Primary Sources of Law

Primary sources of law consist of laws that govern a particular jurisdiction. There are state and federal primary sources of law so it is important to know the jurisdiction you need before you begin researching sources of law. Primary sources consist of enacted law and case law.  Enacted laws are laws that have been enacted by the legislative branch of government. This typically means laws like the constitution, statutes, and regulations. Case law refers to laws that have been set forth through the judicial branch of government. Judges hear cases and draft written opinions. These opinions are case law (and we read and brief these cases as discussed earlier).

Stare decisis is a legal doctrine with a latin name that means that courts will follow precedent when making legal decisions. This can be explained by thinking about previous courts that have ruled on the same or a similar issue, then the court will make its decision in in the same way as previous courts’ decision.  In this situation, the previous deciding-court must have binding authority over the court; otherwise, the previous decision is merely persuasive authority. There will be more about this in the following chapters.

A court can either overrule or reverse a previous court’s decision. “Overrule” refers to when a court changes an existing appellate court rule; “reverse” refers to when a court changes the result reached by the court below.