In
law
Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior, with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been variously described as a science and as the ar ...
, a secondary authority is an authority purporting to explain the meaning or applicability of the actual verbatim texts of
primary authorities (such as
constitution
A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organization or other type of entity, and commonly determines how that entity is to be governed.
When these pri ...
s,
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,
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 ...
,
administrative regulation
Regulation is the management of complex systems according to a set of rules and trends. In systems theory, these types of rules exist in various fields of biology and society, but the term has slightly different meanings according to context. Fo ...
s,
executive orders,
treaties
A treaty is a formal, legally binding written agreement between sovereign states and/or international organizations that is governed by international law. A treaty may also be known as an international agreement, protocol, covenant, convention ...
, or similar
legal instrument
Legal instrument is a law, legal term of art that is used for any formally executed written document that can be formally attributed to its author, records and formally expresses a legally enforceable act, process, or contractual duty, obligation ...
s).
Some secondary authority materials are written and published by governments to explain the laws in simple, non-technical terms, while other secondary authority materials are written and published by private companies, non-profit organizations, or other groups or individuals. Some examples of primarily American secondary authority are:
*
Law review
A law review or law journal is a scholarly journal or publication that focuses on legal issues. A law review is a type of legal periodical. Law reviews are a source of research, imbedded with analyzed and referenced legal topics; they also provide ...
articles, comments and notes (written by law professors, practicing lawyers, law students, etc.)
*Legal textbooks, such as
legal treatises and
hornbooks
*Legal digests, such as the
West American Digest System
*Annotations published in statute books,
codes, or other materials, such as the annotations in the ''
American Law Reports'' series
*
Legal encyclopedias (such as ''
Corpus Juris Secundum
(''CJS''; Latin for 'Second Body of the Law')Legal Research and Writing for Paralegals, Published by Wolters Kluwer and written by Deborah E. Bouchoux is an encyclopedia of United States law at the federal and state levels. It is arranged alphab ...
'', ''
Encyclopedia of Law'' and ''
American Jurisprudence'')
*Legal dictionaries (such as ''
Black's Law Dictionary
''Black's Law Dictionary'' is the most frequently used legal dictionary in the United States. Henry Campbell Black (1860–1927) was the author of the first two editions of the dictionary.
History
The first edition was published in 1891 by Wes ...
''). See
Law Dictionary
A law dictionary (also known as legal dictionary) is a dictionary that is designed and compiled to give information about terms used in the field of law.
Types
Distinctions are made among various types of law dictionaries.
Differentiating fact ...
*
Restatements of the Law
In American jurisprudence, the ''Restatements of the Law'' are a set of treatises on legal subjects that seek to inform judges and lawyers about general principles of common law. There are now four series of ''Restatements'', all published by the ...
published by the
American Law Institute
The American Law Institute (ALI) is a research and advocacy group of judges, lawyers, and legal scholars limited to 3,000 elected members and established in 1923 to promote the clarification and simplification of United States common law and i ...
*Legal briefs and memoranda;
*Tax forms and instructions published by governments
*Government publications explaining or summarizing the laws
*Government employee manuals (such as the
Internal Revenue Manual for employees of the
Internal Revenue Service
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is the revenue service for the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government, which is responsible for collecting Taxation in the United States, U.S. federal taxes and administerin ...
)
*Course materials from continuing legal education seminars
*Debate in
legislature
A legislature (, ) is a deliberative assembly with the legal authority to make laws for a political entity such as a country, nation or city on behalf of the people therein. They are often contrasted with the executive and judicial power ...
s, including such commentaries published in the
Congressional Record
The ''Congressional Record'' is the official record of the proceedings and debates of the United States Congress, published by the United States Government Publishing Office and issued when Congress is in session. The Congressional Record Ind ...
(this may reveal
legislative intent)
*Other similar materials
In the United States, various legal scholars disagree over whether legislative histories in the form of texts of congressional committee reports should be considered to be secondary authority or, alternatively, primary authority.
Although secondary authorities are sometimes used in
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 ...
(especially, to allow a researcher to gain a preliminary, overall understanding of an unfamiliar area of law) and are sometimes even cited by courts in deciding cases, secondary authorities are generally afforded less weight than the actual texts of primary authority. However, some treatises are cited so frequently as to enjoy a select status among legal authorities.
[Dana Neacsu & Paul D. Callister]
"The Persistent Treatise,"
116 ''Law Library Journal'' 257 (2024).
Textbooks are generally not considered as secondary authorities apart from certain long-standing and well-reputed ones.
References
{{Law-term-stub
Law of the United States
Legal research