How do you find court opinions, which are published in chronological
order regardless of subject, that are relevant to your legal issue?
You use a digest most of which are located on the 3rd floor.
Digests consist of brief descriptions of court opinions organized
by subject with citations to the volume and page where the complete
opinion can be read.
For each court that produces written opinions there is a digest.
For example, the opinions of the Oregon Supreme Court and Oregon
Court of Appeals are "digested" by subject in West's Oregon Digest
2d.
There are also digests for specific subject areas of the law
which include digested opinions from a variety of state and federal
courts. For example, the Uniform Commercial Code Digest.
Regardless of whether the digest is jurisdictional (court, federal
or state) or subject matter based (Federal Rules Digest, Federal
Rules of Evidence Digest, etc.) there will be a descriptive word
index and a method for keeping the digest current. The latter
usually consists of pamphlets located in the back cover of each
bound volume (pocket parts) and stand-alone soft bound pamphlets
(advance sheets) located at the end of the set.
Always make sure that you have consulted the pocket parts and
advance sheets, if any, to the bound volumes.
The online approximation of using a digest consists of subject
searches in various court opinion databases in Lexis and Westlaw
and with the added feature in Westlaw of being able to conduct
"key number" searches. Westlaw and Lexis are available only
to law students and faculty.
