by Bradley Streeter

Created on: May 14, 2008

In legal writing, finding trusted sources should be the least of your concerns. The first thing to decide is whether you need primary or secondary sources. Typically, in a first year writing course, you will cite solely to primary sources. In upper-level writing courses, you will need to cite to both primary and secondary.

Regardless of the course, however, you are best served to start your research with a secondary source specific to the jurisdiction you are working with. For federal law, "American Jurisprudence" is perhaps the best place to start. For state law, there is likely a state jurisprudence digest specific to your jurisdiction published by West. Most law students have a tremendous resource at their disposal, in that Lexis-Nexis and Westlaw shower them with gifts upon their arrival at law school in order to get them "hooked" on their product. The most important of these gifts is free access to their databases. Despite having access to these resources, I was taught and feel most comfortable with starting my research in the books. Even as a practicing lawyer, I tend to start with the books and refine my search with the powerful search engines.

After finding your general subject in the appropriate jurisprudence digest, I would suggest that you read the entire heading, jotting down citations to the primary sources of law contained therein. By this time, you should have a pretty good feel for the subject and you are ready to begin the more tedious process of finding "THE" source for your assignment. Print or copy those sources that seemed most relevant during your review of the jurisprudence digest. After reading them in their entirety, you need to Shepardize them to be sure they are current. Shepardizing case law is an absolute must. The worst source for law school writing is a case that was recently overturned. Shepardizing statutory sources is also helpful, in that it may point you towards even more case law that supports, or contradicts, your analysis of the subject.

The "most trusted" sources of primary law would be a statute that is so iron-clad as to not call for much court interpretation. But seeing as how law professors would never be so kind as to give such a simple assignment, your next best option would be a long-standing decision of your jurisdiction's highest court that has been followed time and again. When citing these venerable old classics, it may help to prove your point by a "string cite", complete with 3 or 4 more recent cases that have

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