The US has two separate and distinct court systems: federal and state. In order to research US law, you should understand this dual court system.
This knowledge is instrumental to understand the precedential value of a decision. As in Canada, decisions from a higher court in the same jurisdiction are binding; decisions from courts in other jurisdictions are not binding but may be persuasive.
Generally, both federal and state court systems have three levels. A matter will start at the trial court level. It can then precede to an intermediate appellate court, followed by the court of last resort. The question of federal and state jurisdiction is complicated; some matters are allocated to one court system or the other, while others can move between the two.
►See Resources: The US Court System for more detailed information.
As far as research strategy goes, many of the same tips we discussed in finding a known Canadian case are relevant for finding a known US case.
►See Finding Known Cases for more information.
Even though decisions are now published online, cases are still identified by reporter citation. A majority of US states have not adopted a neutral citation format (in contrast with Canadian courts), but some states have what is called a public domain citation. This is, in effect, a neutral citation; the exact format differs between states.
Since not all states have a form of neutral citation, you will likely need to use reporter citations to retrieve a case. As in Canada, there are many different reporters in the US, including official reporters (e.g. the United States Reports for Supreme Court decisions) and commercial reporters by subject area, jurisdiction, or specific court.
Lexis, Google Scholar, and Westlaw all have very good coverage of federal and state cases and can be used to retrieve a known case.
►See Accessing US Content on Westlaw and Lexis for how to find this content.
The US also has a large quantity of unpublished decisions. Not all decisions from a court are published. Each court will have different criteria for which decisions are published. Unpublished decisions are not binding authority in the US, but can be persuasive. However, some courts do not permit the citation of unpublished cases.
What's a slip opinion?
In the US, the first version of a new court decision is called a slip opinion, typically made available on the court's website. Slip opinions are made available as an expedited way of providing a court's decisions without the delay of the publication process. In time, a slip opinion is replaced with a version that reflects the publication style of that court and includes editorial enhancements such as a case summary and pagination.
As with Canadian legal research, the best way to find American case law on a given topic is to start your research with secondary sources.
►See Finding Cases on a Specific Topic for more information on these strategies.
►See American Secondary Sources for information on finding US encyclopedias, books, and articles at Queen's.
Both Westlaw and Lexis also have specific digest features that allow you to search US cases by topic.
Note that Westlaw US is only available to law students and faculty with a personal Westlaw account.
Westlaw US digests every reported case according to a detailed title classification scheme called the West Key Number System.
Each case is assigned a separate Digest Topic Number (broad topic) and Digest Key Number (specific issue). In theory, all cases dealing with this issue can be retrieved by finding this key number, which can be found under "Topics & Key Numbers" on the Westlaw US homepage. You can also find the key number(s) assigned to a case by pulling up the decision on Westlaw US and viewing its headnote.
Lexis has a classification system that can be browsed from the homepage. To use this system, you must be viewing the US side of the platform. In the "Explore Content" pod, select "CAN" to change the jurisdiction to the United States. Then select "USA Topics" to browse or search the classification system.
If you are viewing a case and want to see other cases with the same classification, find the topics listed in the case's headnote. Then, click on the relevant topic and select "Get Documents" to retrieve a list of other cases that have been assigned that topic.
In the US, the phrase shepardize a case is used to refer to noting up a case. This term originally comes from Shepard's Citation Service, available on Lexis.
►What's noting up? You can find the definition in Noting Up Case Law (in our chapter on Canadian case law).
See below instructions for noting up a case on Lexis and Westlaw US.
►For how to navigate to a US case, see Finding US Content on Lexis and Westlaw.
While Google Scholar does not have a noting up tool for case law, you can use the "Cited By" feature to view other cases that have referenced your target case. Just note that this does not allow you to determine important case history information such as whether your target case has been overruled.
The following texts provide a good introduction to researching American law:
