Banking Thesis Seminar

While the process of legal research in any jurisdiction follows the same basic steps, United States legal sources differ from foreign legal sources and from international legal sources. See also the Banking Law Research Guide and resources on related subjects.

Regardless of the jurisdiction, it is often best to start any legal research project with secondary sources, which provide commentary, analysis and background information on many areas of law. There are many US secondary sources as well as foreign law secondary sources.

To assist you with preparing your thesis, the reference librarians created the Research Roadmap: How to Prepare Your Note, Cert. or Seminar Paper. This guide takes you through all of the steps for preparing a research paper.

Researching the Law of the United States

The United States, a common law jurisdiction, has two parallel systems of government: the federal system and the state system.

Primary law is made up of cases, statutes and administrative law.


Case Law

Opinions and decisions of federal and state courts create precedent which is binding on other courts; therefore, many of the opinions and decisions of these courts are published.

Federal Courts: There are several levels of United States federal courts, each with its own reports of decisions.

The United States Supreme Court is the highest court in the United States. U.S. Supreme Court case law is available from a number of sources.

  • United States Reports ("US"): official reporter (Pappas)
  • Supreme Court Reporter ("S.Ct.") and United States Supreme Court Reports: Lawyer's Edition ("L.Ed." and "L.Ed.2d"): unofficial reporters (Pappas)
  • US Law Week ("U.S.L.W."): recent Supreme Court opinions (Pappas, Law Ref Desk, Annex Ref and online (BULaw only))
  • LexisNexis: Lawyer's Edition (GENFED:US)
  • Westlaw: Supreme Court Reporter (SCT)
  • United States Supreme Court web site provides many decisions in portable document format, along with recent opinions and orders, docket and oral argument transcripts and other information.

The United States Courts of Appeal are the intermediate appellate courts, each of which hears cases within a geographic circuit. Sources of case law include:

  • Federal Reporter ("F.", "F.2d" and "F.3d") unofficial reporter

The United States District Courts are the federal trial level courts. Only select U.S. District Court decisions are published in:

  • Federal Supplement ("F.Supp.") and Federal Rules Decisions ("F.R.D."): unofficial reporter
    • Pappas
  • Federal Supplement and Federal Rules Decisions as well as select unreported cases

State Courts: Each state court system has a structure which parallels the federal court system. Consult the Bluebook or ALWD for state court names and the corresponding case reporters. Pappas Law Library has hard copies of, and LexisNexis and Westlaw provide electronic access to, state court reports.

Researching Case Law

There are several ways to conduct case law research. The process is the same at the state and federal court levels.

  • Take note of citations to relevant cases you find in secondary source research.
  • Use a Digest, a collection of case summaries arranged by Topic and sections, or "Key Numbers." There are digests for almost every type of case reporter. For example, most states have a digest found, at Pappas Law Library, near the state case reporter. For federal cases, there are West's Federal Practice Digest (Law Indexes and Annex) and West's Supreme Court Digest (Pappas). Additionally, you can search digests online via Westlaw and LexisNexis.
  • Search the full-text of cases on LexisNexis or Westlaw in the database containing the appropriate jurisdiction's case law. However, full-text searching can pull up many cases that are not very useful.
  • Shepardize or Keycite interesting cases to find other related cases.
  • If you are interested in locating cases that interpret a statute, use an annotated statutory code to find additional cases related to sections in the code. (See below.)


Statutes

Statutes, both federal and state, are laws enacted by the legislature.

Federal Statutes

  • The United States Code is the permanent, subject arrangement of statutes. Relevant provisions in the Code can be located by consulting the paper indexes to the Code (particularly the annotated codes) or by searching the online versions.
    • United States Code ("U.S.C."): official version
    • United States Code Annotated ("U.S.C.A.") and United States Code Service ("U.S.C.S."): unofficial, annotated versions of the code, which are more up-to-date than the official version and provide references to court decisions that apply each section of the Code.
    • LexisNexis: United States Code (CODES:USC) and the United States Code Service (CODES:USCS)
    • Westlaw: United States Code (USC) and the United States Code Annotated (USCA)
    • Legal Information Institute at Cornell Law School: United States Code
  • United States session laws are federal statutes arranged chronologically as they are passed by the Congress.
    • Statutes at Large ("Stat."): Law Pappas and Law Micro
    • United States Code Congressional and Administrative News ("U.S.C.C.A.N"): Law Pappas and Law Micro
    • LexisNexis: public laws (LEGIS:PUBLAW)
    • Westlaw: public laws (US-PL) and United States Code Congressional and Administrative News (USCCAN)
  • Bills before Congress
  • It may also be useful to look at the legislative history of federal statutes.

State Statutes: There are a variety of sources for state statutory research. As with federal statutory research, annotated codes are available in both print and electronic versions.

Administrative Law

The methods for federal administrative law research are appropriate for banking law research. See also the guide on federal regulatory research methodology. In addition, the Banking Law Research Guide describes the federal agencies that regulate banks and other financial institutions, and links to the documents issued by these agencies that may be relevant to your research.


US Law Secondary Sources

Consulting secondary sources, including law review articles, treatises and loose-leaf services, can be a very helpful first step for any legal research project.

  • Law review articles
    • Search the Index to Legal Periodicals and Books (BULaw only).
    • Search Legaltrac (BULaw only).
    • Search the full-text law review databases on LexisNexis (ALLREV) and Westlaw (JLR).
    • Search the BU online catalog for the title of the journal to find the location of that journal in the Pappas Law Library.
    • Hein Online (BU only) provides full-text access, in PDF format, to articles in hundreds of law journals, including older volumes which are not available on LexisNexis and Westlaw.
  • Treatises and other books
    • Search the BU online catalog by WORD to find materials related to your topic.
    • Consult a reference librarian for help in locating books on your topic.
    • If you do not find the materials that you need in the BU libraries, you can search the catalogs of libraries from around the world through the online catalog Worldcat, then request to borrow the materials through interlibrary loan. Please consult a reference librarian with any questions.
  • Loose-leaf services
    • Consult these select banking law loose-leaf services
    • Consult Legal Looseleafs in Print (Ref Desk KF1 L55) to identify titles of loose-leaf services that may be relevant to your topic.
    • Search the BU online catalog by WORD or TITLE, if you have found the title of a loose-leaf service in the course of your research.

Resources on subjects related to banking law

Page maintained by David Bachman
Last updated: January 2007