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words can have a meaning in common law that is widely understood and accepted. In such cases, courts will adopt the common law meaning.10 For example, the Supreme Court has noted that “extortion” is a common law word, and it has interpreted that term by reference to its meaning at common law.11 c. Commonly Used Terms
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Answer. The formal written statement by a defendant in a civil case that responds to a complaint, articulating the grounds for defense. Appeal. A request made after a trial by a party that has lost on one or more issues that a higher court review the decision to determine if it was correct.
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Dec 20, 2023 · Case Reporters, Digests, & Words & Phrases. Case reporters contain court decisions and come out chronologically. They are organized topically by Digests, which track every point of law to the West Topic & Key Number system. Print digests do not exist in Westlaw, but the Topic & Key Number system is very much alive.
- Paul Callister
- 2021
- Introduction
- Finding Cases in Other Sources
- Finding Cases by Searching
- Finding Cases by Browsing
- Using a Relevant Case to Find More Cases
- Validation of Cases
- Dockets
Reading court decisions is a central part of the law school curriculum. As you’ve seen, however, the legal research process frequently begins with secondary sources and statutes, which can then lead you to relevant case law. With a few cases already in hand, you can next focus on searching for cases more directly and using them as a means for findi...
We recommend starting your research with secondary sources not only because they provide you with an overview (and sometimes an in-depth review) of the law, but also because they direct you to relevant primary sources, case law included; indeed, some secondary sources, like the American Law Reports and the Restatements, center on case law. It’s alw...
Full-text searching is perhaps the most straightforward, though not always the most efficient, way of looking for cases. It’s generally a good practice to set your jurisdiction first before running a search in the main search boxes on Westlaw and Lexis. Here are a few types of full-text searches you can run: Natural language searching: simply ty...
An alternative approach to finding cases is to browse cases by subject. Both Westlaw and Lexis classify cases by subject, allowing you to retrieve relevant cases with the click of a button. Westlaw offers subject browsing through its Key Number System, which includes hundreds of broad legal topics that are each divided into many more subtopics, oft...
Once you’ve located at least one relevant case, you can use that case to find additional relevant cases. The most obvious way to find more cases is to read the opinion and note which decisions the court cites. A second way is to use the headnotes that the editors at Westlaw and Lexis have added to the opinion. Each headnote covers what the editors ...
After finding relevant cases, it’s important to validate them to make sure they’re still good law. Citators are a useful tool for validating cases because they’re designed to list any negative treatment your case has received. The citator on Westlaw is known as KeyCite and uses a series of flags to indicate a case’s validity: Lexis’s citator is c...
While Westlaw and Lexis make available some court filings, the best way to access court dockets while in law school is through Bloomberg Law, which pulls docket information and court filings from the fee-based federal courts docket system, PACER, without charging student users a fee. The dockets search is available on the Bloomberg Law home page: ...
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Jun 23, 2022 · Legal Terms. Take The Quiz. As the nation’s highest court, the US Supreme Court takes on some of the most complex—and often the most controversial—cases. Often adding to the complexity and confusion around the cases and rulings themselves are the formal legal terms used in the justices’ written decisions—and in the analysis of them.
Apr 28, 2016 · Case law, also known as “common law,” and “case precedent,” provides a common contextual background for certain legal concepts, and how they are applied in certain types of case. How much sway case law holds may vary by jurisdiction , and by the exact circumstances of the current case.
May 2, 2024 · Legal Terminology: General Terms. Analogize: To take the facts, rationale or argument of a written decision and explain how the argument relates to your case/issue. Citation: A reference to a legal precedent or authority (primary or secondary) such as a case, statute or treatise.
