Nolo's Essential Guide to Divorce - Emily Doskow [184]
Library Research
Nearly every county has a public law library. Ask the court clerk where you would find the nearest law library that's open to the public-often it will be in the courthouse, a state-funded law school, or a state capitol building. Some local public libraries also have law books.
Law librarians are trained to work with novice legal researchers. They can't give legal advice or explain the information that you find in the law books, but they will nearly always be very helpful about pointing you to the right area of the library or finding specific books.
Because divorce law differs so much from state to state, it's hard to say exactly what resources you might find in your local law library. But you will definitely find all of the following:
• the text of your state's laws on divorce and family issues (statutes and regulations)
• published court decisions (cases) that interpret the state law, and
• legal articles, books, and sets on specific topics that explain the law in depth.
Here's a quick look at each of these resources.
Statutes and Regulations
The basic law of your state can be found in the state's statutes (also called laws or codes), which are the laws made by your state's legislature. Ask the law librarian to show you where the "annotated" codes are-these contain the statutes plus supplemental material like descriptions of cases that interpret the laws and cross-references to articles about the topic.
Most state laws are divided into sections, sometimes called "codes"-for example, you're likely to find that the "Family Code" contains the divorce laws for your state. If there's no separate family code, the laws are probably in the Civil Code. Look in the index under `divorce" to find the code you're looking for and narrow clown the sections. The codes are numbered, and once you find the general area you should he able to find the law you need using the table of contents in the code book itself. Ask the law librarian for help if you're not finding what you need.
Finding the law won't always help you, as statutes are notoriously difficult to read and understand. After you've reviewed them, you can look through the "annotations," which are brief descriptions of cases that mention the code section you're interested in, to see whether there are any cases that might help you understand what the law actually says. Also, be sure to look in the back of the book to see whether there's a paperback addition ("pocket part") that shows changes in the law since the book was printed.
Court Decisions
In addition to the laws made by the legislature, judges' rulings in individual cases are collected and published. These are usually appeals cases, not ordinary trials. If you see a case in the statutory annotations or in another source that you want to look at, you'll need to decipher the case's "citation," which tells you what volume the case is published in-a fairly simple task once you know the trick.
Let's use the case of In re Marriage of Brown v. Yana as an example. It's a California case related to custody and moving away. There are two different citations for the case: 37 Cal.4th 947 and 127 P.3d 28. In each citation, the first number refers to the volume of the set, the second letter/number combination refers to the set of books the volume is in, and the third number refers to the page where the case begins.
"Cal.4th" means the Cal forma Reports, 4th Series. Once you've found the series, find Volume 37 and turn to page 947. The second citation is to the Pacific Reporter, 3rd Series. (This set of books includes decisions from courts in several West Coast states, not just California.) Once you've found the series, find Volume 127 and turn to page 28.
Not all law libraries have the state reporters-some only have the regional ones. But both of these volumes contain