|
GENERAL GUIDELINES FOR RESEARCH
Step One: Determine your legal issue: Negligence, Personal Injury,
Defamation, Worker's Compensation, Divorce, etc.
Step Two: Does your issue involve Federal or State Law? Locate both
Codes, and search the Index for your subject
Step Three:
What level in the Court system pertains to your issue? Is
it a criminal or a civil matter? Will you bring it in Small Claims, Municipal,
Superior, Appellate, or the Supreme Court? You are you looking for relevant material
in the highest court in which your issue can be raised?
Step Four:
Examine a Legal Encyclopedia and/or Legal Dictionary for additional keywords to
use in your search. Make a list of the words you find
Step Five: Armed with your list of keywords, look for some hornbooks
written about your subject. Or, examine the ALRs, law review articles, or the
Restatements. Ask the Librarian to point these books out to you, or look in the
library's catalog
Step Six: Finally, read some of the articles and cases you
are finding
OVERVIEW
We are going to walk through the Law Library so that you'll be comfortable
when you search for legal materials
Every county has a "County Law Library," which is open to the public.
These libraries are not usually restricted to members of the legal profession.
You can find your by looking in your local telephone book
When you get to the library, introduce yourself to the Reference
Librarian. Ask for a map of the books in the library. With this map in hand, you
are on your way to finding the information you need
STATE AND FEDERAL LAWS
Law libraries divide their materials into two major sections - one section
for State law and the other for Federal law
If you are seeking information regarding a matter which pertains to civil
rights, tax, or bankruptcy, your references will be located in the Federal
section
On the other hand, if you are looking for the law about personal injury,
family matters, or worker's compensation, etc. you will want to look in the
California section
CAVEAT: It is simplistic to say that all the materials in the library
pertain only to federal or state matters because this is not true. There are
many resources regarding Administrative law, Contracts, Municipal Court and
local Ordinances, as well as forms and procedural issues, etc. But, for this
introduction to legal research, and for the purposes of this Web page, we will
stick to the State (California) and Federal laws
KEYWORDS
- Put your issue into words. State it as a
question
- Keep a list of the keywords you see repeated as you
research
- Use these keywords to find other words
WORD ASSOCIATION
Write your subject down, and then list beneath
it:
Remember, you are researching a subject area - you are not researching the total topic
Most of all - Have fun with legal researching!
COURT STRUCTURE
In order to
competently locate
resources in a law library, you must have some idea of the structure of the
Court and the Judicial System
There are three branches of government:
- Legislative Branch - creates the law
- Executive Branch - enforces the law
- Judicial Branch - interprets the law
In the Federal and the California systems, the law is found in "Codes,"
however, many States refer to their laws as Statutes. For our purposes here, we
will use the terms interchangeably
The separation of the three branches of government is not always clear.
For instance, in addition to enforcing the law, the Executive Branch can create
rules and regulations with regard to administrative procedures, which the
Judicial Branch will interpret
JURISDICTION
The filing of a complaint initiates a court action. However, you are not
permitted to start your action in any court you wish. The complaint must be
filed in the proper jurisdiction. There are two types of jurisdiction, and the
Court you file in must have both types
SUBJECT-MATTER
JURISDICTION: Occurs when a court has the authority to make a decision
on the matter that has been raised in the initiating pleading
PERSONAL JURISDICTION: Occurs when the person who did
NOT bring the lawsuit (usually called the Defendant) lives, or has a business
within the court's geographical area
VENUE
In California, the lawsuit must be brought in the county where the
Defendant lives, or the county in which the cause of action arose
WHICH COURT WILL HEAR THE CASE - STATE OR FEDERAL?
The answer depends on whether one of the courts has exclusive jurisdiction
over the subject-matter or the amount of damages involved. It also depends on
where the parties live
CALIFORNIA STATE
COURTS
Superior Court:
There are six superior court districts, each of which has from four to
twenty-three counties. The Superior Court has general subject matter
jurisdiction for various civil and criminal cases. Most lawsuits begin in the
Superior Court. This is where the litigation occurs. A case that is lost in the
Superior Court may be appealed to the California Court of Appeal
Court of Appeal: This is a court of review, not litigation. This
court reads the "record" from the Superior Court, but does not consider any
additional evidence or testimony
The Court of Appeal has the power to reverse or affirm the lower court's
ruling, or send the case (or parts of the case) back to the original court for
clarification. An appeal from this court goes to the State Supreme Court
Supreme Court:
This is the highest State court in California. Like the Court of Appeal, the
Supreme Court is a review court and does not hear any additional testimony. The
Court reviews what happened in the Superior Court, and makes a determination as
to whether the ruling in the Court of Appeal was, based on the evidence, correct
When the Supreme Court makes its decision, it is final. The only recourse
is to tender an appeal to the United States (federal) Supreme Court. However,
the appeal can only be filed if the issue in the case pertains to federal law
FEDERAL COURTS
There are usually three reasons a case why a case will be brought in the
Federal Court: the issue involves federal law, it raises a question regarding
the interpretation of the U. S. Constitution, or it involves parties from more
than one state with an amount in question over $50,000
District Court: The United States is divided into judicial
districts. The boundaries of the districts are relevant to population, not to
the boundaries of the States. The federal district courts are trial-level
courts, similar to the State's superior courts. In California, an appeal from
the federal district court is filed in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals
Court of Appeals: The federal districts are regrouped into
circuits, and each circuit has a court of appeals that hears all the appeals
from the circuit. Also, similar to its counterpart in the State, the Court of
Appeals is a review court, not a trial court. Appeals from the Circuit Courts of
Appeals are heard in the United States Supreme Court
United States Supreme Court: This is the ONLY court that gets its
authority from the Constitution. It hears appeals from the Circuit Courts of
Appeals and State Supreme Courts, as well as where it has jurisdiction, such as
an appeal from a death sentence, or an unresolved issue between two States
AUTHORITY
Primary Authority: In dealing with legal materials, primary
resources are limited
The main categories include the Constitution of the United States and the
Constitutions of the individual States, the actual Codes and/or Statutes (not
the annotations or summaries that usually accompany these resources). and Court
Decisions (commonly referred to as "Case law")
Secondary Authority: All the rest of the legal materials housed in
the law library
|
