Legal Systems and Sources Study Guild

1. what laws do the legislative branch enact?

statutes

2. what laws does the executive branch enact?

executive orders and agency regulations

3. what laws does the judicial branch enact?

case law and judicial opinions

4. what is primary authority?

law from any branch of government (not necessarily binding, state or federal)

5. what is secondary authority?

commentary or analysis about the law (law review articles, treatises, encyclopedias, leg history)

6. what is binding authority?

law from within governing jurisdiction that the court must follow

7. what is persuasive authority?

can be primary or secondary, but not binding (the court may follow if well reasoned)

8. what type of jurisdiction do state courts have

broad subject matter

9. what does "unified system" mean?

decision of one is binding on all

10. what are the unified systems for wisconsin?

Wisconsin Court of Appeals (4 districts) bind every other wis district court of appeals

11. what type of jurisdiction do federal courts have?

limited subject matter jurisdiction (FQ, diversity)

12. what do judicial opinions do?

create law or precedent by applying existing law to a new set of facts, interpret and apply statutes or regulations

13. what is dicta

assertions or statements made by court that were not necessary to holding (can be persuasive, but is not binding)

14. what does "stare decisis" mean

to stand by things decided- requires court to follow its own prior decisions or decisions of higher courts in same jurisdiction when faced with same legal issue

15. what is precedent

binding prior court decision

16. who are decisions of US Supreme Court binding on?

binding on all courts in all jurisdictions on matters of constitutional and federal law. NOT binding on issues of state law

17. what are federal appellate courts bound by?

Federal appellate decisions do not bind each other. Only the U.S. Supreme court binds federal appellate courts (as well as the precedent set by that federal appellate court). This can result in circuit splits.

18. what are federal district courts bound by?

bound by decisions from their own circuit court of appeals, US Supreme Court on issues of federal law

19. what is the "highest court rule?"

FED COURTS ONLY BOUND BY DECISION OF STATE HIGHEST COURT ON ISSUES OF STATE LAW (us sc only bound by wisc sc on state law) STATE COURTS ONLY BOUND BY DECISIONS OF US SC ON FEDERAL LAW (wisc supreme court only bound by us sc on fed law) a state's highest court (usually, alled the Supreme Court of state) is only bound by the U.S. Supreme Court on issues of federal law Note: the state's highest court is not bound by circuit court decisions on issues of federal law. (e.g., Wis. Supreme Court isn't bound by 7th Circuit decisions) & the U.S. Supreme Court is only bound by decisions of the State Supreme Courts on issues of State law Note: the U.S. Supreme Court isn't bound by any appellate court opinions on issues of state law.

20. what is an en banc opinion?

all judges hear a case

21. what is a per curiam opinion?

judicial opinion by a court with multiple judges without citing any single judge as the author.

22. what is a natural language search?

descriptive word search

23. what do you use quotation marks for in legal research?

to make search engine read the terms as a phrase ("probable cause")

24. what do you use exclamation point for in legal research?

to put at the end of a root word to capture all variations (enforc!)

25. what do you use asterik for in legal research?

to capture a one character variation of words (m*n = men and man)

26. how to search word1 within 3 words of word2

word1 / 3 word2 how to search word1 in same paragraph as word2,wor1 /p word2

27. what is a legal encylopedia?

provides general overview/basic information on a topic summarizes law and cites to primary authority

28. what are the two major legal encylopedias?

american jurisprudence and corpus juris secundum

29. what is a treatise?

scholarly work that contains critical commentary and analysis of law (frequently cited as persusasive)- most comprehensive discussion or explanation of a topic

30. what are practice manuals?

focus on specific state, practice area or topic, geared towards practitioners

31. what is a restatement of the law?

compilations of rules and commentary prepared by American Law Institute to synthesize and restate principles of law (can become binding if adopted by a state)

32. what is the American Law Reports?

collection of cases across the US on specific legal topics (provide good overview of topic and how courts have ruled on issue)

33. what is a legal periodical?

combination of law review articles and bar journal articles - provide details information about a specific area of law

34. are law review articles scholarly or practical?

scholarly

35. are bar journal articles scholarly or practical

practical

36. what are loose-leaf services?

a variety of materials about a particular SPECIALTY

37. what are hornbooks?

shorter treatises

38. what are attorney general opinions good for?

helpful in cases involving statutory interpretation

39. what are uniform acts/model codes

proposed statutes that can be adopted

40. what are digests?

collections of short case abstracts, summaries and annotations arranged alphabetically by subject matter west law key #'s and lexis browse topics are equivalents good for finding case law by topic

41. where are constitutions published?

within applicable statutory code (US Code, applicable state code)

42. what kind of source is an administrative regulation implementing a

statute?

primary

43. what kind of source is legislative history?

secondary

44. what contains references to implementing regulations and interpretive

cases?

editorial notes/case annotations

45. where can you find administrative regulations

code of federal regulations (the administrative code)(C.F.R.)

46. where can you find newly promulgated regulations?

federal register

47. what do administrative decisions by ALJs do?

show how regulations have been interpreted

48. what is a municipal charter

document that sets forth authority/power of municipality (authorizes

local agencies to promulgate regulations)

49. what is foreign law?

law on non-US countries

50. what is international law?

law governing interactions between countries

51. where is trbal/indian/native american law derived from?

federal statutes

52. where are executive orders published?

first in federal register, then code of federal regulations (like administrative regulations)

53. where are cases published?

chronologically in reporters

54. where are US Supreme court cases published?

US Reports (U.S.)

55. what are the other unofficial reports US Supreme court cases are published

in?

Supreme Court Reporter (S. Ct.) and United States Supreme Court Reports, Lawyers Edition (L. Ed., L. Ed. 2d)

56. where are federal circuit courts of appeals cases published?

federal reporter

(F.,)(F., 2d)-> circuit #

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57. where are federal district court cases published?

federal supplement (F. Supp.,)

58. where are state appellate court decisions published?

official state reporters which

compile decisions by report, regional reporters which compile decisions by region

59. where are wisconsin cases published? (official and regional)

Wisconsin Reports

(official state report -> Wis. 2d) and North Western Reporter (N.W.2d)

60. when does public domain format apply?

in cases decided on or after 01/01/2000

61. what does a citator do?

ensures legal authorities are still valid and finds other cases that have cited

a legal authority

62. what is lexis citator?

shepard's

63. what is westlaw citator

keycite

64. what is bloombergs citator?

Bcite

65. what does a red authority citator mean?

authority has been invalidated, at least in part

(might be able to use)

66. what does a yellow/orange citator mean?

authority has some negative treatment even

though it has not been invalidated

67. road to a statute being published

BILL -> SLIP LAW -> SESSION LAW -> STATUTE

68. what is a slip law

a statute that has just been enacted and is published on its own

69. what is a session law

chronological compilation of statutes enacted during same legislative session

70. where are session laws published?

United States Statutes at Large

71. what is a statutory code?

compilation of statutes organized by subject matter

72. what is the federal statutory code

United States Code

73. what is the state statutory code

applicable state code lol

74. where do state agency regulations appear?

state administrative codes

75. what type of authority are administrative decisions interpreting regulations

by ALJs

persuasive

76. what is a statutory scheme?

multiple interrelated statutory sections

77. what is the structure of a statute

TITLE -> CHAPTER/ARTICLE -> SECTIONS

78. what is the title of a statute

a group of statutes organized by topic

79. what are red flag words

words that expand, restrict, or order the elements of factors in a statute

(relationship words)

80. how do courts determine legislative intent?

intrinsic evidence, extrinsic evidence and policy

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81. what is intrinsic evidence of legislative intent?

clues from within the statutory text itself

(word choice, syntax, punctuation, grammar)