A legal treatise is a scholarly

legal publication A law book is a book about law. It is possible to make a distinction between "law books" on the one hand, and "books about law" on the other. This distinction is "useful". A law book is "a work of legal doctrine". It consists of "law talk", that i ...

containing all the law relating to a particular area, such as

criminal law Criminal law is the body of law that relates to crime. It proscribes conduct perceived as threatening, harmful, or otherwise endangering to the property, health, safety, and Well-being, welfare of people inclusive of one's self. Most criminal l ...

or trusts and estates. There is no fixed usage on what books qualify as a "legal treatise", with the term being used broadly to define books written for practicing attorneys and

judge A judge is a person who wiktionary:preside, presides over court proceedings, either alone or as a part of a judicial panel. In an adversarial system, the judge hears all the witnesses and any other Evidence (law), evidence presented by the barris ...

s, textbooks for law students, and explanatory texts for laypersons. The treatise may generally be loose leaf bound with rings or posts so that updates to laws covered by the treatise and annotated by the editor may be added by the subscriber to the legal treatise. Proto Treatises

Legal treatises are

secondary authority In law, a secondary authority is an authority purporting to explain the meaning or applicability of the actual verbatim texts of primary authorities (such as constitutions, statutes, case law, administrative regulations, executive orders, trea ...

, and can serve as a useful starting point for

legal research Legal research is "the process of identifying and retrieving information necessary to support legal decision-making. In its broadest sense, legal research includes each step of a course of action that begins with an analysis of the facts of a prob ...

, particularly when the researcher lacks familiarity with a particular area of law.

Lawyers A lawyer is a person who is qualified to offer advice about the law, draft legal documents, or represent individuals in legal matters. The exact nature of a lawyer's work varies depending on the legal jurisdiction and the legal system, as wel ...

commonly use legal treatises in order to review the law and update their knowledge of pertinent primary authority namely,

case law Case law, also used interchangeably with common law, is a law that is based on precedents, that is the judicial decisions from previous cases, rather than law based on constitutions, statutes, or regulations. Case law uses the detailed facts of ...

statute A statute is a law or formal written enactment of a legislature. Statutes typically declare, command or prohibit something. Statutes are distinguished from court law and unwritten law (also known as common law) in that they are the expressed wil ...

s, and administrative regulations. Despite being

, select treatises are frequently cited in court decisions, including opinions of the

Supreme Court of the United States The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all Federal tribunals in the United States, U.S. federal court cases, and over Stat ...

.Dana Neacsu & Paul D. Callister
"The Persistent Treatise,"
116 ''Law Library Journal'' 257 (2024). Indeed, certain early treatises like

William Blackstone Sir William Blackstone (10 July 1723 – 14 February 1780) was an English jurist, Justice (title), justice, and Tory (British political party), Tory politician most noted for his ''Commentaries on the Laws of England'', which became the best-k ...

Commentaries on the Laws of England The ''Commentaries on the Laws of England'' (commonly, but informally known as ''Blackstone's Commentaries'') are an influential 18th-century treatise on the common law of England by Sir William Blackstone, originally published by the Clarend ...

and Lord

Edward Coke Sir Edward Coke ( , formerly ; 1 February 1552 – 3 September 1634) was an English barrister, judge, and politician. He is often considered the greatest jurist of the Elizabethan era, Elizabethan and Jacobean era, Jacobean eras. Born into a ...

Institutes of the Lawes of England The ''Institutes of the Lawes of England'' are a series of legal treatises written by Sir Edward Coke. They were first published, in stages, between 1628 and 1644. Widely recognized as a foundational document of the common law, they have been cit ...

have shown a marked increase in citation in the last three decades. In

law school A law school (also known as a law centre/center, college of law, or faculty of law) is an institution, professional school, or department of a college or university specializing in legal education, usually involved as part of a process for b ...

s, treatises are sometimes used as additional study materials, as treatises often cover legal subjects at a higher level of detail than most

casebook A casebook is a type of textbook used primarily by students in law schools.Wayne L. Anderson and Marilyn J. Headrick, The Legal Profession: Is it for you?' (Cincinnati: Thomson Executive Press, 1996), 83. Rather than simply laying out the legal do ...

s do. Certain treatises, called

hornbook A hornbook (horn-book) is a single-sided alphabet tablet, which served from medieval times as a Primer (textbook), primer for study, and sometimes included vowel combinations, numerals or short verse. The hornbook was in common use in England ar ...

s, are used by American law students as supplements to casebooks. Hornbooks are usually one volume – sometimes a briefer version of a longer, multi-volume treatise written by a recognized legal scholar.

References

Legal literature Legal research {{law-book-stub

See also

References