SLOAN CHAPTER 5 A. Citators: catalog cases and secondary sources in order to help you determine whether an authority is still good law. Shepard’s and Key Cites B. How to Shepardize in print for case research: 1. Locate the correct set of books Federal Cases – Shepard’s United States Citations U.S District Ct. or Ct. of Appeals – Shepard’s Federal Citations Any State Court o There is a separate set for each state o There is a separate set for each region 2. Locate the correct volume There are no pocket parts Shepard’s volumes cover a specific period of time So to update a case from the time it was decided to the present, you need to look up the citation in a series of non-cumulative texts Do this by looking at the most recent supplement and looking up the citation in every volume listed in the section “What Your Library Should Contain”. (Look at pg 127) 3. Locate the entry for the case within each volume Organized first by reporter volume number Then by starting page number of each case 4. Interpret the entries First entry is the parallel cite to another reporter Entries begin by citing the history of the case After come the citations to the case Cases are in the following order if shepardizing a state case: 1. cases in the same state 2. federal cases listed by circuit 3. cases from other states listed alphabetically by state C. It is important to do a citatory search at the beginning stage of your research to know if you are using good law. D. Shepardizing Electronically: serves same function as above - to tell you if you are using good law LexisNexis uses the Shepardize function Westlaw uses the KeyCites function. SLOAN CHAPTER 6 Publication of Statutory Law: 1. Published as a separate document called slip law 2. publiv laws for a session of Congress are compiled chronologically in a book called United States Statutes at Large. 3. Session laws are reorganized by subject and placed within the code (codified).
Official Code: United States Code – published by the government and is unannotated. Unofficial Code: United States Code Annotated and United States Code Service – both are annotated.
Researching Federal Statutes in the USCA 1. Use the general index 2. locate statutes and read annotations 3. Update research with pocket parts 4. Updated research with supplementary pamphlets: these are noncumulative so you must look up your code section in each pamphlet published since the pocket part. More Statutory Research Tools in the USCA If you know the popular name of a statute, you can the Popular Name Table in the back of the general index If you know the Public Law Number of a statute, you can use the conversion table Using the other books: 1. USC: Index and main volumes are published every six years, no pocket parts, but there is a yearly supplement. So, it is not the best place to get the most up do date info. 2. USCS: very similar to USCA, less references to court decisions but more references to administrative materials. However, the supplements are cumulative so you only need to look up your statute in the most recent one. 3. State Codes: Usually the same process, but can vary slightly from state to state. Shepard’s for Statutes 1. Locate the correct set of books 2. Locate the correct volumes within the set 3. Locate entries for the statute within each volume 4. Interpret the entries Elecronic Research of Statutes: Lexis derives the code from USCS Westlaw derives the code from USCA Internet Sources: on government websites, usually a cheaper way to look up statutes, but there are no annotations.