Winning Research Skills - Westlaw
Winning Research Skills - Westlaw
Winning Research Skills - Westlaw
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Chapter 13<br />
Secondary Sources, News, and<br />
Nonlegal Materials on <strong>Westlaw</strong><br />
The materials discussed in preceding chapters have been primary legal sources, i.e., case law,<br />
legislative materials, and administrative law. In this chapter, we’ll introduce you to other important<br />
and useful research sources that are available on <strong>Westlaw</strong>, such as legal periodicals, encyclopedias,<br />
restatements, treatises, forms books and other practice guides, legal dictionaries, news, and business<br />
and financial information. Because good lawyers become expert at gleaning the information they<br />
need from a variety of sources, you’ll do well to develop these skills while you are in law school.<br />
Secondary Sources<br />
Legal research materials that are primarily explanatory or descriptive in nature are commonly<br />
referred to as secondary sources. Consulting secondary sources will frequently be an important<br />
component of your legal research, for several reasons:<br />
■ Secondary sources such as legal encyclopedias provide summaries of legal principles and overviews<br />
of legal theories and doctrines, which can be especially helpful when you are researching unfamiliar<br />
areas of law.<br />
■ Secondary sources such as articles in law reviews and professional journals often provide extensive,<br />
nuanced discussion of complex, unusual, or emerging topics.<br />
■ Because many secondary sources contain numerous citations to primary law, they can help you<br />
identify leading cases and statutes.<br />
■ Periodicals with a relatively short publication cycle, such as bar association publications,<br />
professional journals, newsletters, and legal newspapers, can help you follow developments in the<br />
law and the legal profession.<br />
■ Secondary sources such as practice guides and forms books are often excellent resources for tools<br />
such as forms templates, sample letters, suggested questions for a deposition or cross-examination,<br />
model jury instructions, and concise explanations of rules of procedure, burdens of proof, or<br />
elements of a crime.<br />
A few of the most frequently used <strong>Westlaw</strong> databases containing information from secondary<br />
sources are described in this chapter. For a complete, current list of the many legal text and<br />
periodical resources available on <strong>Westlaw</strong>, refer to the <strong>Westlaw</strong> Directory.<br />
<strong>Winning</strong> <strong>Research</strong> <strong>Skills</strong> 177
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