Legal Writing Outline

LEGAL RESEARCH
 
Chapter 1
I.                    Primary sources of law:
a.       These are made up of:
                                                               i.      Enacted laws
                                                             ii.      Case law
b.      For research, we are to always go with Enacted laws first and then use case law to interpret the law because the US is a Common law state. In the absence of relevant enacted law, we are to use case law.
 
II.                  A:    Vertical court system:
·         Each state (including the District of Columbia) and the Federal govt. has a set of courts within its jurisdiction.
·         Courts of ORIGINAL JURISDICTION: Courts in which the litigated began.
·         Courts of INFERIOR JURISDICTION: Courts which are at the lowest rung of the hierarchy within a jurisdiction. They can only hear certain kinds of cases and are do not set precedent. They are also sometimes less formal than the higher level courts. E.g., the Traffic court or the Small claims court
·         Courts of GENERAL JURISDICTION: These are also known as Trial courts and are above the courts of Inferior Jurisdiction. These courts hear cases on all subject matter. Trial court is responsible for determining the facts of the case.
·         APPELLATE Courts:
o   Intermidiate Appellate court.
o   Highest court of Appeals or COURT OF LAST RESORT.
·         With regards to STATE LAW, there is no further appeal of the decision of a STATE’s COURT of LAST RESORT with regard to matters of STATE LAW.
·         Jurisdiction can be related to geographical areas such as a state but it can also be used to define specific subject matter. E.g., the IP law
 
B:            Federal court system:
Lowest court – US district courts – at least 1 district court within each state
Intermediate courts – US Court of appeals – 13 circuits
Highest court – US Supreme courts – hear about 90 – 100 cases, and they received request for writs that number in the thousands.
* Illinois is part of the 7th circuit.
·         Federal circuit hears appeals on specialized subjects from district courts (on subjects like patent law, trade issues, etc).
·         State court system:
Lowest court – Circuit courts (Illinois circuit courts)
Intermediate court – Appellate court (Illinois appellate courts)
Highest court – Usually called the Supreme Court (Supreme Court of Illinois)
 
* Always know what the names of the courts are within systems.
 
Precedent and Stare Decisis (court should follow common law precedents):
·         Stare Decisis means that courts are supposed to follow decisions in earlier cases called precedent.
·         Courts are must follow decisions of higher courts within its system and its own decisions.
·         Binding and Persuasive Authority
 
* A Trial court does not have to be bound by the decisions of other trial courts within their system but it is bound by its own decisions.
 
State Courts: Bound by all superior courts within the same system.
 
Federal courts:
·         Bound by its own decisions and decisions from CERTAIN higher federal courts.
·         Fed Courts within a circuit are bound by decisions from higher courts made in that circuit but not that of other circuits. The other district’s decisions are considered persuasive authority.
·         All courts are bound by the decision of the US Supreme court. Supreme courts also step in to clarify issues that occur between the US court of appeals fr