1 Legal Research: New Jersey Case Law Legal Reference in the Digital Age Documents Association of New Jersey (DANJ) Fall Conference, 2010 Caroline Young, J.D., M.L.I.S. Rutgers Law Library- Newark

2 What is Case Law? Cases are Reports of judicial decisions Primary authority Published cases are precedential: courts are bound to follow earlier decisions

3 Where can I find New Jersey cases? LexisNexis ($$$)*-all Westlaw ($$$)*-all LoisLaw ( ($$)-1923-present VersusLaw ( ($) present (partial ) Rutgers -Camden Law Library web site: free archive 1995-present Google Scholar Legal-1950-present *Cost may be free if accessing through a library

4 Where can I find New Jersey cases for FREE? Best Bets NEW JERSEY COURTS SEARCH PAGE (RUTGERS-CAMDEN Law Library) Google Scholar Legal Opinions on the Judiciary web site Libraries

5 NEW JERSEY COURTS SEARCH PAGE (RUTGERS-CAMDEN Law Library) Supreme Court from March 1994 forward Appellate Division and Tax Court from Sept forward Appellate Division and Tax Court from Sept forward unpublished Appellate Division opinions from Sept.20, 2005 forward.

6 What’s the Difference between a Published Case and an Unpublished Case?! A published case is a case that is published in the official reporter and is precedential All NJ Supreme Court decisions are published Some Appellate Division decisions are published Only a small percentage of Trial Court opinions submitted for publication are approved

7 Why Does it Matter if a Case is Published? Unpublished opinions are not considered precedent in New Jersey Note: Under the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure unpublished decisions issued after 1/1/2007 can be cited as persuasive authority

8 NEW JERSEY COURTS SEARCH PAGE (RUTGERS- CAMDEN Law Library) Enter keywords: “foreclosure and “predatory lending practices”” Enter Citation or Docket Number

9 5 Results

10 Google Scholar Legal 1.Select Scholar in the drop-down menu under “more” 2. Select “Legal Opinions and Journals” OR go straight to “Advanced Search” *New Jersey case law 1950 forward

11 Advanced Google Scholar Legal Go to Advanced Scholar search: m/advanced_scholar_se arch? m/advanced_scholar_se arch m/advanced_scholar_se arch Under “Legal opinions and journals”, select “Search only court opinions from the following states:” and choose New Jersey

12 Search Results: Google Scholar

13 Published vs. Unpublished Note this search is limited to New Jersey and we only got 2 hits we got 5 on the Rutgers-Camden Law Library site Does anyone know why? Google Scholar only has published cases Rutgers Law Library-Camden has published cases and unpublished cases since 2005

14 Modern NJ State Court Reports 2 categories of reporters- official and unofficial New Jersey Reporters –Official New Jersey Reports (N.J.) (Supreme Court decisions)(1948-) New Jersey Superior Court Reports (N.J. Super.) (Appellate Division and trial court decisions)(1948-) New Jersey Tax Court Reports (N.J. Tax)(1979-) –Unofficial Atlantic Reporter – contains the cases found in N.J. and N.J. Super. (and other states: CT, DE, DC, MA, MD, NH, PA, RI, and VT) (1885-)

15 New Jersey Earlier Court Reports New Jersey Law Reports (N.J.L.) ( New Jersey Equity Reports (N.J. Eq.) ( ) New Jersey Miscellaneous Reports (N.J. Misc.) ( ) –Includes cases not found in the two official series Many “nominative” reports

16 Basic Citation Format Brenman v. Demello, 191 N.J. 18 (2007) First party Second party Reporter Abbreviation (N.J. Reports) “v.” for versus Reporter volume no. First page of case Date of decision (no court is listed because it is clear from reporter name

17 Sample Case from Google Scholar Legal Parallel citations Star Pagination

18 N.J. Court System/Structure Seven million new cases are filed in New Jersey's state- level courts annually ( New Jersey Supreme Court (New Jersey Reports) Superior Court (trial court) (New Jersey Superior Court Reports) (Appellate Division and trial court decisions) –Appellate Division (intermediate level court of appeal) –Trial Court (right to one (1) appeal) –Tax Court (New Jersey Tax Court Reports) NJ Courts webpage:

19 Opinions on the Judiciary web site: Generally, recent opinions published in the last 10 days, published/unpublished

20 Judicial Website Links to PDFs of Opinions Note: These are Slip opinions

21 Libraries New Jersey State Library: l_New_Jersey_Laws.php#reporters l_New_Jersey_Laws.php#reporters l_New_Jersey_Laws.php#reporters Rutgers Law Library-Newark: library.rutgers.edu/ library.rutgers.edu/ library.rutgers.edu/ Any Public Library (or library YOU have access to) with Westlaw Campus or LexisNexis Academic

22 New Jersey State Library: New_Jersey_Laws.php#reporters New_Jersey_Laws.php#reporters New_Jersey_Laws.php#reporters links to (mainly older) volumes of N.J.Law Reports, N.J. Equity Reports, and Atlantic Reporter available through Google Books

23 Rutgers Law Library-Newark: library.rutgers.edu/ library.rutgers.edu/ library.rutgers.edu/ 1. Click here for New Jersey Law 2. Go to the NJ Internet Law Guide

24 Databases at Libraries Westlaw Campus (Rutgers University Libraries) –Federal and state cases, statutes, and regs. –ALR case-finding system –KeyCite citator system –American Jurisprudence 2d (legal encyclopedia) –Law reviews LexisNexis Academic

25 Westlaw Campus Boolean Search capabilities Lots of Databases

26 What Free Sites Don’t Have 1. Headnotes are summaries of all points of law discussed in an opinion 2. Case History-Is this case still good law? Westlaw: KeyCite Lexis: Shepard’s

27 Case History on Westlaw

28 NJ ORAL ARGUMENTS Supreme Court Arguments Live webcast thirty-day archive of arguments in streaming video. includes the opinions under appeal Supreme Court of N.J. Oral Arguments Archive (at Rutgers-Newark Law Library) Archive of arguments older than thirty days, starting January includes the opinions under appeal.

29 Thank You! Questions? Caroline Young