ED IN A PRIVATE LAW

LIBRARY

REPORTS AND REPORTERS.

Judge Dillon says in his work on the Laws and Jurisprudence of England and America: "The law, as a result of the ever-occurring changes in the condition of society and in legislation, is constantly changing. The old is, to a great extent, so well settled and known as to have become elementary and indisputable. It is the new that is unknown, and needs interpretation and definition. And as between the old reports and the new, the experience of every lawyer and judge is, I think, to the effect that the new are the most useful because the most needed."

The current supreme court decisions of all the states are published in two editions. In each state the local reports are published as a local series under the auspices of the state. This is commonly known as the "official edition." The current decisions of each state are also published in seven Reporters, making up the National Reporter System. In the Reporters the cases are published first in weekly advance sheets, which are afterwards replaced by bound volumes for permanent use.

In building up a library of reports, three considerations should be borne in mind: To obtain the books most useful; to buy in such a manner that subsequent purchases will not duplicate the first; and to obtain the books with the smallest expenditure possible. The National Reporter System fulfills all these requirements. The National Reporter System contains the late cases, and it is far better to buy a set of the Reporter System, and thus obtain the later decisions of the whole country back to a given point, than to buy the entire reports of

any one state, the early volumes of which contain little that has not been affirmed in the later reports, or that is not obsolete or so well settled as to be indisputable. The one exception to this rule is in favor of the decisions of one's own state. The set a lawyer first buys is generally that containing the supreme court decisions of his own state, and, as he wishes to increase his library, he can add other reports as he is prepared to do so. If he wishes the reports of any state in full, he can buy the early volumes to the date when their publication commences in the Reporter System at a material saving over the cost of an entire set. The difference in cost between buying the official reports and obtaining the same cases in the Reporter System is well illustrated, in the Northeastern Reporter.

The Northeastern Reporter, volumes 1 to 113, contains all the opinions reported in 560 volumes of the Reports of Massachusetts, the New York Court of Appeals, Ohio, Indiana Supreme Court, Indiana Appellate Court, and Illinois Supreme Court. The price of the Northeastern, thin paper edition, buckram binding, volumes 1 to 113, inclusive, in 61 books, is $230.50. The price of the corresponding state reports is about $1,250.00. This price is that at which the state reports are sold outside of the particular state. In some of the states a lower price is made to attorneys within the state. But compare this price with that of the Northeastern. The saving is enough to buy a whole law library of digests, text-books and local practice books.

The National Reporter System was begun in 1879 with the Northwestern and extended to cover the entire country by 1887. It now contains more than one-half of the total number of decisions handed down by the courts of last resort of the country. This, moreover, is the later and therefore the more valuable half, as is demonstrated by the passage quoted by Judge Dillon in the opening paragraph of this article.

For further information on this matter of Reports and Reporters send for our booklet entitled, "A Lawyer's Choice of Reports," which we will be pleased to send you with our compliments.

DIGESTS OF REPORTS.

Few lawyers beginning the practice are able to buy all of the reports which they would like to have. It is no less necessary, however, to consult them constantly. The American Digest System is an adequate substitute and can be used effectively until the lawyer is prepared to increase his library by the addition of other sets of reports. A digest is a compendium, topically arranged, of the holdings set out in the opinions. In other words, it is a boiled down, concentrated extract of the opinions. Putting it in another way: Granting that it is impossible for the lawyer to have all of the reports of all the states, he would have a very effective working library if he could have an edition of reports which contained the headnotes only. If such an edition existed for the reports of all of the states, and these headnotes were arranged topically rather than by cases, he would have simply a digest. This is what has been done in the case of the American Digest System. The Century Digest covers, topically arranged, all of the decisions from 1658 to 1896. The Decennial Digest covers the decisions from 1897 to 1906, and the American Digest, Key-Number Series, the decisions subsequent to 1906. These Digests are arranged on the American Digest Classification which is everywhere recognized as the standard, being not only used in all of the West Publishing Company's digests and indexes but by the authors of many text-books and reports.

With the American Digest System the lawyer can ascertain without leaving his office what the exact holding is in any case to which he has been referred. This is done through the Com

plete Table of American Cases which is part of the set. If he has no case in point, but desires to investigate the authorities on the question at hand, by consulting the digest topic, or through the Descriptive Word Index, he can secure a complete brief of all the authorities in point. After this preliminary work of listing the cases has been done he can then go to the law library or to the library of some other attorney to read those opinions which bear most directly on his case.

lawyer cannot secure access to any desired opinion and that opinion has been reported in the National Reporter System he can obtain a copy from the publishers for twenty-five cents. Typewritten copies of decisions prior to the Reporter System can also be had at small cost.

The great advantage of having the entire case law of the United States arranged on a uniform classification plan is very evident. For instance, the scheme of classification in the local digest of the State Reports and of the indexes in these reports is never the same. If a lawyer commences his investigation by examining the decisions in the Massachusetts Reports he has to spend some time in learning the classification used in that state. If he next turns to the New York Reports or a digest of these reports he finds the scheme of classification different and more time must be spent in mastering this new arrangement. On the other hand the classification scheme of the American Digest System is uniform and the Key-Number System of uniform section numbers in the Key-Number Digests enables him to turn directly from one digest to the other.

Until the lawyer can have in his office the reports which 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 that reference to the reports will in most cases be found unnecessary.