Research Materials In The United

States
Many of our laws, particularly political
and commercial law, originated from the
American legal system.
One consults laws and decisions of the
United States only if our laws were
copied from them and its principles of law
were adopted in the Philippines.
Example: The concept of due process of
law found in Our Constitution was

Common Law vs Civil Law Systems

Common law
Is generally uncodified. This means that
there is no comprehensive compilation
of legal rules and statutes. While
common law does rely on some scattered
statutes, which are legislative decisions, it
is largely based on precedent, meaning
the judicial decisions that have already
been made in similar cases. These
precedents are maintained over time
through the records of the courts as well
as historically documented in collections

Civil Law,
in contrast, iscodified. Countries with civil law systems
have comprehensive, continuously updated legal codes
that specify all matters capable of being brought before a
court, the applicable procedure, and the appropriate
punishment for each offense. Such codes distinguish
between different categories of law: substantive law
establishes which acts are subject to criminal or civil
prosecution, procedural law establishes how to determine
whether a particular action constitutes a criminal act, and
penal law establishes the appropriate penalty. In a civil
law system, the judges role is to establish the facts
of the case and to apply the provisions of the
applicable code

A. Case Law
Federal Court Decisions
Supreme Court
US Federal Supreme Court decisions are officially
published in the US Report and its alternative texts in
the Supreme Court Reporter published commercially
by West Publishing Company
US Supreme Court Reports Published by Lexis
Publishing Company.
US Law Week(USLW) a looseleaf service published by
the Bureau of National Affairs, prints important current
decisions of the US Federal Supreme Court and digests of
decisions of the federal appellate and district courts, and

Court of Appeals and District Court

Decisions
The intermediate appellate courts are the US
Court of Appeals divided into 13 circuits
In the federal court system, the general trial
courts are known as US District Courts in 94
districts.
These courts have no official reports , except for
slip decisions.
The decisions of these courts are published
unofficially by West Publishing in The Federal

Special Federal Courts

There are several specialized trial courts such as
the Bankruptcy Courts, The Court of Federal
Claims and The Court of International Trade.
Bankruptcy Courts
Federal courts have exclusive jurisdiction over
bankruptcy cases involving personal, business, or
farm bankruptcy. This means a bankruptcy case
cannot be filed in state court. Through the
bankruptcy process, individuals or businesses
that can no longer pay their creditors may either
seek a court-supervised liquidation of their
assets, or they may reorganize their financial

These courts have no official reports , except for

slip decisions.
The decisions of these courts are published
unofficially by West Publishing in The Federal
Reports , Federal Supplements and Federal
Rules Decisions which contain a limited number
of US District Court decisions.

Decision of State Courts

Decisions of the State Courts are published
in two forms:
1. as official reports , issued by the
courts as authoritative texts of their
decisions and and as
2. unofficial reports issued by
commercial publishers

WEST LAW and LEXIS

are the leading online system in legal
research.
West law
http://international.westlaw.com
Lexis http://www.lexis.com/
They're available on subscription basis.
Both provide access to a wide range of
documents including full text of opinions
from federal and state courts as well as