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annual report to each field library activity listing those
commercial lawbooks and services that are maintained
by JAG for the particular field library (see fig. 2-2).
When this report is received by your office, you will
probably be tasked with checking those items listed in
the report against the contents of the library. This can
be done quickly and easily if you have an effective
system of accountability established. After you have
completed this check of the library, you should send
your findings through your immediate supervisor to the
head of your office who will then complete the report
and send it to JAG. Even though this may be the only
report you will have to work with concerning the
library, there may be occasions when the Head, Field
Library section may desire a special report about spe-
cific books and materials contained in your library. If
such a report is received, it should be handled according
to the instructions that accompany it.
LEGAL RESEARCH
Even though you may not be directly involved in
the actual performance of legal research as an LN3 or
LN2, you may be required to locate reference materials
for the lawyers in your office. The following paragraphs
should help you become more familiar with the types
of’ materials normally contained in a law library and
how these materials are related to the basic legal re-
search categories mentioned earlier in this chapter. In
addition to this, we will also discuss what is meant by
citing a legal source and how to use these citations to
locate specific references.
REFERENCE MATERIALS
At the beginning of this chapter, we took a brief
look at the three broad categories that legal reference
materials fall into, these being primary sources, finding
tools, and secondary sources. Let us look at these cate-
gories a little closer and see what types of materials are
contained in each.
Primary Sources
Primary sources have been defined as those re-
corded rules of human behavior that will be enforced by
(he state. These rules may be recorded in federal or state
statutes, administrative and executive regulations, is-
sued to comply with a legislative authorization, or as
court decisions.
s Statutes—Statutes are published by jurisdiction
and in chronological order of enactment. Chronological
publications of these laws are called session laws. One
such publication of federal laws that will probably be
part of your library is Satutes at Large. Because these
laws are listed in chronological order and not by subject
and date of passage, it is difficult for the researcher to
locate a particular law. To help solve this problem, these
laws are codified by subject matter and the laws that
pertain to a particular subject, regardless of when they
were passed, are found together under a specific subject
codification. Normally, your library will have either the
U.S.C. published by the GPO, which is the official
codification of federal statues or the U.S.C.A. or the
U.S.C.S., which are unofficial versions published by
West Publishing Company or Lawyers Cooperative
Publishing Company, respectively. You may also find
that you will have similar codification for state statutes
contained in your library covering the laws for the state
where your command is located.
. Regulations—Administrative and executive
regulations provide the guidelines to be followed in
carrying out certain statutes. For example, the MCM
was published according to the directive issued as Ex-
ecutive Order 12473 of August 1, 1984, to comply with
federal legislation enacted that affected the application
of military justice in the Armed Forces of the United
States. Another example is the regulations and instruc-
tions used by the Internal Revenue Service to provide
the guidelines for implementing federal tax laws. Fed-
eral regulations are officially printed in the Federal
Register. Because the Federal Register is published in
chronological order, the same as Statutes at Large, the
same problem exists for the researcher trying to find a
specific regulation. To help solve this problem, the
Code of Federal Regulations (C.F.R.) was developed
and serves the same function for regulations that the
U.S.C. serves for statutes.
. Court decisions—One of the bedrock principles
of our judicial system is stare decisis et non quieta
movere, which basically means to adhere to precedent
and not to unsettle things that are settled. Questions
arise daily that require interpretation of the law. These
questions are resolved by the courts (usually appellate
courts), and these decisions become law.
Case decisions are collected and published in
chronologically arranged volumes that become a very
important part of your library. As an LN, you will be
concerned primarily with the reports of cases that have
been decided by the U.S. Supreme Court, the U.S.
Courts of Appeals for the federal circuits, federal dis-
trict courts, the U.S. Court of Military Appeals
(U.S.C.M.A.), and the Navy and Marine Corps Court of
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