Name: Professor: Mack/Bauer
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2013 1L Library Legal Research Exercise #1
Getting Started: Defining Terms and Checking for Statutory Authority
The main purpose of this library research exercise is to introduce you to two types of research resources—statutes and cases—you will encounter in your Legal Writing class and in the practice of law. You will work in groups of three in completing this exercise – each group will turn in one exercise with all three of your names on it. You are encouraged to ask the reference librarians for help.
This exercise is due on Monday, September 9, at 9:20 am. Please upload the finished assignment to the Assignment Drop Box on the TWEN 1L Legal Research course page by the due date. After completing this exercise, your group will need to schedule an appointment with your librarian, Lisa Schultz (), using the Sign-Up Sheets on the TWEN 1L Legal Research course page. The videos are located on the TWEN 1L Legal Research course page under “Course Materials.”
Use print or online resources as directed to answer these questions.
Statutes
Statutes are the laws enacted by the legislative branch of government. To simplify research, statutes are published into codes, which are subject organizations of in-force statutes. In Colorado, the General Assembly publishes its statutory law in the Colorado Revised Statutes (“C.R.S.”). The C.R.S. is published by two publishing companies—the red Colorado Revised Statutes by LexisNexis and the blue Colorado Revised Statutes Annotated by Thomson Reuters (West). For the following questions, please use the red C.R.S. set.
1. Using the index is the most common way to find a specific C.R.S. code section on a given topic.
a. Locate the latest edition of the C.R.S. (either in Reference near the Reference Desk or in the Colorado section of the law library.)
b. Locate the Index volumes for this set. These two volumes are located at the end of the set on the shelf.
c. Look in the index volumes to find the code section that addresses non-compete agreements. What is the index entry for non-compete agreements?
Answer:
d. Provide the citation to the first code section where non-compete agreements are addressed. The citation takes the form of, for example, “8-3-102”, where the first number is the Title (i.e., 8), the second number is the Article (i.e., 3), and the third number is the section number (i.e., 102).
Answer:
e. Using this citation, locate the code section by reading the spines of the C.R.S. volumes for the appropriate title and then locating the particular section listed in your citation.
f. What is the title of this code section?
Answer:
g. How many numbered subsections does it contain?
Answer:
h. After providing the text of the code section, the publisher provides annotations or cross- references to cases, legal encyclopedia articles, and other publications applicable to this code section. For this particular section, the publisher provides citations to several law review articles. What is the title and citation of the most recent article published in The Colorado Lawyer (i.e., Colo. Law.)?
Answer:
2. Often as a researcher you will want to find out when a particular statutory provision was first enacted and how it has evolved over time. You can begin the process of researching a statute’s history by referring to the Source notes, which are located immediately after the text of a particular code section following the bold-faced text “Source.”
· Watch the video entitled “How to Read Source Notes” located on the TWEN Legal Research course page and answer the following questions:
a. Look again at the code section that you found in question 1.d. above regarding non-compete agreements in the C.R.S.
b. Find the end of the code section and look at the information after the bold text “Source.” The first notation is: L. 05: p. 161, § 3. “L” is the abbreviation for the Session Laws of Colorado. “05” refers to 1905, the year in which the code section was first enacted and published in the Session Laws. If you looked at page 161, Section 3 of the Session Laws from 1905, you would find the text of the statute as it was originally enacted.
c. Information about the abbreviations often found in the Source notes is at the front of each C.R.S. volume, at pages vi-ix. Find these pages and scan them briefly.
d. Now look at the Source notes for your code section again – what is the second notation in bold-faced type?
Answer:
e. Briefly explain what the notation stands for:
Answer:
3. You have now found Colorado statutes using print resources. You can also find statutes in various electronic databases. Westlaw Next and Lexis Advance are two such databases. For the following questions, use Lexis Advance.
· Watch the video on the TWEN Legal Research page entitled “Starting Your Research With a Statutory Citation on Lexis Advance” before answering the following questions.
a. Using Lexis Advance, locate the C.R.S. code section you found in 1(d). When was the last time this code section was amended?
Answer:
b. Using the annotations to the statute, locate a case from the Colorado Court of Appeals that states that a person who conducts or supervises a business is “management personnel.”
Answer:
c. Using the annotations, locate a case that states that the employer must establish that a covenant not to compete is not void before the court will grant a preliminary injunction.
Answer:
d. Use the case that you located in 3(c), to answer the following questions. On what date was that case decided?
Answer:
e. What symbol is next to the case’s name and what does it mean?
Answer:
Because statutory codes are organized by topic, you will always want to check the statutes near the statute you are using to see if they are also relevant. Look at the Table of Contents to answer the following questions
f. What are the titles of the statutes located before and after the statute that you used for question 3?
Answer:
g. Do any of the statutes near the statute you used for question 3 relate to non-compete agreements? If so, which one(s)?
Answer: ______
Cases
4. In Question 3 you learned how to use the annotated code to find cases interpreting your code section. These cases are referred to as “Notes of Decisions” in Westlaw Next. As you have probably learned, cases are an important source of law. The judiciary creates case law. Initially, cases are published as slip opinions and posted to the courts’ websites. Publishers collect the individual slip opinions and publish them into reporters, i.e., case reporters. Thomson-Reuters (i.e., West) is the most comprehensive publisher of case reporters. They assign the case a citation which includes the title of the reporter (i.e., Pacific Reporter), and the volume and page number in which the case appears in that reporter.
a. Describe the citation for the case you found in Question 3(d). In what reporter is it published? What is the volume number? What is the page number?
Answer: ______
b. On what floor is that reporter located in the law library?
Answer: ______
c. Find the case in the print reporter. How many headnotes does this case contain?
Answer: ______
5. For online publication, publishers load cases into databases. Researchers have a number of ways to retrieve a case by citation. One method is to enter the case citation into the single search box on Westlaw Next, LexisNexis and other services. At this time, open your web browser to Lexis Advance and retrieve the following case: Porter Industries, Inc. v. Higgins, 680 P.2d 1339 (Colo. App. 1984)
· Watch the video entitled “Finding Cases on Lexis Advance” located on the TWEN 1L Legal Research page and then locate the following features of the Porter case.
a. The status of the case denoted by the Shepard’s symbol
Answer: ______
b. The docket number
Answer: ______
c. The holding:
Answer: ______
6. Updating Case Law Research Using Lexis Advance’s Shepards
It is an essential part of legal research to update all of the cases, statutes, regulations, and other authority that you cite or upon which you rely. While there are different ways to update your research, the most important way to update your case law research is to use a citator. This process is often called “Shepardizing,” named after the publication famous for this task, Shepards Citations. While you can still update or Shepardize in print, the online services are much better. Shepards is now available on LexisNexis, while Westlaw offers a competing solution called KeyCite.
· Watch the video on the TWEN 1L Legal Research entitled “Shepardizing Your Cases with Lexis Advance,” and then answer the following questions:
a. Shepardize the Porter case. You can do this either by entering the citation into the single search box or if you still have the case open, by clicking on the Shepard’s symbol located next to the case name. Review the Shepard’s report. What symbol is located at the very top left of the report?
Answer: ______
b. What does the symbol mean, and why did the case receive that symbol?
Answer: ______
c. How many citing decisions are listed?
Answer: ______
d. How many citing law reviews, treatises, etc. are listed?
Answer:
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