator" is a generic term for a resource which tells you, 1) What other sources have cited to my source? 2) What did they say about my source? Shepard's and KeyCite are citators owned by LEXIS and Westlaw respectively.
Putting it all together: You have dozens of research tools to choose from - how do you pick? Luckily it's a fairly simple process- Do you know much about the topic? Probably not, especially your first year of law school.
Rather than dive into primary authority, where explanations can sometimes be few and far between, it's much better to start in secondary sources. These sources can give you good general background information on a topic as well as introduce you to extra terms you might not have thought of.
Then you proceed to statutes and case law in your jurisdiction.
Last is updating - you have to make sure that the case or statute you've relied on is still valid.
"The Research Pyramid", courtesy of West:
