Secondary SourcesProfessor Lisa Smith-Butler

Advanced Legal ResearchFall 2016

What are secondary sources of law?

• Secondary sources can be used to help locate and explain primary sources of law. • While persuasive, these sources are not

controlling and do not constitute the law itself.

Where can I locate secondary legal sources?

• There are a variety of secondary sources, including:• legal encyclopedias;• legal periodicals;• hornbooks and nutshells;• Restatements;• American Law Reports (ALRs)• loose leaf services; &• multi volume treatises.

Legal Encyclopedias & Law Reviews

How do you use law reviews and encyclopedias?You use both to locate articles and entries that:explain the subject; andprovide references to resources, i.e. cases and statutes, that are applicable to your problem.

Legal Encyclopedias

• There are two general American legal encyclopedias: • Corpus Juris Secundum ( C.J.S.)

• American Jurisprudence (Am. Jur.)

                                                                     

Legal Encyclopedias

Legal encyclopedias function as any other encyclopedia such as Encyclopedia Britannica or World Book. Am. Jur. & CJS are arranged alphabetically by topic. Descriptive word indexes are also provided.

There are also state specific legal encyclopedias.Does South Carolina have a legal encyclopedia?

Yes. Check out South Carolina Jurisprudence .

American Jurisprudence 2nd This series was initially published by Lawyers

Cooperative but is now published by West (Thomson Reuters.)

It provides a statement of substantive and procedural law, with emphasis on federal law.

Thus it provides an overall explanation of a subject and includes citations to appropriate cases and statutes.

American Jurisprudence 2nd• This resource is available in print. Print is updated via

pocket parts located in the back of the volume. Access to print is via an index.• It is available on both WestlawNext and LexisAdvance.

Access to Westlaw and Lexis is via keyword searching.

Am. Jur. on LexisAdvance

WestlawNext

Corpus Juris Secundum (CJS)

Now in its second edition, CJS provides a general discussion of relevant American law with an emphasis on state law. Discussions begin with a summary of black letter law at the beginning of the entry.

It is available in print. Updating is via pocket part while access is via an index. It is also available online on WestlawNext where it can be searched via keyword.

Is it on Lexis? No.

Legal Periodicals

Numerous legal periodicals are available. Within this category can be found law reviews, bar association periodicals, legal newspapers and newsletters.

Law review articles often discuss a topic, statute or case in great detail. Location of a law review on topic can lead to the discovery of relevant cases, statutes, and regulations.

Law reviews can be updated via Shepard’s or KeyCite.

Law reviews are persuasive rather than controlling authority.

Electronic & Print Versions Print versions of most law reviews are available. Some of the newer law reviews, such as the Richmond Journal of Law & Technology are available in electronic format only. Once upon a time, the majority of law reviews were available in print. With the advent of HeinOnline, LexisAdvance, and WestlawNext, law reviews became available in electronic format. Typically Westlaw and Lexis have law reviews available from 1980 onwards while HeinOnline attempts to provide the entire range of dates that a law review is available. Recent law review articles, typically within the last year, are unavailable as the publisher embargoes these titles in order to promote purchase. Once law reviews began putting their publications on vendor platforms, many institutions began institutional repositories, putting their works online and making them freely available. Prepublication law review articles can often be found on SSRN, Social Science Research Network.

Hein Online

LexisAdvance

WestlawNext

Institutional Repository

SSRN

Accessing Legal Periodicals

• In order to access these numerous legal periodicals, a legal researcher will either need a citation or an index, i.e. keyword searching for electronic resources.• Several legal indexes do exist to help the

legal researcher locate law review articles on a particular topic.• Generally these indexes can be searched

by author, journal title, or subject.

Indexes to Legal Periodicals To locate citations to English language law review

articles published prior to 1908, check the JONES-CHIPMAN INDEX TO LEGAL PERIODICALS. This is available in electronic format via 19TH CENTURY MASTERFILE.

To locate citations between 1908 and 1979, consult the INDEX TO LEGAL PERIODICALS RETROSPECTIVE.

To locate current articles, use either the INDEX TO LEGAL PERIODICALS or LEGALTRAC via the library’s database subscription page.

The CURRENT INDEX TO LEGAL PERIODICALS and LAW REVIEWS & JOURNAL INDEX are available in WestlawNext.

Index to Legal Periodicals

Indexes to Legal Periodicals

• In addition to JONES CHIPMAN, the INDEX TO LEGAL PERIODICALS, and the INDEX TO LEGAL PERIODICALS RETROSPECTIVE, there are additional indexes to legal periodicals which include LegalTrac and the INDEX TO FOREIGN LEGAL PERIODICALS.

• LEGAL TRAC is available electronically.• To obtain citations to articles in foreign legal periodicals,

consult the INDEX TO FOREIGN LEGAL PERIODICALS.

Current Law Index or LegalTrac

Hornbooks & Nutshells

Hornbooks and nutshells are published primarily for students to assist them with understanding specific subject areas. Black letter law, along with citations, is provided in hornbooks and nutshells.In addition to students, practitioners can consult hornbooks and nutshells when researching a subject area with which they are unfamiliar.

RESTATEMENTS

• RESTATEMENTS are published by the American Law Institute and represent an attempt, begun in the 1920s, to lay out and explain subject areas of the law.• Summaries of existing legal doctrine, or black law

letter law, are provided in the Restatements along with citations to applicable cases.• RESTATEMENTS are available in print and on

HeinOnline, LexisAdvance, and WestlawNext

American Law Reports

• American Law Reports are a selective series (ALR 1st – ALR 7th, including ALR Fed 1st – 3rd) that select a unique subject and provide professional commentary along with citations to applicable cases.• ALRs are generally referred to as case finding

tools and this series will be covered in the case law section.

Loose Leafs

• Loose leafs are publications that are described as such because of their print form of publication. They were literally notebooks with pages that were removed and added on a weekly basis as the subject area was updated.• Loose leafs tend to be available for highly regulated

areas such as taxes, health law, or securities. • Loose leafs typically are organized in the following

format: statute, applicable regulation, citations to cases decided under the statutory provision and professional commentary.

Loose Leafs

• While there are other publishers, two of the primary loose leaf publishers in American law are BNA and CCH.• Both publishers offer numerous subject titles

in a variety of legal fields. • While print format is still available, most BNA

and CCH loose leafs are now available online and can be accessed via keyword searching.

CCH

Multi Volume Treatises• Multi volume treatises are secondary sources,

written by experts in a subject area, that explain the law and provide citations to applicable cases, statutes and regulations.• Examples of subject multi volume treatises include:• Chism on PATENTS• Collier on BANKRUPTCY• LaFave on CRIMINAL LAW• Matthew Bender• Moore’s FEDERAL PRACTICE• Nowak and Rotunda’s CONSTITUTIONAL LAW• Powell on REAL PROPERTY• Wigmore on EVIDENCE• Wright & Miller’s FEDERAL PRACTICE & PROCEDURE

Questions?

• Contact the Reference Desk @ 843.377.4020 or reference@charlestonlaw.edu .