INTRODUCTION TO SECONDARY SOURCES

Fifth Hour Legal Research

Fall 2014
PRIMARY VS. SECONDARY
AUTHORITY
Primary (statutes, cases, regulations, constitutions)
o Statements of law formulated and authorized by
government institutions
o Contains the Law
o Examples: case law, statutes, executive orders,
constitutions, administrative regulations
Secondary (Commentary)
o Statements about the law used to explain,
interpret, develop or locate primary authorities
o Explains the law
o Examples: treatises, legal encyclopedias,
restatements, law reviews


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MANDATORY VS. PERSUASIVE
AUTHORITY
Primary Authority
Mandatory precedent
Court must follow as binding
Persuasive Precedent
Court may follow -- but not binding
Secondary Authority
Persuasive Precedent only
not formulated by courts or
government
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BASIC OVERVIEW OF
THE PROCESS OF LEGAL RESEARCH
Familiarize yourself w/area of law
o If unfamiliar with the law, usually start with
secondary sources
Locate, read and analyze primary
authority
o Cases, statutes, administrative regulations
Update primary authority to make sure still
good law
o Citators used to confirm that the law youre
reading is still good law.
Revise as necessary, and find additional
primary or secondary authority
o Depends on what you find initially
o Constantly evolving process as you sort
through issues
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Why Start
with
Secondary
Sources?

Gateway to
primary
authority
START WITH SECONDARY SOURCES:
TYPES OF SECONDARY SOURCES
This class:
o Legal Encyclopedias
o Treatises (including Hornbooks)
o Restatements
o American Law Reports (ALR)
o Law Reviews & Legal Periodicals
Additional types:
o Form books
o Dictionaries
o Uniform Laws & Model Acts
This list is not exhaustive!
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HOW DO THE TYPES OF SECONDARY
SOURCES DIFFER FROM EACH
OTHER?
Specificity of coverage
Depth of coverage

Which secondary source you choose
determined by stage of research youre at as
well as what youre looking for from the
materials
You will usually need to look at several
secondary sources to determine what law
applies to your research plan
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Finding Secondary Sources
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Annotated
statutes
Other secondary
authority
MORRIS:
Search by
keyword, title,
word or author.
Westlaw and
Lexis
Treatise Finders
ENCYCLOPEDIAS
Broad coverage
Alphabetical arrangement (usually) of
topics
Main topics divided into subtopics
Individual articles usually assigned section
numbers
Two main national Encyclopedias
o Corpus Juris Secundum
o American Jurisprudence
Footnotes usually give citations to cases
and statutes (primary authority).
Updated: Often by annual Pocket Parts
When/Why/Why Not?
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ALRs
(American Law Reports)
Articles (called Annotations) that focus on a
narrowly defined legal issue.
Provides exhaustive coverage across multiple
jurisdictions.
If available, ALRs are helpful for pulling together
primary sources such as cases and statutes from
multiple jurisdictions.
Important to update.
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TREATISES
Treatise = commentaries on a single area of
law written by legal scholars and practitioners.
Types of Treatises
o Student Oriented
Usually at least one for every major area of law in law school.
Hornbooks = treatises aimed at students; helps clarify concepts
o Practitioner Oriented
Treatise Finder

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RESTATEMENTS
Written by a group of experts in a particular
field of law, and only covers some common
law topics.
Provides black letter law / common law
(torts, contracts, agency, property, etc.) and
considered most authoritative of all
secondary sources and routinely cited by
courts.
When considering using as persuasive source,
research as to whether your jurisdiction
already follows particular restatement rules for
that topic.
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LAW REVIEWS
Often very scholarly and theoretical on
current or cutting edge issues
Tons of footnotes with lots of references to
primary as well as secondary authorities
Usually easiest to find online by searching
electronic database.
Law review citation example:
o Mark Latham, The Rehnquist Court and the
Pollution Control Cases: Anti-Environmental and
Pro-Business? 10 U. PENN. J. OF CON. LAW 133
(2007).

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SECONDARY SOURCES REVIEW
Aimed at different audiences
Variety of formats
Usually good for beginning of research
Depth of coverage
Multiple Access Points
o Index, Table of Contents, Outline, Etc.
Refer / Cross Reference to Primary Authority
Need to update
o Source & Primary Authority
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