The ''United States Supreme Court Reports, Lawyers' Edition'', or ''Lawyers' Edition'' (L. Ed. and L. Ed. 2d in

case citation Case citation is a system used by legal professionals to identify past court case decisions, either in series of books called reporters or law reports, or in a neutral style that identifies a decision regardless of where it is reported. Case ci ...

s) is an unofficial reporter of Supreme Court of the United States

opinions An opinion is a judgment, viewpoint, or statement that is not conclusive, rather than facts, which are true statements. Definition A given opinion may deal with subjective matters in which there is no conclusive finding, or it may deal with ...

. The ''Lawyers' Edition'' was established by the

Lawyers Cooperative Publishing Company West (also known by its original name, West Publishing) is a business owned by Thomson Reuters that publishes legal, business, and regulatory information in print, and on electronic services such as Westlaw. Since the late 19th century, West ha ...

Rochester, New York Rochester () is a city in the U.S. state of New York, the seat of Monroe County, and the fourth-most populous in the state after New York City, Buffalo, and Yonkers, with a population of 211,328 at the 2020 United States census. Located in W ...

in 1882, and features coverage of Supreme Court decisions going back to 1790. The first ''Lawyers' Edition'' series corresponds to the official ''

United States Reports The ''United States Reports'' () are the official record ( law reports) of the Supreme Court of the United States. They include rulings, orders, case tables (list of every case decided), in alphabetical order both by the name of the petitioner ...

'' from volume 1 to volume 351, whereas the second series contains cases starting from the official reporter volume 352. It is currently published by

LexisNexis LexisNexis is a part of the RELX corporation that sells data analytics products and various databases that are accessed through online portals, including portals for computer-assisted legal research (CALR), newspaper search, and consumer info ...

. The ''Lawyers' Edition'' differs from the official reporter in that the editors write

headnote A headnote is a brief summary of a particular point of law that is added to the text of a court decision to aid readers in locating discussion of a legal issue in an opinion. As the term implies, headnotes appear at the beginning of the publis ...

s and case summaries, as well as provide annotations to some cases, and decisions are published far in advance of the official reporter. As such, it is similar to West's unofficial ''

Supreme Court Reporter West's National Reporter System (NRS) is a set of case law reporters for federal courts and appellate state courts in the United States. It started with the ''North Western Reporter'' in 1879 which has its origin in ''The Syllabi'' (1876, ). Fed ...

'' (S. Ct.). ''Lawyers' Edition'' case reports differ from ''Supreme Court Reporter'' case reports in three respects. First, coverage in ''Supreme Court Reporter'' does not begin until '' Johnson v. Waters'', 108 U.S. 4 (1882), while ''Lawyers' Edition'' covers opinions back to the first volume of ''United States Reports''. Second, while both reporters contain headnotes written by the reporters' editors, the ''Lawyers' Edition'' headnotes are not keyed to the

West American Digest System The West American Digest System is a system of identifying points of law from reported cases and organizing them by topic and key number. The system was developed by West Publishing to organize the entire body of American law. This extensive taxon ...

's topic and key number system. Third, ''Lawyers' Edition'' historically included analytical articles, referred to as "annotations", similar to those contained in American Law Reports; these annotations were eventually discontinued.

International Thomson Organization International Thomson Organization (ITO) was a holding company for interests in publishing, travel, and natural resources, that existed from 1978 to 1989. It was formed as a reorganisation of the Thomson Organization, which had been founded by Roy ...

acquired Lawyers Cooperative Publishing in 1989, shortly before it merged with Thomson Newspapers to become the

Thomson Corporation The Thomson Corporation was one of the world's largest information companies. It was established in 1989 following a merger between International Thomson Organisation Ltd (ITOL) and Thomson Newspapers. In 2008, it purchased Reuters Group to fo ...

(parent of the Michie Company) acquired the rights to the ''Lawyers' Edition'', along with a number of other law publications and related assets, from the Thomson Corporation in January 1997. Thomson, in acquiring

West Publishing West (also known by its original name, West Publishing) is a business owned by Thomson Reuters that publishes legal, business, and regulatory information in print, and on electronic services such as Westlaw. Since the late 19th century, West h ...

, was required to divest itself of many titles through a consent decree by the

United States Department of Justice The United States Department of Justice (DOJ), also known as the Justice Department, is a federal executive department of the United States government tasked with the enforcement of federal law and administration of justice in the United Stat ...

References

External links

* Supreme Court of the United States Case law reporters {{US-law-stub