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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.
The Supreme Court uses its own unique citation style in its opinions, even though most of the justices and their law clerks obtained their legal education at law schools that use The Bluebook. [3] Furthermore, many state courts have their own citation rules that take precedence over the guide for documents filed with those courts.
First developed by Peter Birks of the University of Oxford Faculty of Law, and now in its 4th edition (2012, Hart Publishing, ISBN 978-1-84946-367-6), [1] it has been adopted by most law schools and many legal publishers in the United Kingdom. An online supplement (developed for the third edition) is available for the citation of international ...
United States Reports, the official reporter of the Supreme Court of the United States. Case citation is a system used by legal professionals to identify past court case decisions, either in series of books called reporters or law reports, or in a neutral style that identifies a decision regardless of where it is reported.
In addition to those, some law schools and paralegal schools have fully adopted ALWD. Law journals such as Animal Law, NAELA, and Legal Writing have also adopted ALWD. [5] However, a lack of reliable or recent data does not appear to exist regarding school usage. [6]
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.
In the United States, in most law schools students must learn legal writing; the courses focus on: (1) predictive analysis, i.e., an outcome-predicting memorandum (positive or negative) of a given action for the attorney's client; and (2) persuasive analysis, e.g., motions and briefs. Although not as widely taught in law schools, legal drafting ...
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."