Legal sources are classified as either primary or secondary. Primary sources include constitutions, statutes, treaties, judicial decisions and administrative rules which are binding legal authority. Secondary sources such as restatements, encyclopedias and form books are not binding but provide analysis and discussion of legal doctrines. Finding tools like digests, citators and indexes help researchers locate relevant primary and secondary sources on a given legal issue.
A Practical Companion to the Constitution: How the Supreme Court Has Ruled on Issues from Abortion to Zoning, Updated and Expanded Edition of <i>The Evolving Constitution</i>
Legal sources are classified as either primary or secondary. Primary sources include constitutions, statutes, treaties, judicial decisions and administrative rules which are binding legal authority. Secondary sources such as restatements, encyclopedias and form books are not binding but provide analysis and discussion of legal doctrines. Finding tools like digests, citators and indexes help researchers locate relevant primary and secondary sources on a given legal issue.
Legal sources are classified as either primary or secondary. Primary sources include constitutions, statutes, treaties, judicial decisions and administrative rules which are binding legal authority. Secondary sources such as restatements, encyclopedias and form books are not binding but provide analysis and discussion of legal doctrines. Finding tools like digests, citators and indexes help researchers locate relevant primary and secondary sources on a given legal issue.
Legal sources are classified as either primary or secondary. Primary sources include constitutions, statutes, treaties, judicial decisions and administrative rules which are binding legal authority. Secondary sources such as restatements, encyclopedias and form books are not binding but provide analysis and discussion of legal doctrines. Finding tools like digests, citators and indexes help researchers locate relevant primary and secondary sources on a given legal issue.
M.S. Feliciano, The Law Library, Revisiting Traditional Legal Research Methods Legal Research: ascertain legal consequences of a specific set of actual or potential facts, which dictate the issues of law that need to be researched -organization is key Legal Authority: any published source of law setting forth legal rules, legal doctrine or legal reasoning that can be used as bases for legal decisions -types of legal information -degree of persuasiveness of legal information Primary Sources: recorded authoritative statements of legal rules by governmental institutions to be enforced by the State - Mandatory Authority: authority given that a court is bound to follow -Constitutional provisions, statues, international conventions & treaties, judicial decisions, administrative rules and regulations, ordinances and court rules - Persuasive Authority: a given court is not bound to follow this, excellent analysis, like Opinions of the Secretary of Justice Secondary Sources: not primary, annotate, discuss or analyze legal doctrines - Restatements of the Law: important commentaries on American Law which organize and articulate the rules of American common law - Looseleaf Services: supplemented research tools which focus on specific subject areas and contain primary legal sources, finding aids and secondary materials, comprehensive and current access to special fields such as family law, labor tax, published by commercial entities like Bureau of National Affairs - Legal Encyclopedias: multi volume sets describing systematically the entire body of law wherein expository statements on principles of law are alphabetically and topically arranges, non critical in approach and provide supporting reference to cases in foot notes, general and simple, introduction - Hornbooks: popular reference to a series of treatises, reviews a certain field of law in summary textual form as opposed to a
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casebook which is a teaching tool and includes many reprints of
court opinions Practice Manuals: procedural and substantive law as well as hands on instructions necessary to file and prosecute a case (ex: detailed discussion of what must be proved in virtually every case) Form-books: aids in drafting legal documents and include sample instruments which are standard guides for an attorney, some are annotated containing forms of instruments and reference to cases which have favorably construed to the provisions or editorial documents Annotations: explanations or commentaries or extensive notes based on the issues within an opinion of a court usually appended after a reprinted case in a compilation o Statutory: brief history of the law and facts of cases interpreting statues passed by the legislature which are usually found in codes and compilations and cites research references to other secondary materials o Textual: expository essays of varying lengths on significant legal topics chosen for selected cases with the essays. Editors select a case in point to illustrate a principle of law that warrants annotations and discusses all cases involving an issue and gives exception to and qualifications and applications of those principles
Finding tools: lawyers must ascertain the state of the law on a
particular issue in order to be able to predict with absolute certainty the success of a cause of action or the success of a defense, need to research precedents - Digests: indexes to reported cases, providing brief, unconnected statements of court holdings on points of law which are arranged by subject - Law Dictionaries: collect the definitions of legal terms in alphabetical order with citations to sources either from a statue, decision or text - Citators: research aids which provide notational information on the status of a particular case law or the current status of a statue, gives the history and the treatment of a decision or statue by means of symbols, a researcher must have citation to a decision on a principle of case law or the citation to a statute History of a decision indicates subsequent appeals, and the disposition of an appeal is indicated either as affirmed, modified, reversed, superseded or vacated
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Indexes: alphabetical lists of important words and concepts
covered in a book, or a set of books or research sources that assist the researcher in locating the primary or secondary sources - Directories: lead you to info about lawyers, law firms, law schools, law libraries, courts, or administrative agencies - Tables: alphabetical listings of case names or statues with reference to the law reports or publications where the cases or laws can be located 2.4 Opinions of Legal Experts: Manresa, Spanish Civil Code 2.5 Other State and Foreign Sources: sources can be utilized if the Philippine law was patterned after a foreign law, ex: US Consti
A Practical Companion to the Constitution: How the Supreme Court Has Ruled on Issues from Abortion to Zoning, Updated and Expanded Edition of <i>The Evolving Constitution</i>