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| Publication year | 2022 |
| Pages | 0056 |
Journals, Blogs and Expert Witness Directory
In this article, we will look at secondary materials that are available as part of your free Fastcase subscription that could benefit all attorneys, whether seasoned or newly barred.
BY SHEILA BALDWIN.
Information overload was a term made famous in Alvin Toffler's "Future Shock," which spoke to the growth of information as the result of the role of knowledge and technology in affecting changes. Even the writer of Ecclesiastes 12:12 commented, "Of making books there is no end." By definition, information is the knowledge obtained from investigation, study or instruction. Not surprisingly, as the knowledge is published, the information increases. With this in mind, it is important to determine the most relevant information quickly and that is what Fastcase is designed to do. Secondary sources help researchers analyze the question or questions of law that your case raises and helps you determine primary sources that speak to your case. Fastcase users who practice in a specialty area are likely to focus on Georgia cases and the O.C.G.A. due to their knowledge base while general practitioners would be more inclined to search secondary sources like treaties, law reviews and journals. In this article, we will look at secondary materials that are available as part of your free Fastcase subscription that could benefit all attorneys, whether seasoned or newly barred. These include the Georgia Bar Journal, Georgia law school reviews and three other resources that are not Georgia-specific.
Secondary Sources
Secondary sources are a preliminary research tool that puts the law into context and saves you time by pointing you to the most relevant cases and legislation. These include encyclopedias, legal dictionaries, and law review and journal articles that provide valuable critiques of legal topics, as well as extensive references to other sources, including primary sources and often give insight into how to frame your legal argument and strategy. The best way to get to these sources is to use the Browse Libraries tab just below the query box on the opening screen (see fig.1). Tap on the Soures and Jurisdiction tab at the far right of the query box to search by keyword to include these sources (see fig. 2). One area where I find secondary sources to be beneficial is for new questions of law where the case law is scant or...
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