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4-Step Legal Research Process: Dictionaries

Dictionaries Overview

Types of dictionaries: 

  • Black’s Law Dictionary

    • Considered the reference of choice for terms in legal briefs and court opinions, and has been cited as a secondary legal authority in many U.S. Supreme Court cases.

    • Black's is available on Westlaw. It is worth noting that the print version of Black’s Law Dictionary includes topics and key numbers, so students can find cases related to the defined word's topic.

  • Prince's Bieber Dictionary of Legal Abbreviations

    • Contains an extensive range of acronyms, abbreviations, and symbols found in reporters, legal treatises, law reviews, law dictionaries, and other selected documents, provided in both forward and reverse order.

    • Bieber's Dictionary is available as a hard copy in the Law Library.

  • Ballentine’s Law Dictionary

    • This dictionary contains brief definitions of legal terms without any long historical or explanatory data. Some terms will have citations to the original source material. Ballentine's is available on Lexis, although it is no longer being updated.

  • Words & Phrases

    • Contains judicial definitions, from both state and federal courts, from both published and unpublished opinions. Definitions may pertain to statutory language, court rules, administrative regulations, or business documents, among other sources. Each definition contains a citation from the court that provided the definition.

    • Each definition is also classified by West's attorney-editors to the West Key Number System, wherever possible. New judicial constructions and interpretations of words and phrases are promptly supplied as they become available from the courts.

    • Words & Phrases is available on Westlaw.

How Dictionaries Are Useful

Dictionaries are useful in your research, but they also come with caveats:

  • They help you understand unfamiliar terms, abbreviations, or phrases that you may come across in your research. Some dictionaries will provide background information on the defined word's topic in addition to its meaning.
  • Dictionary definitions are NOT law and should not be cited as legal authority. Sometimes court opinions will cite dictionary terms, such as with terms from Black's Law Dictionary, but the definitions themselves are not authority you can outright rely on
  • A term's definition must be adopted by a court in a legal opinion to become law in a particular jurisdiction.
  • Words & Phrases will indicate whether a terms has been defined in your jurisdiction.

Links to the Law Library Catalog

 

Access on Westlaw and Lexis

Additionally, to access these dictionaries on Westlaw and/or Lexis, filter your search to Secondary Sources and then run your search, or go to the Secondary Sources content pages to find the page for specific source you're after.