Legal dictionariesaretrustworthysources used to look up unfamiliar terminology (including Latin words and phrases) that you encounter while conducting legal researchor in your law school courses.The most commonly used legal dictionary in the United States is Black's Law Dictionary, but there are a number of other titles available.
Like all dictionaries, legal dictionaries provide brief definitionsand pronunciations ofwords, but legal dictionaries often offer more.Definitions, for example,may be accompaniedbycitationstorelevant primary law sources such as cases, which can jump-start your research in an unfamiliar area of law.Some legal dictionaries contain other useful material.Black's, for example, provides references to theWest American Digest Systemunderwhich case law related to certaindefined terms may be found.The print version of Black's also offers some popular"extra" appendices, including a list of legal abbreviations, a reprint of the U.S. Constitution, and a "legal maxims" section that explains the meanings of certain established principles of law as expressed in Latin (e.g.,Veritas est justitiae mater).
So, keep a legal dictionaryhandy as you begin your research.However, remember that legal dictionaries, like all secondary sources, do not containofficial, authoritative pronouncements of the law.Rather, they repackagelegal information in a way that is easy to understand.
