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The most common sources of authority cited are court decisions (cases), statutes, regulations, government documents, treaties, and scholarly writing. Typically, a proper legal citation will inform the reader about a source's authority, how strongly the source supports the writer's proposition, its age, and other, relevant information.
By 2011, The Bluebook was "the main guide and source of authority" on legal references for the past 90 years. [25] It is recognized as the "gold standard" for legal references in the United States, even though it was originally designed only to help teach law students how to cite cases and other legal material. [26]
Some sources attempt mainly to state what the law itself says. Some other sources attempt to state the effect of the law, such as a source about social effects or impacts arising from the implementation of a law, a source about a policy recommendation that in someone's opinion should be embodied in a law, a source about the legislative process, or a source on constitutional history.
Sources of law are the origins of laws, the binding rules that enable any state to govern its territory. The terminology was already used in Rome by Cicero as a metaphor referring to the "fountain" ("fons" in Latin) of law. Technically, anything that can create, change, or cancel any right or law is considered a source of law. [1]
Legalese is characterized by a shift in priority towards the former of these concerns. For example, legalese commonly uses doublets and triplets of words (e.g., "null and void" and "dispute, controversy, or claim") which may appear redundant or unnecessary to laymen, but to a lawyer might reflect an important reference to distinct legal concepts.
Keyword searches in databases may also be a challenge, because people may describe legal concepts in varying ways. "Issue spotting" is a skill that lawyers home in law school and throughout their careers as they gain experience. For the layperson, reading secondary sources, such as books and journal articles, can help.
Legal research is "the process of identifying and retrieving information necessary to support legal decision-making. In its broadest sense, legal research includes each step of a course of action that begins with an analysis of the facts of a problem and concludes with the application and communication of the results of the investigation."
Winterton, Jules; Moys, Elizabeth M (editors). Information Sources in Law. Second Edition. Bowker-Saur. 1997. ISBN 1 85739 041 5. Preview from Google Books. De Gruyter. Munday, Roderick. "Book Reviews" (1986) 45 Cambridge Law Journal 357 - 358. JSTOR. "Information Sources in Law, editor: R G Logan". The Law Society Gazette. 10 September 1986 ...