Biotechnology Law and Ethics Seminar

Sources of Law: A Quick Overview

The U.S. Constitution provides for three branches of government: executive, legislative and judiciary.

Each branch of government produces “law":

  • The executive branch via the President enters into treaties and executive agreements and issues executive orders. Federal executive departments and agencies promulgate regulations and make administrative decisions.
  • The legislative branch enacts statutes.
  • The judiciary decides cases.

The United States system of government is a federalist system. Law making powers are shared between the federal government and the state governments. State systems parallel the federal system, and so do the legal research tools and techniques. This research guide focuses on federal legal research. Selected additional sources, such as tools for non-legal scholarly articles, news and public policy information, web resources, and research guides are also provided here.


Legal Research Basics

Most legal research should begin with a review of secondary sources such as treatises, law review and law articles, and legal news. Secondary sources help you frame your questions before you begin researching "the law" and often provide citations to primary sources.

Once you have exhausted secondary sources, you should follow up your research in primary sources: statutes and other legislation, cases, and regulations.

Note that most electronic databases listed on this guide are available anywhere on campus, unless otherwise indicated. Please configure your home computer for off campus access to electronic databases. Law students should also follow the configuration instructions to use these databases via the law wireless network.


A Word about Legal Citations

Legal citations generally follow The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation. Standard Bluebook abbreviations for selected primary sources are provided in this guide. Our Quick Tips for Deciphering Legal Citations provides information on how to find an item once you have a citation.

If you are still having trouble deciphering a legal citation, please consult Bieber's Dictionary of Legal Abbreviations (Law Dictionaries K89 .B53 2001) or talk with a reference librarian.

Secondary Sources

Legal News

One of the best ways to discover "hot topics" for research is by looking at legal news. You may also consult legal newspapers to find out about new or pending legislation, cases, and regulations that may relate to your topic.

  • In LexisNexis Academic, start at the Sources tab at the top of the screen. Select the subsection on Find Sources, then enter the keyword "Biotechnology," and select Legal News as the Publication Type. Click on the Find Sources button to view the publications. You may then search one or more of the publications by keyword.
Treatises and other books

Use the Boston University Libraries Catalog to locate books and journals. Remember to search the authors/titles of the books or journals, not the titles of articles or chapters within them.

  • Use a word search if you do not have exact information such as an author or title.
  • Find one good source and then use its subject headings to search for related sources.
  • Use a title search if you have found a reference to a book, journal, or newspaper and need to find if the BU libraries own the material.
  • Remember to copy both the location and call number.

If you do not find the materials you require in the B.U. 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.

Law review & law journal articles

Use a periodicals index to search for articles using keywords in the author, title, or abstract. Periodical indexes help you locate the most relevant articles on any given topic. The following legal periodical indexes cover articles from 1980-present. These databases are available to all BU students in the Pappas Law Library reading room.

Once you have located references to legal articles, you have various options for locating the full text:

 

Primary Law Research

Statutes and Other Legislation

Statutes are the laws promulgated by the legislature. Federal statutes are chronologically published as Public Laws, then arranged by subject into the United States Code (U.S.C.). The official U.S.C. is unwieldy and generally a few years behind in publication. Instead, use an annotated code to conduct your research in print or online. Annotated codes also provide references to relevant cases, regulations, and secondary sources to help expand your research.

  • Print Research:
    • Start with the United States Code Annotated (U.S.C.A.) or the United States Code Service (U.S.C.S.).
    • Search by keyword in the General Index.
    • Use the citation (title + section) to find the text of the law.
    • Update the main volume with the pocket part/bound supplement.
    • Complete your updating by searching for applicable public laws enacted after the publication of the supplement.
  • Electronic Research:
    • On LexisNexis Academic, start at the LexisNexis Academic Legal Tab. Select Federal & State Codes from the Legal Searches menu on the right side of the screen.
      • search by citation using the search: heading ( title # ) and section (# ).
        For example, search 15 USC 2601 as: heading ( title 15 ) and section (2601)
      • to search by keywords, enter them in the Search Terms box and use appropriate connectors between them.
    • Update your research using LexisNexis Congressional. Search Public Laws for recently enacted laws or use Bill Tracking to check the status of pending legislation

In addition to locating laws that have already been enacted or pending legislation, you may want to locate legislation that was proposed but never enacted:


Administrative Law

Administrative law consists of regulations and administrative decisions. Regulations are the mandates of executive departments or agencies that implement legislation. They are often called "delegated legislation" because the departments or agencies are empowered by the legislature to regulate on specific topics pursuant to legislation. Federal regulations are chronologically published in the Federal Register (F.R.), then arranged by subject into the Code of Federal Regulations (C.F.R.). Unlike the statutes, there is no "annotated" C.F.R., thus it is preferable to find citations to regulations via a secondary source or in the U.S. Code.

Fortunately, most federal agencies are providing many materials on the Internet, including their regulations. Here are some examples pertinent to this course:

You may also locate regulations using print and electronic legal research tools:

  • Print Research:
    • Start with the Code of Federal Regulations
    • Search by keywords in the Index.
    • Use the citation (title + part) to find the text of the regulation.
    • Update the CFR by using the List of Sections Affected and the Federal Register. See our Federal Regulatory Research guide for a detailed explanation of how to update the CFR.
  • Electronic Research via LexisNexis Academic:
    • Start at the LexisNexis Academic Legal Tab. Select Federal & State Codes from the Legal Searches menu on the right side of the screen. Select CFR - Code of Federal Regulations from the Select Sources menu.
      • search by citation using the search: cite (title # CFR section #).
        For example, search 40 CFR 51.123 as: cite (40 CFR 51.123)
      • to search by keywords, enter them in the Search Terms box and use appropriate connectors between them.
    • Update your research with the Federal Register. From the Federal & State Codes page, select Federal Register from the Select Sources menu.

In addition to their regulatory powers, agencies can adjudicate disputes relating to their legislative mandate. Agency decisions are also chronologically published. There is no finding tool for all agency decisions because they are not available from one single source. If your research requires you to locate agency decisions, please see our guide on Sources for Federal Administrative Decisions or talk with a reference librarian.


Case law

What lawyers call "cases" are the opinions of the judges adjudicating disputes between two or more parties. To understand case law research, you must understand the basic court hierarchy and case law publication:

  • Trial courts are the courts that first hear the dispute between the two parties.
    • The review of the facts and the decision may be made by a judge or jury.
    • Trial level "opinions" are very selectively published and thus very hard to locate.
    • At the federal level, these courts are called United States District Courts.
    • Federal district court cases, when published, may be found in the Federal Supplement (F.Supp., F.Supp.2d).
  • Intermediate appellate courts selectively review the decisions of the trial courts for errors in the application of the law.
    • The appellate courts do not review the facts, except as they pertain to the application of the law.
    • The United States Courts of Appeals, also known as Circuit Courts, are the federal intermediate appellate courts.
    • The opinions of the federal courts of appeals are published in the Federal Reporter (F., F.2d, F.3d)
  • The court of last resort is the most selective type of court.
    • This court usually resolves conflicts between the intermediate courts and may hear other cases directly, under limited circumstances.
    • The federal court of last resort is the Supreme Court of the United States.
    • U.S. Supreme Court opinions are published in:
      • United States Reports (U.S.)
      • Supreme Court Reporter (S.Ct.)
      • United States Supreme Court Reports, Lawyers' Edition (L.Ed., L.Ed.2d)

Generally, you will be searching for appellate opinions. Cases are published chronologically in "reporters". Unlike publications for statutes and regulations, reporters do not include an index to the entire set.

  • Print research:
    • Use the Federal Practice Digest to locate federal cases by keyword or party.
      • Use the Descriptive Word Index volumes to search keywords relating to your topic.
      • Use the Table of Cases to find a case when you know the name of at least one party but not the citation to the case.
    • Update case law using the print Shepard's Citations. This print tool for updating is quite complex. If you need to update cases, other than U.S. Supreme Court cases, please talk with a reference librarian.
  • Electronic research via LexisNexis Academic:
    • To search by the name of a case or its citation, use the Federal & State Cases search form, using the Case name field or the Citation Number search respectively. Follow the Citation Help link for the exact format of citations.
    • To search by keyword for federal cases, enter your keywords in the Enter Search Terms box. If necessary, restrict your search further by selecting Federal Court Cases, State Court Cases, or an individual state.
    • Update all case law using Shepard's Citations.

For more details on how to research cases in print, see our guide on Finding Cases Using the West Key Number Digests

See also our guide to Frequently Used Case Reporter Abbreviations for other case abbreviations.

 

Non-Legal Research

In order to fully research this topic, you will need to supplement your legal research with non-legal perspectives.

Scholarly Articles and News

Some of the indexes you can use to locate science and medical articles related to biotechnology include:

In addition to scholarly articles, you may want to locate news and read about public policy or other views on the topic you are researching. The following databases can be of help:


Web Resources

Although the temptation to "Google" your topic may be great, it is often better to start with selected reliable sources. Resist the temptation to search the web by using keywords and limit your use of search engines such as Google to find known items that are likely to be on the web.

Some biotechnology and bioethics related sites you should consult include:

Research Guides

In addition to this research guide, the Boston University Libraries offer three guides related to this topic.


Off Campus Access to Electronic Databases

Off campus access to all electronic databases is available unless otherwise indicated. To find out more about connecting to databases from off-campus locations:

Page maintained by Raquel Ortiz
Last updated: October 2007