Legal Definitions - reporter

In legal contexts, the term reporter can refer to two distinct but related concepts:

• A Person: A legal professional, often a lawyer, academic, or expert, who is appointed to research, draft, compile, or edit official or semi-official legal documents. This role involves synthesizing complex legal information into a structured format, such as proposed legislation, court rules, or comprehensive summaries of legal principles (like a Restatement of the Law).

  • Example 1: A prominent constitutional law professor is invited to serve as the reporter for a special commission tasked with recommending updates to the state's election laws. Their responsibility involves researching current statutes, analyzing potential amendments, and drafting the commission's final report and proposed legislative text.

    Explanation: Here, the professor is the "reporter" because they are the individual responsible for compiling information, drafting the legal documents, and preparing the official recommendations for the commission.

  • Example 2: A team of legal scholars is working on a new edition of the Restatement of Torts, a comprehensive summary of common law rules. One scholar is designated as the principal reporter for the chapter on negligence, tasked with researching case law, formulating black-letter rules, and writing detailed comments and illustrations.

    Explanation: This scholar acts as the "reporter" by undertaking the critical work of researching, drafting, and organizing the legal principles and commentary for a significant legal publication.

• A Publication or System: A series of books or an electronic database that systematically publishes the written opinions and decisions of courts. These publications are fundamental for legal research, providing access to case law (precedent) that lawyers and judges rely upon. When capitalized, such as in "National Reporter System" or "Federal Reporter," it specifically refers to these official or commercial collections of court decisions.

  • Example 1: A lawyer preparing for a trial needs to find a specific appellate court decision from 2010 that established a key precedent in contract law. They would typically locate this decision by looking it up in the relevant regional Reporter series, such as the *Pacific Reporter* or *Northeastern Reporter*, which contains the full text of published opinions.

    Explanation: In this context, the "Reporter" refers to the specific legal publication that compiles and prints court decisions, allowing legal professionals to access and cite them.

  • Example 2: Law students are taught how to use the *United States Reports*, which is the official Reporter for decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court, to find authoritative rulings and understand the development of federal law.

    Explanation: Here, *United States Reports* is a "Reporter" because it is the designated publication series for the Supreme Court's opinions, serving as a primary source of legal precedent.