21. Reporters

The court decisions described above are gathered together into a set, traditionally delimited by the court involved, and published, or "reported". These sets, known as "reporters", usually come in a duplicative format. Small groups of cases are published in paperback format, sometimes as often as weekly, and are called "advance sheets". When enough cases have accumulated in the advance sheets to warrant a full book, a final version is published, in hardcover form. If not restricted to a particular court, reporters are generally limited by jurisdiction and/or level of court. There are many different reporters in the US covering federal and state cases. The paper publishing process has become fairly efficient, but the high number of cases has made working with the paper volumes somewhat cumbersome. A number of computer systems have been developed to handle the demand for an efficient way to manipulate all of this data. The leading ones are Lexis, Lois, and Westlaw.

22. Pre-publication screening

Opinions don't automatically get published in the appropriate reporter. Editorial decisions are made as to whether or not an opinion is worth publishing, based not so much on judicial or literary quality but on the "newness" of the law involved. If a case rehashes settled law, it might not be published. If it arrives at a new point of interpretation or new common law, it almost certainly will be published. The computer systems, however, contain many cases which have never been "published" in a paper format. These may not have the same precedental value as the "published" cases, and may need to be treated specially according to local rules. Many courts now have websites where their cases are available as soon as they are issued. In some cases, the website is the "official" source of the text. Some websites reflect the special nature of specific courts, such as this site on Delaware Corporation law maintained by the Delaware Court of Chancery in Conjuction with selected Law Schools.