The Federal Reporter is a case law reporter in the United States that is published by West Publishing. The third and current Federal Reporter series publishes decisions of the United States courts of appeals and the United States Court of Federal Claims; prior series had varying scopes that covered decisions of other federal courts as well. Though West is a private company that does not have a legal monopoly over the court opinions it publishes, it has so dominated the industry in the U.S. that legal professionals uniformly cite to the Federal Reporter for included decisions. Case law (precedential law) is the body of judge-made law and legal decisions that interprets prior case law, statutes and other legal authority -- including doctrinal writings by legal scholars such as the Corpus Juris Secundum, Halsburys Laws of England or the doctinal writings found in the Recueil Dalloz... In law, a reporter is a series of books which contain court opinions. ... Westlaw is one of two major fee-based online legal research systems, providing access to state and federal statutes, case law materials, public records, and other legal resources. ... Case law (precedential law) is the body of judge-made law and legal decisions that interprets prior case law, statutes and other legal authority -- including doctrinal writings by legal scholars such as the Corpus Juris Secundum, Halsburys Laws of England or the doctinal writings found in the Recueil Dalloz... The United States Courts of Appeals (or circuit courts) are the mid-level appellate courts of the United States federal court system. ... The United States Court of Federal Claims is a special court created on October 1, 1982 by the U.S. Congress and headquartered in Washington, D.C.. By federal law, claims brought against the United States must be brought in this court; however, as this court is established under Article... // Case citation is the system used in common law countries such as the United States, England and Wales, Canada, New Zealand, Australia and India to uniquely identify the location of past court cases in special series of books called reporters. ...

Features and print format

The Federal Reporter organizes court opinions within each volume by the date of the decision, and includes the full official text of the court's opinion. West editors add headnotes that summarize key principles of law in the cases, and Key Numbers that classify the decisions by topic within the West American Digest System. Introduction West American Digest System is a system of identifying legal cases and organizing them by topic and key number. ...

Only decisions designated by the courts as "for publication"—those with full precedential value for which citation in court filings is permissible—are included in the Federal Reporter. "Unpublished" decisions of the U.S. Courts of Appeals may be found in the Federal Appendix, also published by West. New opinions are first issued by West in weekly pamphlets called "Advance Sheets," to be eventually supplanted by the final hardbound, successively numbered volumes. Three series of Federal Reporter have been published to date. Precedent, sometimes authority, is the legal principle or rule created by a court which guides judges in subsequent cases with similar issues or facts. ... The Federal Appendix is a case law reporter published by West Publishing. ...

Series

Federal Reporter

The United States district courts are the general trial courts of the United States federal court system. ... The United States Courts of Appeals (or circuit courts) are the mid-level appellate courts of the United States federal court system. ...

Federal Reporter, Second Series

The United States district courts are the general trial courts of the United States federal court system. ... The United States Courts of Appeals (or circuit courts) are the mid-level appellate courts of the United States federal court system. ...

Federal Reporter, Third Series

The United States Courts of Appeals (or circuit courts) are the mid-level appellate courts of the United States federal court system. ... The United States Court of Federal Claims is a special court created on October 1, 1982 by the U.S. Congress and headquartered in Washington, D.C.. By federal law, claims brought against the United States must be brought in this court; however, as this court is established under Article...

Electronic sources

The Federal Reporter, including its supplementary material, is also available on CD-ROM compilations, and on West's online legal database, Westlaw. Because individual court cases are identified by case citations that consist of printed page and volume numbers, the electronic text of the opinions incorporates the page numbers of the printed volumes with "star pagination" formatting—the numbers are boldfaced within brackets and with asterisks appended (i.e., [*4]) to stand out from the rest of the text. The CD-ROM (an abbreviation for Compact Disc Read-Only Memory (ROM)) is a non-volatile optical data storage medium using the same physical format as audio compact discs, readable by a computer with a CD-ROM drive. ... The examples and perspective in this article do not represent a worldwide view. ... // Case citation is the system used in common law countries such as the United States, England and Wales, Canada, New Zealand, Australia and India to uniquely identify the location of past court cases in special series of books called reporters. ...

Though West has copyright over its original headnotes and keynotes, the opinions themselves are public domain and accordingly may found in other sources, chiefly Lexis, Westlaw's competitor. Lexis also copies the star paginated Federal Reporter numbering in their text of the opinions to allow for proper citation, a practice that was the subject of an unsuccessful copyright lawsuit by West against the parent company of Lexis.^[4] Copyright symbol. ... The public domain comprises the body of all creative works and other knowledge—writing, artwork, music, science, inventions, and others—in which no person or organization has any proprietary interest. ... Lexis redirects here. ...

Notes

1. ^ U.S. District Court opinions after 1932 are covered in the Federal Supplement, also published by West.
2. ^ The U.S. Court of Customs and Patent Appeals was subsequently merged into the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.
3. ^ This court was redesignated as the U.S. Court of Federal Claims in 1993.
4. ^ See Matthew Bender & Co. v. West Publ. Co., 158 F.3d 693 (2d Cir. 1999).

The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, or simply the Federal Circuit, was founded in 1982 to combine similar federal cases to a specialized appellate court. ... The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit is a federal court with appellate jurisdiction over the district courts in the following districts: District of Connecticut Northern, Southern, Eastern, and Western Districts of New York District of Vermont The Second Circuit hears argument at the Thurgood Marshall U...

External links

• Official West Publishing site for the Federal Reporter, 3d