law Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been vario ...

, 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, organisation or other type of entity and commonly determine how that entity is to be governed. When these princ ...

s, statutes, case law,

administrative Administration may refer to: Management of organizations * Management, the act of directing people towards accomplishing a goal ** Administrative Assistant, traditionally known as a Secretary, or also known as an administrative officer, administ ...

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 actors in international law. It is usually made by and between sovereign states, but can include international organizations, individuals, business entities, and other legal pers ...

, or similar

legal instrument Legal instrument is a 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, or ...

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 pr ...

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 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 ...

*Annotations published in statute books,

codes In communications and information processing, code is a system of rules to convert information—such as a letter, word, sound, image, or gesture—into another form, sometimes shortened or secret, for communication through a communication ...

, or other materials, such as the annotations in the '' American Law Reports'' series *

Legal encyclopedia Law is a set of rules that are created and are law enforcement, enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. ...

s (such as ''

Corpus Juris Secundum ''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 ...

'', '' Encyclopedia of Law'' and ''

American Jurisprudence ''American Jurisprudence'' (second edition is cited as Am. Jur. 2d) is an encyclopedia of the United States law, published by West. It was originated by Lawyers Cooperative Publishing, which was subsequently acquired by the Thomson Corporation. The ...

'') *Legal dictionaries (such as '' Black's Law Dictionary''). 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 *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 The Internal Revenue Manual (IRM) is an official compendium of internal guidelines for personnel of the United States Internal Revenue Service (IRS). History The IRM was made publicly available through the Freedom of Information Act Freedom of Info ...

for employees of the Internal Revenue Service) *Course materials from continuing legal education seminars *Debate in

legislature A legislature is an assembly with the authority to make law Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its p ...

s, including such commentaries published in the Congressional Record (this may reveal

legislative intent In law, the legislative intent of the legislature in enacting legislation may sometimes be considered by the judiciary to interpret the law (see judicial interpretation). The judiciary may attempt to assess legislative intent where legislation ...

) *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. Textbooks are generally not considered as secondary authorities apart from certain long-standing and well-reputed ones.

Notes

{{Reflist Law of the United States Legal research