A statute is a law that was passed by a government that is designed to outline the rules of the jurisdiction. Statutes are binding authority, meaning that they need to be followed.
Federal laws are passed by Congress. These are denoted sequentially by what Congress enacted the law and the number the bill was when it was enacted.
Slip Laws
These first appear as a slip law. This refers to a single law that is enacted.
Session Laws
Recent legislation. We use slip or session laws if we are only looking for a specific law and we know when it was passed.
Code
Compilation of laws sorted by topic.
When conducting research, we will want to look at the code but we will also want to look at cases that interpret the statute. So, we want to use Annotated Codes provide the statute and a lot of cases associated with that statute.
Disclaimer
The content contained in this article may contain inaccuracies and is not intended to reflect the opinions, views, beliefs, or practices of any academic professor or publication. Instead, this content is a reflection on the author’s understanding of the law and legal practices.
