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Basic Terms to Know When Using Legal Information

Jurisdiction: Jurisdiction determines which court or government agency has the legal authority to hear and resolve a legal dispute. Broadly, jurisdiction is usually either state (e.g. divorce, child custody, eviction) or federal (e.g. copyright or patent, bankruptcy). Some subjects can be heard by either state or federal courts (e.g. civil rights, FMLA and employment law).

Cases: Cases are disputes which are brought to a court to be resolved. They can be either civil (Smith v. Jones) or criminal (State v. Smith, or People v. Jones) in nature. “Case” is also an informal term for a court’s “opinion” or explanation of the law that applies to the case, usually from an appellate court (trials don’t have opinions, they have jury verdicts).

Statutes: Statutes are laws which are enacted by a legislative body. They are a primary source of law, the legislature creates them and the courts are responsible for interpreting them via cases. Statutes are published chronologically and have titles like Public Acts, Laws, or Statutes at Large. Most researchers will use the subject arrangement of the statutes, called codes.

Codes: Legal codes contain mandatory statutes, regulations or ordinances – everyone must follow them. Indexes enable you to access particular sections of a code by referring you to numbered sections. Pocket parts or other supplements are used to keep them up to date. There are many types of codes, ranging from city and county codes, to building codes and codes created by administrative agencies.

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On the federal side, the United States Code or U.S.C. contains federal laws arranged by subject. Commercially published versions called United States Code Annotated (U.S.C.A.) and United States Code Service (U.S.C.S.) are frequently used and should be identical to the U.S.C. Colorado’s state laws are published as Colorado Revised Statutes.

Most state and federal codes can be accessed online for free.

Court rules: Court rules vary from one court to another – they detail how a case gets to the court and how it will be resolved once it is there. Court rules will cover deadlines, procedures for how documents will be formatted, etc.

Citations and abbreviations: The core citation to a case includes its volume number, book/publication and page number. The names of the parties involved and the year the case was decided are also often included.

For example, the citation Wimberly v. Ettenberg, 194 Colo. 163 (1977) would refer to volume 194 of the Colorado Reporter, page 163. The case was brought by Wimberly against Ettenberg, and was decided in 1977.

State statutes are usually cited by title, article and section number. In the Colorado Revised Statutes the citation 15-16-101 would refer to Title 15, Article 16, Section 101 (Duty to register trusts). The U.S. code is cited as Title, Section and date. For example: 17 U.S.C. 106 (2000).

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Texts and treatises: These are books that cover a specific topic in the law. West’s Nutshell Series and Nolo Press books are written with the non-lawyer in mind and can be very helpful even for a lawyer who is unfamiliar with a particular topic. Multivolume treatises will focus on a specific topic in a more comprehensive manner and are more likely to be held by a law library. The majority of treatises are only available in print format or in expensive commercial databases.

Legal encyclopedias: If you are unfamiliar with a particular topic, a good place to find basic information is a legal encyclopedia. There are two national legal encyclopedias: 1) Corpus Juris Secundum (often referred to as C.J.S.) and American Jurisprudence 2d (often referred to as Am. Jur.). Simply look up keywords/synonyms for your specific topic in the index, which can be found at the end of the encyclopedia set. After you find a keyword, go to the encyclopedia volume specified – the text will discuss the topic on a general level and provide you with citations to other sources that you may find helpful. A less detailed work often found in non-law libraries, West’s Legal Encyclopedia may also be a helpful place to get background information on a legal topic. Most legal encyclopedias can only be accessed in print format.

Articles: Periodicals like law reviews and journals can be very useful when researching a legal topic. Use the Index to Legal Periodicals (Wilson) or LegalTrac (Gale) to find articles on your topic. Many law reviews and journal can be accessed via online subscriptions – contact your local law library to determine if specific materials can be accessed electronically if you prefer that format. You may also find articles from leading journals in general academic databases.

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Reports or reporters: These volumes contain the opinions written by a court or set of courts. Generally, only opinions issued by the appeals court or supreme court of a particular jurisdiction are contained in the reporters - there are too many cases brought and decided at the lowest levels of the court systems for each and every case to be reported. Note that if a case was not appealed (and therefore not in a reporter), then the best place to obtain information about it is from the court where the trial was held. The reported cases discuss the particular set of facts at issue, how the court applied the applicable law(s) and their ultimate decision. Other courts will use these reported cases to decide similar cases, such that there will be consistency between similar legal situations. Depending on your local law library’s subscriptions, you may be able to access the opinions in certain reporters electronically.

Citators: Citators are used to make sure that a particular law or case is still “good law.” If a case has been overruled or a statute has been ruled unconstitutional, it will no longer be considered good law and should not be cited. Citators such as Shepard’s (from LexisNexis) and KeyCite (from Westlaw) are two services that check the status of a case or code section. Both services also tell you what later cases have cited the particular case or code section you are interested in.

A Note: Please note that while many of the above resources are related to government documents, they are not part of the category of “government documents” which are actually published by the federal government.