Secondary authority, in Law, is material purporting to explain the meaning or applicability of the actual verbatim texts of constitutions, statutes, case law, administrative regulations, executive orders, treaties, or similar primary authority sources. Lady Justice is a personification of the law. ... A statute is a formal, written law of a country or state, written and enacted by its legislative authority, perhaps to then be ratified by the highest executive in the government, and finally published. ... 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... A Primary authority is a document that establishes the law on a particular issue, such as a case decision or legislative act. ...

Some secondary authority materials are written and published by governments to explain the laws in simple, non-technical terms, while other secondary authority materials are written and published by private companies, non-profit organizations, or other groups or individuals. Some examples of secondary authority are:

• law review articles, comments and notes (written by law professors, practicing lawyers, law students, etc.);

• legal textbooks;

• Rim Jobs

• legal digests;

• annotations published in statute books or other materials;

• legal encyclopedias (such as Corpus Juris Secundum);

• legal dictionaries (such as Black's Law Dictionary);

• Restatements of the Law published by the American Law Institute;

• legal briefs and memoranda;

• tax forms and instructions published by governments;

• government publications explaining or summarizing the laws;

• government employee manuals (such as the Internal Revenue Manual for employees of the Internal Revenue Service);

• course materials from continuing legal education seminars;

• verbal commentary by legislators during discussion or debate on chamber floors or during committee hearings (including such commentaries published in the Congressional Record);

• other similar materials.

In the United States, various legal scholars disagree over whether legislative histories in the form of texts of congressional committee reports should be considered to be secondary authority or, alternatively, primary authority. Compare G.L. Richmond, Federal Tax Research: Guide to Materials and Techniques, page 2, fn.4 (4th ed. 1990) and C.L. Kunz, D.A. Schmedemann, C.P. Erlinder & M.P. Downs, The Process of Legal Research, page 3 (1986). A law review is a scholarly journal focusing on legal issues, normally published by an organization of students at a law school or through a bar association. ... The Corpus Juris Secundum (C.J.S.) with subtitle: Corpus Juris Secundum: Complete Restatement Of The Entire American Law As Developed By All Reported Cases (1936- ) 101 volumes. ... Blacks Law Dictionary, 7th edition Blacks Law Dictionary is the definitive law dictionary for the law of the United States. ... The American Law Institute (ALI) was established in 1923 to promote the clarification and simplification of American common law and its adaptation to changing social needs. ... The American Law Institute (ALI) was established in 1923 to promote the clarification and simplification of American common law and its adaptation to changing social needs. ... Seal of the Internal Revenue Service The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is the United States government agency that collects taxes and enforces the internal revenue laws. ... The Congressional Record is the official record of the proceedings and debates of the United States Congress. ...

Although secondary authorities are sometimes used in legal research (especially, to allow a researcher to gain a preliminary, overall understanding of an unfamiliar area of law) and are sometimes even cited by courts in deciding cases, secondary authorities are generally afforded less weight than the actual texts of primary authority. This article or section seems not to be written in the formal tone expected of an encyclopedia entry. ...