The Law Library has codes for all fifty states. This material is also located on the first floor of the Law Library. As with the U.S. Code, there are official and unofficial, annotated and unannotated versions of most state codes. As a collection policy, the Law Library only purchases an annotated version of each state's code. This is true whether or not the annotated version of the code happens also to be the official version.


Refer to Sloan at 15-19 and to Writing Assignment # 3. Write down your answers and turn them in to your Legal Writing professor.

A.   Write down search terms for finding statutes applicable to Writing Assignment # 3. Include terms in all four categories listed by Sloan, and increase the breadth and depth of your terms by using synonyms and related terms and by varying the levels of abstraction.

 



B.   Then go to the code for the state to which you've been assigned, and use the index and your search terms to find the most relevant statutes. Look up the statutes, both in the main volumes and in the pocket parts, read them, and list the most relevant ones with a brief description of each. For each statute you list, also note whether you found the statutory language in the main volume, in the pocket part, or in both.





C.   Which search term(s) worked best for finding the statutes? List them.





D.   Finally, scan the case annotations to the statutes you found and list the names and citations of any cases that appear from the annotations to be particularly relevant to your writing assignment.