38. Importance of checking the validity of cases and statutes

The question of currency of the sources consulted is crucial. Besides avoiding arguments based on cases which have been overruled or statutes which have been vitiated or repealed, new cases may act to shade or enhance an argument. It is important to remember that for all the pressure for law to be predictable, it is still safest to assume the law is relatively unsettled until the research proves otherwise. The tool which has developed to check on the status of cases and other legal information is the "citator". For many years, the idea of a legal citator was virtually synonomous with a particular publisher, Shepard. As electronic sources have developed Shepard's also became computerised, and competition has developed in the form of the Westlaw system's own citator, known as Keycite.

39. Introduction to Citators

For case law, a citator presents in tabular form a list of citations to cases which have mentioned, favorably or not, the case you have arrived at through other research. Some key cases have been cited hundreds of times, while others may never get cited at all. For statutes, the list is of cases which have mentioned the statute. The cases are listed simply because they have mentioned the source. It is still up to the researcher to check the judge's reason for mentioning the source, and to decide if it is relevant to the research at hand.

40. Layout of Shepards

In the paper format, the citations appear in compact vertical rows on page, which results in a daunting and mysterious looking set of books full of numbers. These follow a set format:

The source case page, in large boldface

Parallel citations (exact same decision in a different reporter)

Case History citations (the same case as decided by different courts as it made its way up the appellate ladder)

Citations to later cases which mention the leading case in the following order:

1. Jurisdictionally authoritative courts
2. Federal Courts, highest first
3. State courts, in alphabetical order
4. Secondary sources such as Attorney General opinions, Law Review Articles, etc.

41. Interpretive information

To help the user decide if the case cited to is worth looking at, the citations contain a plethora of coded information about the cases cited, such as the headnote number within the decision of the concept the later case is referring to. They also give a rudimentary editorial comment on the nature of the citation in the citing case. For example, if the later case overtly followed the source case, there will be a little "f" to indicate that. There is a full table of abbreviations in each volume to explain the system.

42. Cumulative Structure

Shepard's is published in a cumulative structure which includes hardbound books supplemented by paperbound quarterly or yearly cumulations, which are in turn supplemented by a monthly pamphlet. An important thing to remember about Shepard's is that the cover of the most recent pamphlet contains a box which tells you what other volumes you have to look at. This can be very confusing, so the use of the computer versions have substantially supplanted the use of the paper version.

43. Availability on computers

Citators represent the kind of information that is best presented by computers. The same principles and informative annotations found in the paper form are followed in displaying the data in the computer form, but it is presented much more clearly, with the analytical notations spelled out rather than coded. The coding is necessary in the paper form to keep the books relatively compact.