legal research and writing welcome to my website on legal research and writing. I have created this website with the encouragement of irwin law to support my book published by them, legal research and writing. Available on this site are links of interest mentioned in my book, along with some basic information on legal research and writing.

I welcome comments and questions by email here but realize that i cannot provide legal advice or conduct research on your behalf. Ted tjaden toronto, ontario custom google search of canadian law firms, blogs and journal websites. Sometimes you need to look up a law to get an answer to your legal question.

As with every other area of life, legislation comes with some jargon that, once mastered, should come in handy when you're trying to understand the law. Here are some terms you may encounter when researching federal or state statutes: annotated codes: publications that combine state or federal statutes with summaries of cases that have interpreted the statutes. With a few rare exceptions, annotated codes are only available in a law library or on subscriber based legal websites. bill : what a statute is called when it is introduced in congress or a state legislature. When a bill is passed by both houses and the president or a state governor, it becomes a law and will usually be published according to its bill number in a publication called session laws or statutes at large.

The number really has two parts: the abbreviation for the specific wing of the legislature in which the bill is introduced, as in hb house bill or sb senate bill , and the number which identifies the particular bill, as in hb 1507. chapter: a term that identifies a group of related state or federal statutes that have been gathered together within a particular title or code. chaptered: a bill becomes chaptered if it is approved by the legislature and signed by the governor. citation: formal references to statutes that describe where they are published. § 1185 tells us that this cited statute is section 1185 of title 23 of the vermont statutes annotated. And the federal citation 42 u.s.c.§ 1395 tells us that this cited federal statute can be found in title 42, section 1395 of the united states code. code: in general, the term code refers to the main body of statutes of the jurisdiction for example, the united states code or the arizona revised statutes.

The statutes that are published in a state’s code are grouped by subject matter into titles. In some states, including california, texas and new york, the term code may be used both to refer to the overall collection of statutes and the separate subject matter groupings of statutes, as in penal code, family code, or probate code. engrossed: a bill is engrossed when a legislative body such as the house votes to approve it and sends it on to the other legislative body such as the senate. enrolled: a bill is enrolled when both houses of a legislative body have voted to approve it and it has been sent to the executive branch the president or a state governor for signing. legislative history: assorted materials generated in the course of creating legislation, including committee reports, analysis by legislative counsel, floor debates, and a history of actions taken. Legislative history for recently enacted federal statutes can be found at session laws: when bills become law, they are published in a text according to the session of the legislature that enacted them into law.

For instance, laws passed by the california legislature in 19 were passed in the 19 20 session. The individual laws in the publication for a particular session such as session laws 19 20 can be found according to their original bill number. statutory schemes: groups of statutes that relate to one particular subject. For instance, all of the federal statutes that make up title vii of the civil rights act which forbids employment discrimination and sexual harassment are known as a statutory scheme because they are all related to each other. title: in the federal system and in some states, title is used to denote a collection of state or federal statutes by subject matter, as in title 11 of the u.s. Title is also used to denote a group of statutes within a larger set of statutes, as in title ix of the civil rights act which itself is located in title 42 of the u.s.

Back to top when people talk about what the law says or what the law is, they are generally referring to statutes sometimes called codes. Congress and by our state legislators, attempt to lay out the ground rules of the law. When disputes arise over the meaning of statutes, state and federal courts issue court opinions that interpret the statutes more clearly. In addition, numerous federal and state agencies, such as the environmental protection agency, the irs, and the various secretary of state's offices, issue regulations that cover the legal areas that the agencies control such as environmental law, federal taxes, and corporations law. There are two main ways to find a particular state or federal statute on a state's website by doing a search or by browsing the table of contents. Not all states allow you to do a search, but for those that do, simply enter a few terms that relate to the subject you're looking for. For instance, in you're looking for the minimum number of directors that your state requires a corporation to have, you might enter the terms corporation and director.

To do a good search you need to anticipate the words used in the statutes you are searching. For instance, if you are looking for a statute regarding drunk driving in a car, you might choose to use the search terms vehicle and under the influence. If that search pulled up hundreds of statutes, you probably want to narrow the search instead of reading each statute. On the other hand, if the search doesn’t pull up any statutes, you probably want to broaden the search by using fewer search terms.

However, this can often be difficult to do because you may not know the exact terms your state uses to address the issue you’re researching. Browsing the table of contents of statutes is often a better way to find laws on your subject because it lets you look first at the general subjects titles, or sometimes divisions. From there you can move to particular topics chapters, or sometimes articles , and then to the precise statutes you need sections. By browsing, you also get a general idea of all the statutes there are on a specific subject.

make sure to read related statutes

if you are interested in a particular area of the law for example, small claims court procedures , you need to read all relevant statutes on that subject.

If you don't, you may miss an important statute that contradicts the law you have found. For instance, one small claims statute may tell you that small claims court can be used for claims involving $5,0 or less while another statute that appears later in the chapter may set a lower dollar limit for cases involving evictions. Fortunately, most statutes are organized in clumps called statutory schemes, which are published together in one title, chapter, section, or act. So, once you find a statute on your subject, it’s simply a matter of finding out where the statutory scheme starts usually by backing up to earlier statutes and then reading all related statutes until you reach a new title, chapter, section or act.

For example, if you do a search on small claims procedure and find a relevant statute, you would then need to browse forwards and backwards until you are convinced that you’ve found every statute that may bear on that issue. Often, they will include exceptions, further explanations, or details that are important to your issue. Back to top some statutes are clearly written, meaning that you can easily understand exactly what the legislature intended and what the law is on a particular subject. Exceptions to the statute, whereases, and cross references to other statutes can make it very hard to understand what a statute means.