Chapter 1
A- Summary of Basic American Legal Principles
1- Common Law; the requirement that courts follow decisions of higher level courts within the same jurisdiction
i. Stare decisis
2- Court Hierarchy
i. Binding effect
3- Jurisdiction
i. Formal power of a court to exercise judicial authority over a particular matter
ii. Being within or beyond the jurisdiction of any governmental entity
iii. Geographic distribution of courts of particular levels
1. Court of Appeals divided into 13 courts
2. 94 district courts
4- Primary v. Secondary Authority
i. primary law can be either mandatory or persuasive
ii. secondary is never mandatory
5- Legal system is based on a system of federalism
i. individual states retain powers not specifically enumerated as exclusively federal
6- Common Law v. Civil Law
i. Common law looks to court precedent
ii. Civil law looks more to codes—many times rules of decision for many specific disputes are provided
7- Case law or judge-made law
i. Case law may be of several general types:
1. Pure decisional
a. decide cases on prior court decisions and/or policy
2. Case law based on constitutional provisions
3. Case law based on statutory provisions
ii. subsequent case history
1. what a higher level court has done with respect to a lower-level court decision on appeal
2. the opinion and holding of the higher level court that will constitute the precedent in the case
iii. subsequent case treatment
1. subsequent case treatment is what other cases have said about the initial case
8- American Judicial System
i. It is adversarial and based on the premise that a real, live dispute on genuine controversy
ii. Principal prerequisites to court review
1. standing
2. finality
3. exhaustion
4. ripeness
5. mootness
6. no political questions
9- Dictum
i. Portions of the opinion not required for the resolution of the precise issues before the court on the facts presented by the parties are of diminished precedential value
10- Judge
i. Bench trial
11- Sources of Law
i. Primary and secondary sources
1. constitutions
2. statutes
3. rules, regulations, and orders
4. executive orders and proclamations
5. case law/common law
a. treatises
b. hornbooks
c. legal encyclopedias
d. restatements
e. law reviews
f. American law reports
g. Additional secondary authorities; looseleaf services, practice guides, and form books
ii. Federal and state
12- Stare Decisis
i. Stare decisis does not apply to authority that is merely “persuasive”
ii. Based on two factors:
1. jurisdiction
a. geographic region from which the
to use:
1. pick a topic
2. go to that topic
3. review outline under your chosen topic
4. select potentially relevant headnotes to review
5. caution: many topics and/or key numbers
b. They do not have any persuasive authority and may not be cited for any reason
c. Difference between digests and reporters
i. Digests used to find cases
ii. Reporters are volumes that contain the cases themselves
d. West Digest are organized by jurisdiction and chronologically
B- Shepard’s Citators
a. It is a commercial service that allows the user to update cases found by finding other cases
i. Finding tools, and may not be quoted, cited, or relied upon
ii. Purpose of Citator
1. case verification
2. case treatment
3. case research
4. parallel citations
C- Finding Additional Cases through known information
D- Updating case law
a. Ensure that you have updated your research
i. Has it been overruled
ii. The persuasive effect of your work will be heightened by using the most current applicable case law
E- Dictum
It is part of the
