2.6 Treatises and Commentaries

• Library: A Guide to Legal Research in Virginia (Virginia CLE) (2017 Ed.)

2.6 TREATISES AND COMMENTARIES

2.601 Michie's Jurisprudence of Virginia and West Virginia. Michie's Jurisprudence, a comprehensive treatise of the law of both states, treats Virginia constitutional law in a text-and-footnote style, organized by major topics. The chapter on constitutional law, currently found in volume 4C, considers questions arising under both state and federal constitutions but emphasizes state constitutional law, since only Virginia and West Virginia cases arising under the United States Constitution are included.

2.602 Commentaries. Serious research into Virginia constitutional law must include an examination of Professor A.E. Dick Howard's Commentaries on the Constitution of Virginia. Howard, a constitutional scholar at the University of Virginia School of Law, is the White Burkett Miller Professor of Law and Public Affairs and served as the Executive Director for the Virginia Commission on Constitutional Revision in 1968 and 1969. His two-volume set is considered by Virginia legal scholars to be the definitive work on Virginia constitutional law.

The Commentaries begin with a thematic exposition tracing the historical development of each article of the Virginia Constitution and suggesting important themes emerging out of that development. A...