Legal Bibliography Outline

Materials and Federal Statutes

Authority: Primary Authority (Actual law, cases, statutes, regulations)

Secondary Authority: Everything else: Treatises, restatements, law reviews

Primary Authority: Mandatory: Court obligated to follow that ruling/Persuasive: not obligated to follow; outside jurisdiction

Constitution primary authority,



Legislative, statutes Federal and then state: Stat; USC; O.G.C.A.



Judicial authority: Cases, Supreme ct-> Federal court of appeals-> federal district court-> state supreme court-> state court of appeals-> state court. US, Fed. 3d; Ga, Ga App, S.E. 2d



Executive power-> regulations, administrative decisions: FR, C.F.R. Ga Register



Courts/Reporters:



U.S. Supreme court: U.S., S. Ct, L. Ed



Circuit court of Appeals: (F.3d)



District Courts: F. Supp



Georgia courts:



Georgia Supreme Court: Ga., S.E. 3d,



Court of Appeals: Ga. App; S.E. 3d



Superior Court: Not reported.



Federal Statutes: USCA, USCS. USCA has West topic and key #s. USCS has ALR references.



Ist # is title, then section sign, then section #. Then statutory text, and dates of amendments.

US. Code is in 50 sections by subject. Must cite to this, not to USCA/USCS.

hIVES HISTORY OF LAW, DATE OF PASSAGE, ETC. this is the thing with the pocket parts.

Also has popular name table, which helps you look up statutes by popular names.



118 Stat. 596



Volume #, then page number of statutes at large.



Cases



Headnotes, are those key thingies from the crayon case, capsule summaries of each point of the law discussed in a case.



Case citation: 1st is volume #, then the abbreviation for the book then the page #, then there are parallel citations.



There are many different reporters; Federal Reporters, Regional Reporters, State reporters, and subject reporters.



Supreme Court opinions appear in U.S. Reporter <- must cite to but don't use, 'cos out of date. Use the Supreme Court Reporter and U.S. Supreme Court, Lawyer's Edition.



For U.S. Courts of Appeal, there's the Federal Reporter, by West, District Courts are in the Federal Supplement by West publishing
For State courts, there are West Regional Reporters for Appellate cases in the state, 7 regions, each with its own reporter.

Also: There's USSCAN, United States Code
Sample Cite:

P.L. 108-39 (which means: 39th Public law passed during 108th congress)

25 U.S.C.A. 1401 is in title 25, page 1401

Digests:

What is a digest? It's a topical/index arrangement of cases. There are jurisdictional specific (state) sets and Federal sets.
The Federal practice digest covers all federal courts
There's a separate Supreme court Digest.
Regions? 4 regional digests. The SouthEast, North East, Atlantic, and Pacific.
(Remember: 7 regional reporters)

These contain: Descriptive word index and a table of cases. using the Table of cases, one can find the topic and key #s. You need BOTH the topic and Key 3.

Update with pocket parts.



Citators



American Law Reports



Secondary Sources and GIL



Administrative Publications



Georgia Materials