Lawyers and law firms use a variety of resources to prepare for representing their
clients in civil and criminal matters, including legal reference books and legal
dictionaries.
A great deal of American law is based on precedent. This is the concept that a given case is similar to prior
cases; therefore, the judge or court’s decision in the prior case sets a precedent which may be applied in
the current case. In order to cite the results of prior cases, attorneys must be able to read and know about those
prior cases. Many volumes of legal reference books relate to these prior court decisions.
The decisions of the Supreme Court are published in bound volumes called United States
Reports. There are now more than 500 volumes in this series. In addition, individual states publish
volumes called “Reporters.” These volumes contain the results of cases decided by courts that have
appellate jurisdiction. There are also “Reporters” for other federal and appellate court decisions.
There is a digest system available that organizes and indexes case results in categories and sub-categories to
make it easier to find cases with similar circumstances.
Another reference tool is the Bluebook, the most widely used style guide for writing legal
citations. However, some states have citation standards that differ substantially from the Bluebook and a few
publish their own style guides.
Attorneys must also be able to reference the actual laws. These are found in volumes like the United
States Code (USC) and the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), and a variety of other
federal and state regulations and statutes. A law office is most likely to have specific information for the
particular state where they practice and possibly neighboring states.
All lawyers need a selection of dictionaries. In addition to an ordinary English dictionary and thesaurus, a
lawyer will use legal dictionaries and encyclopedias to reference legal terms, usage, and
concepts. If he is able to speak languages other than English, he will likely have multilingual legal
dictionaries. | 
