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Simple English definitions for legal terms
Order of authorities
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A quick definition of Order of authorities:
In legal writing, the order of authorities is the way sources are arranged to support the author's claims. The sources are listed in order of importance, following a specific set of rules. The most important sources are constitutions, followed by statutes, treaties, cases, legislative materials, administrative and executive materials, intergovernmental organizations' resolutions, records, briefs, and petitions, secondary materials, and cross-references to the author's own material. The order of authorities helps readers understand the strength of the author's arguments and the sources used to support them.A more thorough explanation:
Definition: In formal legal writing, the order of authorities refers to the sources used to validate claims made by the author of the paper. The sources should be arranged according to their order of importance, in accordance with Bluebook Rule 1.4.
Examples:
- Constitutions - U.S. Federal Constitution, U.S. state constitutions, foreign constitutions, and foundational documents of the United Nations, League of Nations, and European Union.
- Statutes - Federal, state, and foreign statutes arranged alphabetically by jurisdiction and by codification order.
- Treaties and other international agreements - arranged by most recently enacted first and continue towards earliest, except foundational documents of the United Nations, League of Nations, and European Union.
- Cases - arranged by federal, state, foreign, and international courts and agencies, with the most recent decision first and continue towards oldest.
- Legislative materials - arranged by bills and resolutions, committee hearings, reports, documents, and committee prints, and floor debates.
- Administrative and executive materials - arranged by federal, state, and foreign materials, with the most recently enacted first and continue towards earliest.
- Intergovernmental organizations' resolutions, decisions, and regulations - arranged by United Nations and League of Nations, and other organizations alphabetically by name.
- Records, briefs, and petitions - arranged by the court where filed, using the order of courts given in Section 4 ("Cases") above.
- Secondary materials - arranged by uniform codes, model codes, and restatements, books, pamphlets, and shorter works in a collection of works by a single author, journal work not written by students, book reviews not written by students, student-written material from law reviews and journals, annotations, magazine and newspaper articles, working papers, unpublished materials that are not forthcoming, and electronic sources.
These examples illustrate the order of authorities in legal writing. The sources are arranged in a specific order, depending on their importance and relevance to the topic being discussed. This helps to ensure that the author's claims are properly supported and validated by authoritative sources.