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CHAPTER 2
THE LAW LIBRARY AND LEGAL RESEARCH
As part of your duties as an LN, you may be
responsible for the proper maintenance and upkeep of
the office law library. The importance of a properly
maintained law library is sometimes overlooked. The
law library should be setup and maintained to meet the
needs of those who will be using it rather than for the
convenience of the librarian. Attorneys, LNs, and others
involved in legal research must be able to find the
current status of the law. Accordingly, the ability to
efficiently perform the task of researching reference
material will depend to a large extent on how well the
law library is maintained.
THE LAW LIBRARY
A law library is a collection of legal reference
materials of several different types, consisting of vari-
ous formats, including hardbound volumes, paperback
supplements, loose-leaf services, pamphlets, hand-
books, manuals, periodicals, and advance opinions.
The type of materials contained in a library is
governed by many considerations, such as the size and
functions of the office it is designed to serve, and the
preferences of the personnel assigned to that office. The
library in a small staff judge advocate (SJA) office
might consist of a few hundred volumes, whereas sev-
eral thousand volumes might be needed in the library
that serves a large naval legal service office (NLSO).
Regardless of the library’s size, your first task as a
librarian is to determine what legal reference materials
are contained in the library and where they are located.
Legal reference materials fall into three broad catego-
ries that include the following:
l Primary sources—These contain the law as
stated in statutes, case decisions, and regulations.
. Finding tools—These are aids used to help locate
the information contained in primary sources,
. Secondary sources—These contain discussions
or explanations of the law that can be useful in examin-
ing the legal concepts and problems associated with a
particular law from both a practical and theoretical point
of view.
Further on in this chapter, we
different types of legal reference
grouped in these three categories.
SOURCES OF THE LAW
will examine the
material that are
The primary sources of law in the United States are
the U.S. Constitution, its amendments, and the Bill of
Rights.
This type of law is called the supreme law of the
land and is also commonly known as constitutional law.
Constitutional law addresses such matters as your right
to counsel, your right to a trial of the facts by your peers,
your right against self-incrimination, and your right to
be confronted by and to cross-examine any witnesses
against you.
The second source of law includes those laws
passed or enacted by the various legislative bodies such
as Congress or state legislatures. These laws come from
the federal and state statutes and are commonly called
statutory law. These laws include such matters as fed-
eral and state income tax laws, controlled substance
laws, drunk driving laws, and gun control laws, to name
a few.
A third source of law comes from the judicial
system itself. This type of law is based on the concept
that our judges will apply either constitutional or statu-
tory law, or will apply a previous court decision to the
facts in a given case, thereby rendering a fair and proper
decision in the case. This type of law is referred to as
case law. Case law is very important because it is often
used by attorneys in an effort to persuade a judge to
decide a case favorably toward their side. Case law
provides guidance and in many instances the require-
ments for the proper conduct of trials and for the ad-
ministration of justice in cases. For example, the case
of U.S. v. Allen makes it mandatory for courts to give
every accused person credit against his or her sentence
for any pretrial confinement adjudged at trial. There are
thousands of cases that have previously been decided
by courts and each decision may have an effect on all
future cases with either the same or similar facts.
A fourth source of law is administrative law.
Administrative law originates primarily with
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