Identify Sources to Update or Expand Research - Next Generation Bar Exam
- What source helps locate pending legislation that may affect a client's issue?
- A bill-tracking service or the legislature's website. Pending bills may signal changes in the law.
- A researcher has a 2018 case directly on point. What is the next step to update it?
- Run it through a citator to check subsequent history and later treatment. A later decision may have reversed, overruled, or limited it.
- What is the purpose of reviewing citing references to a case beyond its direct history?
- To find later decisions applying, distinguishing, or questioning the case. Citing references also expand research to related authority.
- What is the efficient way to expand research from a statute to cases interpreting it?
- Use the annotations to the statute or run a citator on the statute. Both lead to decisions applying the provision.
- What source should be checked to update a federal regulation?
- The Federal Register for changes after the latest Code of Federal Regulations edition. Regulations are codified annually but amended through Federal Register publications.
- What source shows whether a statute has been amended since a print code was published?
- The code's pocket part or supplement, or a current online code. Session laws and legislative tracking services also show recent changes.
- What is the role of a secondary source's footnotes in expanding research?
- They lead to primary authorities and other secondary sources on the issue. Footnotes are often the fastest path to key cases.
- How can a headnote or topic classification system expand research from one case?
- By linking to other cases classified under the same legal point. Topic systems collect cases on the same issue across jurisdictions.
- What is the primary tool for confirming that a case is still good law?
- A citator. Citators flag negative history, such as reversal or overruling, and list citing references.
- A researcher has located the relevant state statute in a 2022 bound volume. What should be checked to update it?
- The current supplement or online version of the code and recent session laws. Amendments after 2022 may have changed the statute.