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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 c ...
s) is an unofficial
reporter A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalism ...
of
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 U.S. Federal tribunals in the United States, federal court cases, and over Stat ...
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 of
Rochester, New York Rochester () is a City (New York), city in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York, the county seat, seat of Monroe County, New York, Monroe County, and the fourth-most populous in the state after New York City, Buffalo, New York, Buffalo, ...
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 Volume One, Volume 1, Volume I or Vol. 1 may refer to: Albums * ''Volume One'' (The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band album), 1966 * ''Volume One'' (Sleep album) * ''Volume One'' (Fluff album) * ''Volume One'' (She & Him album), 2008 * ''Volum ...
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 In American law, the ''American Law Reports'' are a resource used by American lawyers to find a variety of sources relating to specific legal rules, doctrines, or principles. It has been published since 1919, originally by Lawyers Cooperative Pub ...
; 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 ...
.
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 ...
(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