or very much condensed, the 2,850 volumes of State Reports covered by the Reporter System contain considerably more than one-half of the total number of the decisions. The price of complete sets of the seven State Reporters to this time (February 26, 1911) is now only $1,889.50. Over one-half of the Supreme Court Reports of all the states can be bought, therefore, for $1,889.50, or at the rate of sixty-seven cents per original volume of the State Reports. This, moreover, is the later and therefore the more necessary half. Could the 2,600 volumes be bought at the same rate, the entire case law of the United States would be within the reach of all prosperous lawyers. This cannot now be done, but there is a downward tendency in the price of all reports. Quite a number can be bought for $2 per volume and some for less. Every few years some hitherto expensive set is reprinted, and there is reason to think that the cost of the 2,600 volumes prior to the Reporter System will grow steadily less. The low prices established by the National Reporter System have done more than anything else towards reducing the prices of the official series.

For further information along this line, send for our circular "A Lawyer's Choice of Reports."

DIGESTS OF REPORTS.

Few lawyers beginning practice are able to buy all the reports they need. It is no less necessary, however, to consult them constantly. This must be done largely through digests. The American Digest System, embracing the Century, Decennial, and Current American Digests, furnishes a lawyer with an abstract of every case decided by the American courts of last resort. Through this system a lawyer can ascertain, without leaving his office, if there is a case in any volume of American Reports bearing on the one he has in hand. The advantage of

having the entire case law of the United States arranged under a uniform classification plan is very evident. For instance, the scheme of classification in the local digests of State Reports is the same in hardly any two. If a lawyer commences his investigations by examining decisions in the Massachusetts Reports, he has to spend some time in learning the classification used in the digest of that set. If he then turns to a digest of New York Reports, he finds the method of arrangement different, and more time must be spent in learning the classification of that digest. With every other digest that he takes up, he has to repeat the same experience. On the other hand, having once learned the classification scheme of the American Digest System he can examine the authorities in as many states as he chooses without the annoyance of having to turn from one scheme of classification to another, as is necessary in using state digests. Another advantage is in the method of covering late decisions. The Century Digest comes down to 1896, and the Decennial covers from 1897 to 1906, thus giving a digest of American Cases from 1658 to 1906, under two alphabetical arrangements. The Decennial is supplemented by the current American Digests, which are identical in classification plan with the Century and Decennial Digests, thus giving a digest of the later cases as fast as they are published. There is no system of issuing supplements to the different state digests, and it is practically impossible to get at the late decisions of any state excepting through these current volumes of the American Digest.

In large towns where law libraries are found, a lawyer with the American Digest System has on his shelves a digest of every American decision in every library, and the preliminary work of ascertaining where an authority can be found on any proposition of law can be done without leaving his office. In

towns in which there are no law libraries, but in which there are many reports scattered through many law offices, a lawyer with the American Digest System has a digest of the law library of every other member of the bar, and can learn through it, without leaving his office, whether or not there are any cases in any of the books in his brother lawyers' offices which bear on the one which he is investigating. If he has no access to a public library, or to the reports in private libraries, he can obtain from the publishers a copy of any decision cited from the Reporter System for 25 cents, and typewritten copies of decisions prior to the Reporter System at a small cost. Thus until he can have in his office the reports he needs, the American Digest System is the greatest aid to using those to which he has access elsewhere. Furthermore, the digest paragraphs are in themselves so full and clear that reference to the reports will often be found unnecessary. The Digests are a condensation of the Reports.

all the Authorities.

A new device which effectually and finally solves the "case law problem."

Original-Exclusive-Revolutionary

The practitioner's case law problem, which is Your always with him, is to find from the 700,000 re- problem. ported cases the authorities directly applicable to the particular legal questions in hand.

Our

The case law problem for the law publisher is to help the practitioner to find these few author- problem ities from the many, most readily, most easily, and most exhaustively.

Both problems are now solved by a new device we have worked out for making the wealth of the American Digest System available in connection with the Reporter System, producing what is in effect a system of universal and specific annotations.

This scheme was never possible before, because the material was not available until the American Digest System was perfected.

Both

solved.

Now

first

possible.

All the

In the American Digest System, the points of past law in the 700,000 reported cases are extracted, decisions carefully formulated, and arranged in 112,000 groups, each one of which forms, in effect, a specific "note" or collection of the authorities on some particular point of law.

classified.

And now the current

decisions

also.

The

key

number.

The

future

cases.

The classification followed in the Digest System is now extended to the Reporter System. Every point in every new decision is classified by experts for the American Digest System before it is published in the Reporters. Its place in the Digest classification is then editorially indicated by the uniform section number, recently adopted in connection with the Decennial and the current American Digests. This key number will hereafter be affixed to every Reporter headnote.

The key number thus works backwards and forwards, making the American Digest annotations perpetual, receiving from day to day the new authorities as they come from the courts, and making them instantly accessible to the searcher through the talismanic number.

No other system can possibly accomplish this. No other form of annotations made to-day can carry with them an unerring reference forward through the reports and digests to all future cases in point.