Doing Your Own Legal Research

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a cap on the amount of time or fees that the lawyer can charge without
your permission.
Hiring a lawyer just to review your legal documents sounds like a good
idea. It shouldn’t cost much, and seems to offer a comforting security. But
it may be difficult, or even impossible in some cases, to find a lawyer who
will accept the job. From the lawyer’s point of view, he or she is being
asked to accept what might turn into a significant responsibility for not
much compensation. Any prudent lawyer sees every client as a potential
occasion for a malpractice claim, or at least, serious later hassles—a phone
call four years down the line that begins, “We talked to you about our
living together contract and now….” Many experienced lawyers want to
avoid this kind of exposure.
Also, many lawyers feel they simply can’t get deeply enough into a
situation to be sure of their opinions if they’re only reviewing someone
else’s work. All you can do here is keep trying to find a sympathetic
lawyer—or be prepared to pay more, enough so the lawyer can feel secure
in having had enough time to review your documents thoroughly.
Doing Your Own Legal Research
If you are not involved in contested litigation, you have an alternative to
hiring a lawyer: Learn to do your own legal research, and learn about the
law yourself. All you need is a little bit of patience and a good road map.
Library Research
Many courts all over the country maintain law libraries that are open
to the public, not just to lawyers and judges. Public law libraries are
often housed in county courthouses, state-funded law schools, and state
capitals. If you can’t find one, ask a reference librarian in the public
library, a court clerk, or a lawyer.
Some larger public libraries also have extensive collections of law and
legal research books, so before making a special trip to the law library,
you may first want to check with your main branch public library.
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If you conclude that you need to visit a law library to answer your
question, a law librarian will be your most valuable guide. Most law
librarians in public libraries are very helpful—as long as you don’t expect
them to do the research for you, they will be happy to help you locate the
materials you need.
Here’s what you should find in an average law library:
• the text of your state’s laws (statutes and regulations)
• published court opinions interpreting your state’s laws, and
• legal articles containing explanations of laws.
Resource
For more on legal research: Legal Research: How to Find & Understand
the Law, by Stephen Elias and Susan Levinkind (Nolo), can help you find your way
around the law library.
Statutes and Regulations
Once you get to the library, ask a librarian to help locate your state’s
statutes—called “codes,” “laws,” or “statutes,” depending on the state.
These are the laws made for your state by the state legislature. You’ll want
the annotated version, which contains the statutes, excerpts from relevant
cases, and cross-references to related articles.
Once you find the statutes, check the index for the subject you need
to learn about. State statutes are often divided into sections. The major
section often is the Civil Code, which usually contains laws relating
to contracts, living together, divorce, custody, adoption, and credit.
(Sometimes divorce and other family issues are broken out into a
separate Family Code.) The Probate Code contains laws relating to wills
and living trusts. There are other codes as well—insurance codes, real
property codes, criminal codes, welfare codes, and more. The codes are
each numbered sequentially, and once you get the code number from the
index, it’s easy to find the law you need. If you have trouble, ask the law
librarian for help. Sample statute citations are shown below.
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Once you look at the statute in the hardcover volume, check the
paperback pocket part at the back of the book for any amendments.
Then skim the summaries of recent court decisions contained in the
“Annotation” section immediately following the statute itself. If a
particular summary looks helpful, you can read the entire case from
which the summary was taken.
Sample State Statute Citations
23
Vt. Stat. Ann.
§ 1185
title (volume Vermont Statutes section
number)
Annotated
number
N.J. Stat. Ann.
2A: 170-90.1
New Jersey Statutes volume section
Annotated
number number
Mich. Comp. Laws Ann. 421.27
Michigan Compiled Laws
Annotated
(c)(2)(ii)
section subsection
number letter
Some states’ laws are divided up into several different topical sections.
In states such as New York and California, citations look like those
shown below.
Sample California and New York Citations
P.C. § 518
Penal
Code
section
number
Penal Law § 14025
Collection
of Penal
Statutes
section
number
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Case Decisions
In addition to the laws made by the legislature, judges also make law
when they decide cases. Judicial cases are printed in books called
reporters. Interpreting a case citation is fairly simple once you learn the
abbreviations. For example, the citation to the Hawaii marriage case is
Baehr v. Miike, 852 P.2d 44 (Hawaii 1993). What does this mean?
Baehr is the plaintiff—the person bringing the lawsuit—and Miike is
the defendant—the person who is sued. The “P” in P.2d stands for Pacific
Reporter—and 2d means the case appears in the second series of these
reporter volumes. The volume in which the case appears is the number
before the name of the series; here you want Volume 852. The number
after the reporter name is the page on which the case starts: Here it’s page
44. The parentheses contain the jurisdiction that decided the case and the
year of the decision.
You can also find cases from your state and all the others online—see
“Doing Research Online,” below.
Other Resources
Another important library tool may be a legal encyclopedia, such as the
ALR and Am.Jur. series. These are indexed by subject (such as custody,
insurance, homosexuality, guardianship) and provide a synopsis of your
state’s law on the subject.
Also, ask the law librarian to show you form books. These are
collections of sample legal forms that lawyers use in dealing with
common legal tasks. Finally, ask if your state has any books designed to
keep lawyers up to date. Most larger states have practice manuals, which
are fairly easy to use.
Unfortunately, the law for gay and lesbian couples is quite volatile and
often hard to place into standard legal categories. For these reasons, doing
legal research in this area can be particularly daunting.
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Doing Research Online
Because the law dealing with gay and lesbian issues is changing fast, this
area is especially well suited to online research. In looking for information
on your issue, you can check general interest legal websites as well as sites
that gather legal information of specific interest to gays and lesbians.
Below is a selection of general legal websites that can assist you in
doing research.
• www.nolo.com. Nolo’s website has a wide array of free legal
information for consumers. You can also find links to state and
federal statutes from the site.
• www.law.cornell.edu. The Legal Information Institute at Cornell
Law School is a well-organized and easy to use general legal website.
• www.findlaw.com. FindLaw’s extensive database allows you to
search for state and federal statutes and cases, and provides links to
many courts around the country.
“Legal Organizations,” below, lists contact information—including
website addresses—for several national gay and lesbian organizations.
The websites of these organizations often contain legal updates on issues
covered in this book. In addition, here is a list of other websites that can
guide you in your research.
• www.hrc.org. This is the website of the Human Rights Campaign,
a legislative advocacy group. The site contains news about legislation
and court battles on the topics covered in this book.
• www.qrd.org. The family and parenting section of the Queer
Resources Directory contains downloadable files and links on issues
like same-sex marriage, domestic partnerships, and gay and lesbian
adoption and parenting. This site isn’t updated regularly but can be
a useful archive. Just be aware the information isn’t current.
• www.buddybuddy.com. This is the site sponsored by the Partners
Task Force for Gay & Lesbian Couples. The site contains informa­
tion and links of interest to gay and lesbians partners, covering
topics such as marriage, immigration, and parenting.
New York’s LGBT Community Center has an “Equality Map” on its
website at www.gaycenter.org; you can learn about LGBT issues in your
state.