Where You Have Been
The average student spends
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1.1
What is Authority?
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INTRODUCTION
In Segment B we are switching from Volume 1 to Volume 2 of the Essential Skills for Paralegals manuals. This is intentional. The goal is to provide students with an integrated learning experience covering aspects of research and writing (which are covered in Volume 2) at various points throughout the program. This way students are able to develop skills that are more comprehensive, and to learn those skills in the order they would typically occur in real litigation.
Volume 2 of the manual has four "Parts" with each "Part" consisting of three chapters, even though these "parts" aren't labeled as such. Each of the three chapters within each "Part" relates to the same general subject matter: Authority, Research, and Writing. Each subsequent "Part" raises the level of learning for the same subject matter. This allows the educational process to be more productive and will result in a more "real-world" development of legal skills.
In keeping with this process, Volume 2, Chapter 1 deals with an introduction to the concept of legal authority, Chapter 2 introduces the student to the foundations of legal research, and Chapter 3 provides the student with the foundations of legal writing.
A note about the written assignments. They will most likely take you longer to complete than you anticipate so please don't procrastinate. Get them out of the way as soon as you can. Most importantly, be sure to use the Research and Writing Labs provided on this website. They are there to make the learning experience more effective, and maybe even a little less painful!
Lecture Notes . . .
LEGAL RESEARCH AND WRITING
Legal research and legal writing have one very important thing in common: They are both systematic. That is, if you understand, and more importantly utilize, the systems of research and writing you are about to be taught, not only will your job be of a higher quality, it will make your job easier.
Now, how many things can you say that about?
There is one more thing legal research and writing have in common. They revolve around the concept of authority. Legal research attempts to find legal authority and legal writing attempts to communicate what that authority means.
Understanding this relationship from an early stage will lay an important foundation for your research and writing skills.
An Introduction to Authority
Courts rely on authority. It is what they base their opinions on. That is why research is critical to the representative process: The better authority the researcher can find the more likely it is that your client will win.
At this time, the points to be concerned with on this page in the manual are:
- the definition of authority
Anything the court can, or must, use in reaching its decision
- the concept of primary authority
Any law is primary authority
- the concept of secondary authority
Secondary authority is non-law. If you can quote it, but it's not law, it's secondary authority. An article from a legal encyclopedia is secondary. A definition from a legal dictionary is secondary. Even a quote from a magazine is secondary.
- the concept of non-authority
If you couldn't quote it, it's non-authority. An index, an overturned case, an invalid statute are all examples of non-authority.
For the moment don't worry too much about Mandatory and Persuasive Authority. These topics are more complex, and will be discussed in great detail later.
Paralegal Perspective . . .
When representing a client authority is everything. Any argument before the court must be based on authority. While there are various kinds of authority, the fundamental difference is between primary and secondary authority. Primary authority is law. Secondary authority is non-law. Thus, when researching a paralegal uses secondary authority (non-law) to locate primary authority (law).
Non-authority is another kind of authority. It is authority that would never be used by the court in coming to its decision. Non-authority may serve as a good research tool (such as an index), but it would never be used in legal writing.
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Introduction to Authority
Commonly Asked Questions . . .
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Exercise
Introduction to Authority