Where And How To Find The Law

"Characteristics of American Law and Legal Resources; Court Reports; Shepard's Citations; Online Updating Tools; West Key-Number Digests; ALR Annotations; Federal Statutory Research; State Statutory Research; Local Law Sources; Constitutional Law; Legislative History; Administrative Regulations and Decisions; Court Rules; Practice Materials; Looseleaf Services; Legal Periodicals; Periodical Indexes; Legal Encyclopedias; Restatements; Texts; Legal Dictionaries; Directories; Formbooks; Nonlegal Research Sources; Treaties; International Law; International Organizations; English Legal Research; Canadian Legal Research; Foreign and Comparative Law; Research Strategies."-- Book description

'The Common Law' is a book that was written by Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., 21 years before Holmes became an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. The book is about common law in the United States, including torts, property, contracts, and crime. It is written as a series of lectures. One of the most famous aphorisms to be drawn from this book occurs on the first page: "The life of the law has not been logic: it has been experience."

Many students and first-time practitioners may know of certain legal textbooks which cover a certain area, but do not know where to look to update the knowledge these books provide. Similarly, a legal problem may arise which is not generally covered by such books. This work deals with how to find the answers, how to update an answer, how to discover if those cases have been applied since judgement was given, how to find statutes and regulators, and how to research and understand the law.

This work originally appeared in 1923. The total thrust of the book is upon data sufficiently generic as to be utilized anywhere. A very good example of a document produced during the transition from unguided legal education to the more structured form offered by the university affiliated law school.