1)Types: Primary Secondary Helpers 2)Library Books 3)Internet NY Courts Website Tanbook Citation Services 4)Computer Assisted Legal Research Resources for Legal Research
Types of Sources A.Primary B.Secondary C.Helpers 1
PRIMARY This is the actual law Constitutions Statutes Rules and Regulations Cases
Constitutions Federal New York Constitutional Law Case Law Courts’ interpretation of the constitution) PRIMARY
Statutes Federal United States Code United States Code Annotated United States Code Service PRIMARY
Statutes New York McKinney’s Consolidated Laws of NY, Annotated Consolidated Law Service PRIMARY
Rules and Regulations Federal Code of Federal Regulations New York New York Code, Rules and Regulations PRIMARY
Federal Cases Supreme Court Court of Appeals District Court PRIMARY
Federal Cases Supreme Court United States Reports Supreme Court Reporter Lawyers’ Edition 1st Series 2d Series PRIMARY
Federal Cases Court of Appeals Federal Reporter 1st series 2d series 3d series PRIMARY
Federal Cases District Court Federal Supplement 1st series 2d series PRIMARY
New York Cases Court of Appeals Appellate Division Appellate Term Trial Courts PRIMARY
New York Cases Court of Appeals New York Reports 1st series 2d series 3d Series PRIMARY
New York Cases Appellate Division Appellate Division Reports 1st series 2d series 3d Series PRIMARY
New York Cases Appellate Term & Trial Courts Miscellaneous Reports 1st series 2d series 3d Series PRIMARY
Secondary Sources of Law These are not the law (The law is found in primary) They explain the law They come from Legal Writers/Commentators Lawyers Professors
Secondary Sources of Law A.Encyclopedias B.Restatements C.Hornbooks SECONDA RY
Secondary Sources of Law A.Encyclopedias American Jurisprudence New York Jurisprudence Corpus Juris Secundum SECONDA RY
Secondary Sources of Law B.Restatements Contracts Torts Other areas SECONDA RY
Secondary Sources of Law C.Hornbooks Siegel’s New York Practice SECONDA RY
Helpers Law Dictionary New York Digests
New York Cases are published in New York Reports (NY, NY2d, NY3d) This is the official reporter New York Cases are also published in New York Supplement (NYS) Published by West This is unofficial But it contains more than just the case…. HELPER S
New York Digests The West editors take a case and adds headnotes Headnotes are a summary of a legal point made in the case There can be one to many headnotes per case it depends on how many legal points there are in a particular case HELPER S
New York Digests What do they do with all those headnotes? Each headnote gets a keynumber based on similar rules They organize them into topics and publish them in Digests Use them to find similar cases HELPER S
Books in Our Library General Federal New York 2
Books in Our Library General Corpus Jurisprudence Secundum Law Dictionary Law Thesaurus Text Books
Books in Our Library Federal US Reports & Lawyers Edition US Supreme Court Digests Code of Federal Regulations US Code & US Code Service
Books in Our Library New York McKinney’s Consolidated Laws of New York Annotated New York Supplement New York Digests
The Internet
NY Courts Website Search Engines 3
The Internet NY Courts Website New York Style Manual (Tanbook) Citation Services
The Internet Search Engines Google Bing
COMPUTER- ASSISTED LEGAL RESEARCH
On line Legal Research Services LexisNexis Westlaw 4