The laws written by our legislature (usually statutes or codes) tend to be the first type of authority courts look to when analyzing your case. These statutes are binding on the courts so they must follow them. As such, they are the primary legal authority that the courts must follow. But in addition to the statutes, there is court made law. This type of law is found in Supreme Court cases and Appellate Cases. These are decisions about the statutes in question where the courts applied the Statutes to actual situations and showed the lower courts how the statutes should be applied in the real world. These court decisions are also binding on the lower courts so the cases from the Supreme Court and Appellate Court are binding upon the District and County Courts where your case will be tried.
Once case law is found, those cases need to be shepardized to determine whether they are still the law. Shepardizing is essentially checking all of the cases since your case to determine whether it is still good law. If there is a new case that reinterprets a Statute or changes the court’s opinion from your case, then that case will no longer be good law. Only good law is binding on your court.
When researching a case, it is essential to find court cases that support your arguments. To support your argument, the court case needs to be dealing with the same law and has to have facts that are similar enough to your case that the court will be persuaded by your argument. If the facts are not similar enough, the court will typically not be persuaded by the argument.
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