Winning Research Skills - Westlaw

Fundamentals of Statutory Law
For statutory research, you will probably want to use an annotated code, which contains the
same text and title and section numbers as the official USC, and also provides notes of cases that
have construed the statutes and references to regulations and secondary sources. An annotated
code includes cross-references to related sections within the code and refers you to the research
tools provided by its publisher.
United States Code
The USC is published by the U.S. Government Printing Office. The set is recompiled every six
years, using the same 50 subject categories or titles. Congress has deemed the USC to be prima
facie evidence of the law. While the USC has the advantage of being official, the unofficial USCA
is a more helpful research tool.
The USC and the USCA each contain the text of the law. However, the USC does not give
citations to cases that have interpreted the statutes. Moreover, the USC may not be as current as
you need. It is reissued every six years, with cumulative annual supplements between the new
editions. In reality, the annual cumulative supplements do not appear in the library until eight
months to two years have passed. Therefore, if you rely only on the USC, you will miss current
laws, amendments, and deletions.
Note that both The Bluebook and the ALWD Citation Manual recommend citing the official
code when possible.
United States Code Annotated
The USCA is an excellent example of the West publishing philosophy. West believes in providing
as much information as possible and giving researchers tools that help them use that information
efficiently and effectively. The USCA fills more than 200 volumes and provides researchers with
citations to cases and a wide variety of other references. Because the statutory text is editorially
enhanced with notes and references to other research materials, the USCA is easy to use and an
entry to a system of statutory research.
Directly following the text of the statute in the USCA, you find the history of the statute. It
indicates, in parentheses, when the law was originally passed and when it was amended or
repealed. It provides citations to the origin of the text in the Statutes at Large as well as
references to amendments. The historical notes also provide detailed information regarding
specific textual changes. All this information can be extremely helpful when a law has gone
through several revisions.
The USCA provides cross-references to related and qualifying laws. Other references indicate
where corresponding legislative history can be located in USCCAN. In addition, you will find
citations to the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), which is the official regulatory code.
The Library References section provides applicable West topics and key numbers and citations
to Corpus Juris Secundum (CJS), a West legal encyclopedia. West’s topics and key numbers give
you access points into the West digests. The USCA also contains references to other relevant
materials published by West, such as West’s Federal Forms.
The USCA is known for its abundance of annotations of court and administrative decisions.
Annotations are one-sentence summaries, written by West attorney-editors, that indicate how
courts or administrative bodies have interpreted a law. The case citation appears at the end of
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