legal reference
Statute or precedent
A legal reference is a citation to a law, court case, statute, or other legal authority that supports an argument or claim.
Lawyers include legal references in briefs and motions to show precedent: The attorney provided several legal references to support her motion.
The term also covers research materials like legal encyclopedias and case reporters that practitioners consult.
- case lawJudge-made legal doctrine
- common lawJurisprudence from judicial decisions
- jurisprudencePhilosophy governing legal systems
- treatiseFormal scholarly composition
- law reviewStudent-published legal scholarship journal
constitution · headnotes · precedent · codification · annotation · court decisions · statute · secondary sources · ordinance · digest · primary source · lexis · bluebook · law journal · regulation · section · clause · opinion
- reference booksdictionary, dictionaries, bilingual dictionaries, encyclopedias, thesauri
- reference toolsdictionary, encyclopedia, thesaurus, handbook, catalog
- legal guides
- legal vocabularylaw dictionary, legalese, Latin terms, definitions, expressions
- legal sourceslaws, law journals, constitutions, statutory law, treatises
- legal studieslaw journals, law reviews, critical race theory, law schools, law and ethics
legal referencehearsay
Unverified secondhand information
common knowledge · folk wisdom · anecdotal evidence · street wisdom · popular belief
legal referencecourt ruling
Judicial decision on case
judicial decision · legal judgment · verdict · decree · holding