Question #2

Your client was the subject of a message that was posted on a publicly-accessible web page. This message may very likely contain defamatory statements about your client. Which of the three secondary resources listed would most likely give you a good overview of the law of defamation as it relates to messages on the internet? Click on one of the three resources shown here.

The best choice for this sort of question is probably a legal treatise. Displayed here is a selection from Sack on Defamation. This two-volume looseleaf set is one of the best resources on this particular area of law. This section deals with defamation as it is related to the internet (or, as this treatise calls it, "new media"). A treatise like this will give you a thorough discussion of this specific type of question, and will provide you with relevant case law on this issue.

Question #3.

Which of the three secondary resources listed would be the best one to use to research the legal issues involved in the proposal to pay reparations to African Americans for slavery? Click on one of the three resources shown here.

A Law Review Article.

Because "reparations for slavery" is a current "hot topic" legal issue, law reviews are probably the best resource to find some good, detailed discussion of this issue.

This graphic shows the beginning of a 2003 article from theAlabama Law Review. This eighteen page article provides a thorough discussion of the question of slavery reparations and discusses the legal issues relevant to this topic.

Secondary Resources Online

Some secondary sources are available online, mainly through the major legal research services Westlaw, Lexis, and Bloomberg Law. And while only a fraction of all secondary sources have an online version, the most widely used, and useful, ones can probably be found on one of those three services.

Secondary Resources Online

It might be convenient to have access to secondary sources online, but they are not cheap. And, generally, you cannot just subscribe to a single treatise, encyclopedia, or other type of secondary resource: there is no á la carte or "cafeteria plan" pricing for these titles on Westlaw, Lexis, and Bloomberg Law.

There are stripped-down, reasonably-priced versions of these research services designed for solo practitioners, which mainly provide cases and statutes for a given jurisdiction; those plans may also include some secondary resources, like law reviews and maybe an encyclopedia, but the full range of secondary resources you may have used through these services during law school are only available to attorneys that have a full account with them. And that can be expensive.

So unless you are at a large firm that has full accounts with Westlaw, Lexis, or Bloomberg Law, it might still be more economical to have some of these secondary sources in print, or take the time to go to a nearby law library to use them. Just because a secondary resource is online doesn't mean that it is less expensive that in print.

For example, here is American Jurisprudence 2d, one of the two major legal encyclopedias on general American law that we saw earlier, on WestlawNext. The entry point, shown here, shows the list of the articles in AmJur. Let's look at the one for Weapons and Firearms.
Here's the AmJur article Weapons and Firearms. The start of the outline for this article on Westlaw is shown on the left, and for the print set on the right.

One obvious advantage of the online version is that the footnotes, and most of the resources they cite, like cases and statutes, are links. So if those resources are also available on Westlaw, the links will take you directly to those resources.

Appleman on Insurance 2d is one of the major multi-volume treatises about the law of insurance in general.

And here is § 192.03 from Appleman, on Lexis and in print. This section, on "Anti-Concurrent Cause Language" in insurance for hurricanes, has several footnotes and, in print, is supplemented with some new material in a pocket part to this volume. Like we saw with AmJur on Westlaw, the footnotes to the Lexis' version ofAppleman on Insurance have links to the referenced materials, like cases, statutes, and even other secondary resources, if they are available on Lexis.

Another advantage to online secondary resources is that new material is readily integrated into the text of a treatise online. The print volumes of Appleman are supplemented with new material in pocket parts for each volume. In the on-line version, you don't have to refer to another screen to get new material contained in the print edition of Appleman.

And here, on Bloomberg Law, is Federal Appellate Practice, and a picture of this title in print. This single-volume title has elements of both a treatise and a practice guide, in that it has detailed scholarly discussions about the law related to federal appellate practice, and it has some how-to tips. So it is sort of an amalgam of those two types of secondary resources.

Of the following three statements about using secondary resources online, which one is not true?

A.	Secondary resources online are typically updated in a more timely manner than in print
B.	Secondary resources online can have links to other materials, such as in footnotes
C.	Secondary resources online are always cheaper than secondary resources in print
D.	Trick question! - All the above are true!!!