Chapter 4: Traditional Secondary Sources

 

4.1 Introduction to Traditional Secondary Sources

All secondary sources fulfill two functions: they explain and orient you to the law and they point you to relevant primary sources — cases and legislation. But given the huge volume of legal commentary available online, some way of distinguishing among the various types and quality of resources becomes useful. One way to do this is to see secondary sources as falling into two main categories: traditional and non-traditional.

Traditional secondary sources are resources published in formats that have persisted since the early days of print commentary and pre-date the information landscape brought about by the internet. These formats are long-established in the field of law and legal information and include books, journal articles, treatises, case comments, etc. They undergo an extended period of pre-publication vetting, and the publication timeline is long. They are also often ill-adapted to the online environment; the original print format is simply digitized, as opposed to born-digital resources that have been optimized for online search strategies.

In contrast, non-traditional secondary sources, are published in a less formal, more flexible way, using formats that are easily generated and easily accessible online. They come in a variety of text and audio formats: legal newsletters, podcasts, blogs, law firm websites, as well as non-legal sources like general news outlets (whether mainstream media or not). They also include social media platforms, which have a now well-established value to both scholars and practitioners. They may undergo no vetting at all — the information is direct-to-user from author. They are intuitive and easy to locate in the online environment because they are born-digital formats whose success has depended on ease of access through online search. But they also have significant drawbacks related to accuracy, reliability, and quality that will be discussed in more detail in Chapter 5.

Since traditional secondary sources existed as resource types well before the internet, their migration to the online world has been shaped by the parameters of their original print format. This means that traditional secondary sources are often not optimized for online searching; they are frequently the type of semi-visible resource that is not indexed by Google (see Chapter 1). Consider a textbook that is only available in print or online behind a paywall: a resource like this will not be fully searchable from Google. Because they take effort to unearth online, a common mistake by novice researchers is to completely overlook these traditional secondary sources. But they have several distinct advantages over non-traditional secondary sources and should never be overlooked during the research process.

One key advantage is that they involve an extended pre-publication vetting process, involving both editors and publishers, which includes oversight of both the format and content of the resource. In other words, decisions about form and content are not left fully in the author’s hands, and the author’s work is checked for quality and accuracy, among other things. Another advantage is that traditional secondary sources are often considered authoritative. For example, a well-respected treatise like Hogg’s Constitutional Law of Canada can be cited by the Canadian courts thousands of times. Such forms also tend to provide more in-depth information than non-traditional sources like blogs and websites, which usually cover a very specific or niche topic.

Of course, there are also disadvantages to traditional secondary sources. One of these is currency; the price we pay for a more rigorous quality control process tends to translate to a greater delay between when information is written and when it is published. As a result of the pre-publication process, traditional secondary sources, like books and journal articles, take time to move from author’s draft to publication — sometimes weeks, but more often months or even years. A traditional secondary source can therefore be expected to lag behind the current state of the law or fail to address emerging legal issues. This can be easy to forget when we view online sources; we tend to assume that online text is easily updated. But e-versions of traditional secondary sources go through the same extensive publishing process as the print versions. Thus, when relying on one, you must always look for the currency date of the source and then take additional steps to check if the law has changed since that date.

As mentioned, the main challenge in locating traditional secondary sources is that many of them are not easily accessible via a Google search. Instead, they are hidden behind publishers’ paywalls, physically present on a library shelf, or retrievable via a subscription database. Traditional secondary sources are often tied to a specific legal publisher who controls how and when researchers can gain access to and search the product. In recent years, some have been made available openly online; for example, a decent number of legal journals are now available on CanLII, such as the Canadian law school reviews. But major publishers like Lexis and Carswell have little incentive to make their publications available online for free. This means that exploring access points beyond Google is crucial for locating these sources. Using a library catalogue, searching a specific service or database, or using a periodical index are all ways to search secondary sources effectively, given these limitations. We will discuss access points and search strategies below in relation to specific types of secondary sources, but some more general information is also useful when considering traditional secondary sources.

If you are trying to track down a known source (most likely from a citation), then you need to focus on identifying where you can access the publication itself. For example, a Google search for a book title or journal article is unlikely to retrieve the full text of the source unless it is an open access resource (e.g. available on CanLII). If you do manage to find the source, it may be behind a paywall. At this point, you should determine if you have access to that book or journal by searching your library’s catalogue or checking the subscription journal databases available on Westlaw, Lexis, or other legal research platforms.

If you are instead trying to identify secondary sources on a particular topic, then you will want to focus on where online you are able to search or browse across multiple publications simultaneously. A library catalogue can be useful in these instances, especially if secondary sources are assigned subject classifications that you can leverage to locate resources on a given topic. Westlaw and Lexis also both have browsable collections of traditional secondary sources organized by legal topic.

4.1.1 Types of Traditional Secondary Sources

Why do we need to understand the different types of secondary sources? Since Google is not a good tool for locating these types of sources, you’ll need a certain level of awareness about what type of sources you are looking for in order to accurately and efficiently track them down. For example, you may conduct a search in a service or library catalogue and then be faced with an array of filters that allow you to specify which type of source you wish to view. This is why following a legal research checklist is a good idea when facing any legal research task; a checklist will help you remember the various possible source formats so that you do not omit any of the major access points from your research strategy.

The following sections describe several general types of traditional secondary sources: legal encyclopedias, books and looseleafs, and periodicals. For each, we will discuss the particular features of the type, strengths and limitations in the online environment, and how to locate and search each type of source.

4.2 Legal Encyclopedias

If you need a very general overview of a subject in Canadian law, a legal encyclopedia is a great starting point. Legal encyclopedia entries provide a succinct description of the state of the law. Footnotes refer the reader to the applicable legislation and case law, which makes a legal encyclopedia a very efficient way to identify the primary sources in a given area of law.

In Canada, there are two legal encyclopedias: the Canadian Encyclopedic Digest (CED) and Halsbury’s Laws of Canada. These encyclopedias are available online on Westlaw and Lexis, respectively. While similar in function, the two are not identical in content; you may find it helpful to consult both for some research questions.

4.2.1 Strengths and Limitations of Legal Encyclopedias

The main strength of legal encyclopedias is that they are some of the quickest and most efficient tools for gaining a basic understanding of the law in a given area and locating primary sources. They are particularly useful as a way of identifying leading case law on a topic. That is, they will not list every single case that has dealt with a particular legal topic or issue, but are an efficient way to identify the cases that have decided the relevant points of law (instead of diving straight into a case law search). Legal encyclopedias may also include additional content such as a table of cases, table of statutes, and glossary of terms defined in the applicable legislation.

A legal encyclopedia is not a replacement for reading the legislation and case law you intend to cite. Indeed, you would not typically cite an encyclopedia entry at all in your writing, because you should be citing the primary sources instead. Another limitation is that it may not include relevant entries for new and emerging areas of the law, since encyclopedias follow a more established format based on a topical classification system that takes time to adapt for newer information needs.

Currency is both a strength and limitation of a legal encyclopedia. While both Halsbury’s and the CED online are regularly updated, some subject titles are updated more frequently than others, so it is important not to assume that the currency date will be the same across all subject titles. Historically, these were published as new (or “reissued”) print volumes every few years, with supplements published regularly in between to provide updates on the law. You may see this language replicated in the online environment, which is intended to demonstrate that the original volume has been supplemented in the intervening years or months. Therefore, even if a volume is labelled as “2021 reissue”, its currency date may be much more recent. Look for currency information in each individual encyclopedia entry (i.e. the level at which you are reading actual text) by finding a date identified as “currency”, “updates”, “source information”, or similar.

4.2.2 Locating Encyclopedias and Encyclopedia Entries

Online encyclopedias provide several advantages over their print counterparts, including having multiple access points. The simplest way to access an online legal encyclopedia is by navigating to the full set of online subject titles from the homepage of Westlaw (for the CED) or Lexis (for Halsbury’s).

Because they are fully searchable online, you may be tempted to jump straight to a full-text search of the entire encyclopedia. This can be a useful method of locating relevant entries, especially if you are not sure which area of law your topic falls under. But don’t forget that you can also search within individual subject titles (e.g. if you already know the area of law you are working in) or browse the table of contents to identify relevant entries. Browsing is also a useful way to become familiar with the topical classification of an encyclopedia, which will make using the resource easier and more efficient for you in the future.

When searching across an encyclopedia online, keep in mind that the text of an entry is very focused and will not provide exhaustive details. This means that you should take care to identify synonyms and related concepts (see Chapter 2), and, as always, pay attention to the search syntax options in the service you are searching.

Another advantage of the online format is that both Lexis and Westlaw have integrated the encyclopedias throughout their platforms, making it easier to identify this content at any stage in your research. For example, when noting up a case on either platform, you will see an option to view secondary sources/commentary that references the case you are looking at, which includes encyclopedia entries. Keep an eye out for these kinds of cross-references throughout the two platforms which make it easy to consult the relevant encyclopedia entry no matter where you start your research.

4.3 Books and Looseleaf Services

4.3.1 Types of Books and the Hierarchy of Authoritativeness

A well-referenced book or looseleaf serves as an excellent starting point for a legal research task. They provide more detail than an encyclopedia and provide context and legal analysis from which you can move on to researching periodical articles, cases, and statutes.

There are three distinct types of books to consider when conducting legal research:

Legal treatises provide an in-depth and comprehensive examination and scholarly analysis of a particular area of the law. They may be considered authoritative and can be cited in the courts, depending on the nature of the treatise, including its authorship and reputation.

Textbooks and introductory texts are more generally targeted towards students and others who are new to an area of law, although the line between textbook and treatise may not always be obvious. They are considered less authoritative and are not usually cited in the courts, but serve as a helpful and more easily comprehensible introduction to an area of law. They may be signaled as introductory texts with their title, such as the use of “Introduction to…” in Introduction to Contracts, or similar.

Casebooks are a type of teaching textbook used in law schools, comprised mainly of case law excerpts. They have low utility for a legal researcher, except perhaps as a finding tool or reminder of the leading case law on a given topic. If you want to rely on a case that you found in a casebook, don’t forget to locate and read the actual case instead of relying on the excerpts. It would be unusual to cite a casebook in a piece of legal writing, as they are not considered authoritative.

Note that these resource types can be published in book (one bound volume) or looseleaf format. The distinction is described below, and is important when conducting research online, even though it can be difficult to know which type you are looking at in the online environment.

4.3.2 What is a looseleaf service?

To keep information up to date, some publishers issue legal texts in looseleaf format. In print, this looks like large binders filled with sheets of paper, which allows pages with out-of-date information to be manually replaced by newer pages at set intervals (often multiple times per year). Many looseleafs are now available online (e.g. via Westlaw or Lexis), though libraries often opt for print subscriptions because elooseleafs are extremely expensive.

Online, it can be difficult to know at a glance if you are looking at an ebook or an elooseleaf; they both just look like some version of an online text. But it is important to at least have a basic idea of which type of resource you are looking at. Why? Looseleafs should have a more recent currency date than most books, which are often a year or more behind the current state of the law. Always look for source and currency information to confirm when a resource was last updated.

Looseleafs also are generally longer than books — often running to thousands of pages spread out between multiple binders — which means that they can provide more in-depth treatment on topics that require more space. For instance, looseleafs are often a good source of commentary on specific statutory provisions, because they may include section-by-section analysis of a particular statute (see Annotated Statutes). They may also include other practitioner-specific resources, such as a collection of forms and precedents used in that area of law.

4.3.3 Strengths and Limitations of Books and Looseleafs

Books and looseleafs are an essential step in the legal research process that novice researchers are often tempted to overlook because of how unintuitive and difficult it is to access them online.

A major strength is that some books — i.e. some treatises — are considered authoritative and persuasive in court. This means that a researcher who overlooks the major treatises will open themselves up to potential blind spots in that area of law. Books and looseleafs of all types are useful because they provide more context, explanation, and analysis of an area of law, to varying degrees of specificity. You can often learn a substantial amount about your broader topic if you start with an introductory text and progress to a treatise.

That being said, books and looseleafs do not provide a comprehensive list of case law in a given area. Since space is limited, footnotes are carefully curated to provide leading and otherwise noteworthy case law. Some ebooks and elooseleafs are set up to overcome this limitation by providing links to relevant case law classification systems, such as the Canadian Abridgement Digest on Westlaw (see Case Digests).

As with many traditional secondary sources, books are of more limited use when researching emerging areas of the law, because compiling a new edition is a time consuming process that often takes a year or more. Looseleafs are more up to date than books, but even these publications are rooted in historical legal subjects and may be slow to incorporate emerging topics and areas of legal practice and research. If your topic is more specific, you may have more luck in searching for relevant articles in legal periodicals instead of books.

4.3.4 Locating Books and Looseleafs

As we’ve already discussed, books and looseleafs are one of the more difficult formats to locate through online search strategies like googling because the full text of these resources is not usually indexed by internet search engines. Instead, think of locating books and looseleafs as generally a two-step process:

• Identify the title of a relevant book or looseleaf.
• Retrieve the text so you can read it.

The first step will become quicker as you become more familiar with a field of law. There are usually only so many treatises on a given subject, and you will become familiar with them once you start researching in that area. Checking those sources will become second nature. At that point, you’ll research additional titles as needed.

But how do you identify titles as a novice researcher? There are many tools available to you. Many law libraries, including law school libraries, the Great Library (at the Law Society of Ontario), and even firm libraries, provide topic-specific curated lists of books and looseleafs that are available from that library. These are often called “research guides” or “library guides” and include resources listed by subject categories and sub-categories within those specific topics. Even if you are looking at a guide from another institution that you do not have access to, these resource lists can be a helpful way to identify books and looseleafs that exist on a topic.

Searching a library catalogue is another useful way to determine what texts exist on a topic. Most library catalogues will have at least some form of subject classification system. These subject headings may be assigned by humans, by computers, or by a combination of the two, so be aware that they may be inconsistently applied throughout the catalogue, especially if the library has a large volume of holdings. Nevertheless, subject classifications are often one of the most effective ways to search for books and looseleafs, especially when used in combination with broader search options. Most library advanced search forms will allow you to specify whether you want to search the subject, title, author, description, or “any field” (or similar) for specific keywords. Consider what broader keywords could appear in a subject heading and combine these with additional “any field” keyword searches if you need to capture a more specific aspect of a legal topic.

A sample search:

If you searched only for resources categorized under the subject “employment”, you would have had a huge number of hits in any law library catalogue. But if you specify that you want the subject to be “wrongful dismissal”, you would only retrieve texts where the main subject has been classified using that phrase. This combination allows you to identify additional resources that are classified under the broader “employment” subject, but which contain “wrongful dismissal” somewhere else in the record (e.g. in the description or in the table of contents). Once you have identified a resource in this manner, the library catalogue will tell you if it is accessible through an online database or as a physical copy.

Google is another method of identifying relevant books and looseleafs. But like a library catalogue, it generally does not allow you to search the full text of these resources and should be handled similarly to a subject search. In addition to keeping your search broad, you will also need to specify that you are looking for a book, or else your results are likely to be more non-traditional secondary source formats like blogs and law firm newsletters. Try variations of a Google search like the following:

We have specified that we are looking for Canadian sources; otherwise some results are likely to be from another jurisdiction. Searching Google can be a useful method of tracking down a book on a particular topic because you are likely to retrieve publisher information about books, which may be more detailed than the information available in a library catalogue. However, once you’ve identified a relevant book, you’ll still need to check your library catalogue to see where and how you can access the full text.

Lastly, the Canadian Index to Legal Literature is a finding tool that indexes many books and looseleafs. Use of indexes will be described in more detail in the next section on Locating Periodicals.

4.4 Legal Periodicals

4.4.1 What are legal periodicals?

A periodical is any serial publication that includes shorter works written by more than one contributor and that is published at regular intervals (periodically; usually more than once per year). This means that a wide range of publication types are captured in this category, including law journals and law reviews, magazines, and association newsletters.

Historically, periodicals were published one issue at a time, with multiple issues falling within an assigned volume number. The volume–issue enumeration system is still used by most journals in the online environment, even though publishing practices are more varied, given the flexibility of digital publishing platforms.^[1] This numbering is also still used in legal citation; it is therefore important to be able to locate the volume and issue numbers in order to either cite an article yourself or to track down an article from a citation.

4.4.2 Types of Periodical Literature

Legal periodicals are varied in nature and do not always fall into neat categories. In general, there are two types of legal periodicals. First, there are general periodicals that publish on topics across the entire breadth of the law, such as most law reviews (academic journals associated with a law school, like the Queen’s Law Journal). Second, there are topical periodicals that publish in a specific subject area (e.g. Canadian Journal of Human Rights). This distinction exists throughout the different periodical formats described below.

Law journal and law review articles are a rich source of scholarly writing. Specialized topics that are too narrow for publication as monographs can be published in law journals. Although some are published commercially, many emanate from law schools and include articles on a broad range of subjects. Quality control measures for these periodicals tend to be more stringent compared to other periodical types, and can include steps such as peer review, editing, and proofreading. They are often footnoted and can be extremely valuable when trying to identify other relevant sources in the area you are researching.

Case comments are often published in periodicals (including in law journals), and provide commentary on a particular court decision. These resources are useful if you are starting your research from a particular case, because they will provide you with context, analysis, and commentary on the consequences of the decision. They will often be linked directly to the court decision itself through a legal research service’s note up feature, though this is not a comprehensive way to locate them (see Locating Periodicals for another method).

Legal-magazine articles tend to be less scholarly and more practitioner-focused in nature. Some of these periodicals are written by legal practitioners, while others are staffed by journalists who may or may not have legal expertise. Articles tend to be briefer, less formal, and include fewer references. They often provide commentary on recent developments in the law such as a court decision that has been handed down or proposed legislative changes.

Legal newsletters are generated by professional associations or other legal organizations. They often focus on a specific area of law and the majority of articles are written by practitioners and experts in that field. Since professional organizations are often in a state of flux and run by professionals who volunteer their time, newsletters may not have a longstanding historical publication run and may only be available for certain years.

In addition to the titles issued by commercial publishers, a lot of useful literature is published by professional associations. The Canadian Bar Association and the Law Society of Ontario, for example, regularly publish seminar papers. Government publications, such as those from law reform commissions, justice departments and government inquiries, are also good sources for discussion of legal topics, including proposed changes to the law.

4.4.3 Strengths and Limitations of Periodical Literature

Due to the shorter publication cycle, legal periodicals tend to contain more current information than treatises and other monographs. But this is again a spectrum that depends on the type of periodical, with law reviews and legal journals on the longer side and legal magazines and newsletters on the shorter side.

An article in a periodical will also tend to have a more specific focus than a treatise or monograph; they are most useful when researching specific aspects of a broader legal subject or emerging legal developments, or when looking for critical analysis of the law.

Periodicals also fall on a wide spectrum of formality and rigor, depending on the publication type. Since this category is so wide-ranging, it is important to note that the utility and authority assigned to periodical literature will vary depending on factors such as the publication and author. Make sure that you critically note up the source to determine how useful it is for your research.

4.4.4 Locating Periodicals

Many periodicals can be found online, including a growing number of journals that are provided via open access (i.e. freely available to the public). However, some commercial journals continue to be sold only in print or have prohibitively expensive online subscriptions. Older articles sometimes have not been digitized and may also only be found in the physical journal volumes held by a library. This hodgepodge system makes journal literature somewhat challenging to search and retrieve.

Depending on their size and resources, a law library catalogue may not have very granular information about periodicals that they have access to. For example, a journal may only be listed under the publication title (e.g. the Supreme Court Law Review) instead of it being possible to search full text or even individual article titles within that journal. You may be able to find some full-text articles through a library catalogue, or you might have to check multiple full-text databases, since no one database includes all legal periodicals.

One key for overcoming these hurdles is a specialized tool called a journal index or periodical index. These indexes include metadata for (and sometimes the full text of) various types of legal literature including journal articles, books, conference proceedings, collections of essays, and book reviews. Indexes usually provide the titles, names of authors, and citations for these materials. The advantage of indexes is their comprehensiveness; they will point not only to materials they have within their databases but also to material they do not have. This means that once you have located titles of relevant articles, you may still have to retrieve the actual article by locating the journal in your library or in an online legal research platform like Lexis or Westlaw.

If you are trying to do a comprehensive literature search, you should not rely on just one index or discovery tool. There are many that exist, but each have different coverage, strengths, and weaknesses. For Canadian legal literature, the main index available is called the Index to Canadian Legal Literature (ICLL), which is available via both Westlaw and Lexis. The Canadian scope of this index is very useful for Canadian legal researchers, since international indexes often include only the more prominent Canadian periodicals. However, the ICLL includes minimal information about each indexed resource: title, author, date, citation, and one or more subject classifications. This means that a researcher searching the index should think very carefully about what keywords are likely to show up as a subject heading classification for their research topic, or else risk excluding the vast majority of resources. Often the most useful way of searching an index like the ICLL is to take the time to first identify relevant subject headings — for instance, the ICLL provides a Table of Subject Headings.

Beyond the ICLL, Lexis has a Canadian index called the Canadian Law Symposia Index, which includes papers presented at legal seminars and continuing legal education conferences. Legal indexes that are international in scope include the Index to Legal Periodicals and Books, Index to Foreign Legal Periodicals, and LegalTrac. Indexes in other fields may be worth seeking out for inter- or cross-disciplinary research.

Another strategy is to conduct a keyword search in one or more full-text databases. This strategy provides the benefit of allowing you to search the entire text of the article, which means you can conduct much more detailed, complex searches. But it is more limited because no one database will contain all relevant periodicals. If you have access to a library catalogue that includes full-text articles — as many academic libraries do — you should use that as your starting point, because this will search multiple full-text databases at once. It is crucial to note, however, that Lexis and Westlaw do not integrate their periodical databases with academic library catalogues. To overcome this limitation, try searching a full-text periodical database in a legal research platform, such as the “Articles and Newsletters” database on Westlaw, the “Law Reviews & Journals” database on Lexis, or the “Journals” or “Newsletters” databases on CanLII. Before you start searching, check the title list for the selected database to determine which periodicals you are actually searching. HeinOnline is another common legal research platform for periodical searching, due to their vast, full-text holdings in their international “Law Journal Library” database.

Lastly, let’s not forget Google as a search tool, including its sibling search tool, Google Scholar. Both are most useful in locating open access periodical literature, such as articles available on CanLII, university repositories, or SSRN (a platform where researchers publish pre-print versions of their work). However, Google can also be useful as a tool for identifying relevant articles that you can then track down through a library, because of the superiority of its search technology in surfacing relevant content. Just bear in mind its limitations — especially the fact that it won’t include periodicals available in Westlaw and Lexis. An article may show up as behind a paywall, when in reality you have access to it through other means.

As you can see, search is the most-used strategy for locating online periodical literature. But note the varied degrees of search described here, because the nature of your search will change depending on which tools you are using. Search more openly and with less precision using Google, but know that you will need to be more specific about aspects of your research, like jurisdiction. Search with high precision and using very intentional categories of keywords when searching a full-text database, because otherwise the number of results may be overwhelming. Lastly, search with higher-level keywords based on subject heading classifications when using a periodical index, because the records in this database contain only limited bibliographic information, rather than the full text of articles.

4.5 Critically Assessing Traditional Secondary Sources

Because traditional secondary sources are subject to a pre-publication vetting process, they have already undergone some scrutiny by the time they reach the hands of the researcher. However, there are two main dimensions for critical assessment that remain important: currency and jurisdiction.

As noted above, traditional secondary sources are published on a fairly long timeline. This is not only true for the first edition of a resource, but also for subsequent editions. Thus, for some formats, like books, it may take time for updates to be published in subsequent editions of the resource. This means that some information may be outdated by the time you access the source. Try to assess the basis upon which any statement of law or reference to law is made. If a case is mentioned, note it up. If legislation is referenced, consider whether it has been amended since the time the resource was published. If factual information is provided, see if you can confirm that those facts still hold.

Ensure that the jurisdiction of the source — including both that of the author and the publisher — aligns with the jurisdiction of the law you are researching. It is not uncommon in a library search, for example, to bring up a number of on-topic results that look promising, only to find that they were written in another jurisdiction, pursuant to that other jurisdiction’s law.

Finally, look carefully for bias. Consider the author of your source. Even if the source is considered authoritative, and the author a known expert, you may still find their point of view is prioritized or privileged in the text of the resource. Seek to gain a balanced perspective on the topic, perhaps by actively searching for resources that consider your issue from a different angle. Your choice of keywords when searching will have a big impact here. Be sure to identify synonyms that tend to be used on one side of an issue or the other to describe the same idea (for example, solitary confinement for administrative segregation; or illegal alien for undocumented migrant).

4.6 Maintaining Current Awareness: Monitoring traditional secondary sources

Maintaining current awareness of the law in general is often easiest to accomplish by tracking and reading new secondary sources in a given area. However, the lengthy publication process associated with traditional formats gives them limited utility as tools for maintaining current awareness in comparison with non-traditional formats. A new decision handed down by the Supreme Court will likely take months — if not years — to appear in a leading text. So while reading the latest edition of a leading text in your practice area is certainly a useful activity, it’s not really providing you, as a researcher, with much by way of current awareness. Traditional secondary sources are therefore a limited means of staying up to date with primary law.

That said, periodical literature like law journals are one traditional format where active monitoring can be an effective way for practitioners to gain current awareness. If there is a particular journal that is relevant to your practice area, you should investigate your options for receiving an alert when new articles or issues are published.^[2] Some journals allow you to do this directly from their website, or will even automatically email you when a new issue is published (if you are a subscriber). For others, you may need to find a service or database that indexes that journal and then look for an alert option within the service.^[3]

To monitor a subject area or topic more broadly, you can set up an alert in a journal index. Generally, you will first run a search in the index on a given keyword or subject and then look for an option to set up an alert from your search results page. Some commonly available indexes that allow you to set up alerts include the ICLL, LegalTrac, and HeinOnline’s Current Index to Legal Periodicals.