Intro to basic legal research
by: Wyoming Legal Services - Lander Office
How to do basic legal research
First, a short civics lesson
Good legal research requires you to look at all the different types of law that can apply to your case. The law comes from several places:
- The U.S. Constitution and Wyoming Constitution are the most important sets of laws. No other laws can go against them.
- The legislature and Congress create laws, called statutes.
- State and Federal agencies create rules, called regulations. They are based on the laws that legislatures and Congress create.
- Judges create law, called case law. Judges make rulings in cases. These rulings explain how the law applies in these cases.
- Contracts change the way laws are applied to you. You and you landlord sign a lease. The lease is a contract. The lease can change the way housing laws apply to you.
As you can see, there is a lot of law out there. It can be overwhelming. However, it's not impossible.
Getting started
- Narrow down your problem.
- Find search terms.
- Use secondary sources.
- Use primary sources.
The first thing you need to do is narrow down your problem. For example, you are getting divorced. Divorce is a very broad legal topic. If you look for divorce in the statutes or search for "divorce" in Google, you will get a lot of information. Too much, in fact. You could spend hours looking through it all and not find what you need. Narrow it down. It turns out the problem worrying you is child custody. Narrow it down. Your spouse abandoned you and your children. You don't want your spouse to have custody of the children. Start by looking at laws dealing with abandonment and child custody.
Before searching, you need to have keywords to search for. But what words should you use? Lawyers use different words than you to describe the same things. You may need to use these legal words in your search. For help with this turn to a law dictionary. Most public libraries have one. You can find many law dictionaries online too. Try this one: http://dictionary.law.com/. Also, you may want to look through a normal dictionary and a thesaurus. You'll want to use the legal and non-legal words in your search.
Now it's time to search. Begin with secondary sources. These are books, articles, and websites that explain or help you find the law you need. They can provide you with a broad overview of an area of law. Some will also point you toward specific pieces of law such as a case or statute. Most of the stuff on this website is drawn from secondary sources.
What are some examples of secondary sources? They include websites like this one and Findlaw.com. They include self-help books by Nolo. They include legal journals published by law schools. To get started now check out these websites.
www.findlaw.com, www.nolo.com, www.law.cornell.edu, www.wyominglawhelp.org
If you decide to search for primary sources, this website lists resources to help you here.
Some important notes
- You should use secondary sources only to learn the law. NEVER cite secondary sources when you are in court or in any legal documents you file with the court.
- Not all secondary sources match Wyoming law. You may want to double-check what you read in secondary sources with actual Wyoming law.
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