Citators

The purpose of this guide is to provide a review of citators for Boyd Law students. 

Finding relevant primary legal authorities (i.e. cases, statutes, constitutional provisions, regulations, etc.) is the ultimate goal of legal research. Since the strength of your argument depends on the primary authorities that you rely on, you must make sure the authorities you are relying on are still valid. In other words, you should NOT cite a statute that has been declared unconstitutional or a case that has been overruled by the Supreme Court.  

A citator shows you how your legal authority has been treated by subsequent primary and secondary legal authorities. Thus, you can use a citator to

• View your case's direct history
  • "I have a federal case from the District of Nevada. Has it been appealed to the 9th Circuit or the Supreme Court? If so, how did the courts rule on the appeal?"
• Determine whether your case/statute/regulation is still valid
• Find additional resources citing your case/statute/regulation/secondary sources.
  • This lets you expand your research
• (For statutes) To find proposed/pending legislation

Electronic legal research platforms offer citators. In this guide, we will look at Keycite (Westlaw's citator) and Shepard's (Lexis Advance's citator).

Side note: If your boss hands you a brief and tells you to shepardize the cases, he/she is telling you to use a citator to check the validity of the cases.

• "Shepardize" = Using a citator to (1) check the primary authority's validity and (2) to find additional resources citing your primary authority.