Citators

A citator, or citation service, is a legal reference tool that shows where a legal authority such as a case opinion, a statute, or a regulation has been cited by later authorities such as other court opinions. This helps determine the status of the legal authority you are researching (in other words, whether it is still good law) and helps you find related information on the same topic.

What a Citator is Used For

History

A citator will tell you the previous and subsequent history of a case, so that you can follow exactly what has happened to an appeal, what the original decision was, and whether it has been overturned.

If a case, statute, or regulation has been published in more than one source, the citator will provide parallel citations to each source of the same legal authority.

Validation

Perhaps the most common reason legal researchers use citators is to find out if a legal authority is still good law. If the authority is a judicial opinion, you will want to know if that opinion has been overturned by a later or higher court. If it is a statute or regulation, you will want know know if it has been repealed, amended, or declared unconstitutional.

A citator will go into great detail explaining whether a later authority supports (positive treatment) or departs from (negative treatment) the cited authority, and to what degree.

Research

A citator can help a legal researcher locate other legal authorities dealing with the same topic as the cited authority. Depending on the extent to which the original authority is cited and discussed, the citing authority may be helpful in providing further insight into the topic.

A citator includes lists of law reviews and other secondary sources that cite a legal authority.

Shepard’s® Citations

The first citator service was developed by Frank Shepard in the early 1870s and became so indispensible that today the  process of consulting a citator to  determine the current validity of an opinion is known popularly as “shepardizing,” even if a citator other than Shepard's is used.

As useful as Mr. Shepard's system proved to be, consulting his citator in paper format required hunting through a labyrinth of cryptic numbers, letters, and symbols crammed together in several volumes of headache-inducing fine print.

In the mid-1990s, the content of the Shepard’s citators was made available in electronic format in the LexisNexis database. This database format proved to be so much more flexible and easy to use—not to mention easy to keep current—that almost no one uses the paper version of Shepard’s anymore. The UNT Libraries have even dropped their subscription to the various paper citators.

How to Shepardize in LexisNexis Academic

1. From the Libraries home page, select Electronic Resources/L/LexisNexis Academic
2. Select Legal/Shepard's® Citations
3. Enter the citation of the authority you are researching. Click on the Citation Formats link next to the search box if you are not sure how to format a citation.
4. Click on the red Check button to start Shepardizing your source. The results will appear with an unrestricted summary at the top, showing any negative treatment and indicating type of treatment with a system of signal indicators. The summary is followed by prior history and a list of citations. These may include citations in court decisions, annotated statutes, law reviews and periodicals, ALR annotations, treatises, and court briefs.

For more information, see the Shepard’s® Citations Service online tutorial available from LexisNexis.

What you will find in Shepard’s

Parallel Citations

The case you are researching may be published in more than one reporter. The citation for the case as published in a different source is called a parallel citation. Parallel citations are shown in Shepard's with parentheses.

History

A case cited in Shepard’s has usually progressed upward through several courts in the state and/or federal court system. Shepard’s will show the original trial court decision and all subsequent appellate court decisions that are part of the same litigation. This is called prior history and subsequent history. A court may rule in any number of ways in a subsequent appeal of a case. For example, the court may affirm the earlier ruling, may dismiss the appeal, may modify or reverse the earlier decision, or may supersede the earlier opinion with a new opinion.

Treatment

Judges deciding cases unrelated to the cited case but dealing with similar facts or legal principles will determine how the cited case affects their own case. The relation of the cited case to the citing case is called a treatment. There are many ways a judge may treat a cited case, some negative, some positive, some neutral. For example, a judge may criticize the original decision, distinguish the facts from his own case, follow the earlier decision, or harmonize apparent inconsistencies between the two cases.

Secondary Materials

In addition to citations in primary sources such as later court opinions, Shepard’s includes citations that have appeared in secondary sources such as law reviews, bar journals, treatises, and American Law Reports. These don’t usually have any legal authority, but may help explain legal concepts.

Headnote Numbers

Headnotes appear at the beginning of an annotated opinion and summarize the specific points of law that were decided in the opinion. Often a case in Shepard’s will have been cited dozens, maybe even hundreds of times. By consulting headnote numbers, a researcher can narrow down the list of citing references to those that apply directly to a specific point of law.

Shepardizing Other Authorities

Shepardizing is usually thought of as applying only to court cases, but you can Shepardize statutes as well. This will enable you to identify case law, statutes, or other authorities relevant to a specific statute. The citator will tell you if a particular statute has been amended, repealed, or ruled unconstitutional, or if someone has written a law review article that discusses the statute.

Other sources of authority at the state and federal level can also be Shepardized. Constitution, regulations, court rules, and law review articles can all be Shepardized.

West's KeyCite

West, the chief rival to LexisNexis, does not have the rights to Shepard’s Citations Service, so they produced an alternative legal citator service called KeyCite. This service has basically the same functions and purposes as Shepard’s, but works a little differently and may have some advantages depending on what you are using it for.

To check a document in KeyCite:

1. From the Libraries home page, select Electronic Resources/C/Campus Research.
2. Select the Law tab to access the legal portion of the database.
3. Search for your document using the Find a document by citation box (if you have a citation) or the Find a document by title box (if you know the parties’ names). The KeyCite summary will appear in the left margin and will contain a history of your case or statute.

KeyCite Status Flags

A KeyCite status flag indicates that KeyCite information is available and tells you what sort of information it is. Click the flag to access information for that document.

• A red flag warns that the case if no longer good law for at least one point of law that it contains.
• A yellow flag warns that the case has some negative history, although it has not been reversed or overruled.
• A blue H indicates that the case has some history.
• A green C indicates that other authorities have cited the case, but the case itself has no direct history, nor are there negative citing references.
  

You can also view citing references from one of a case’s headnotes by clicking on the link above the headnote that reads “KeyCite Citing References for This Headnote.”

History of a Case

See Viewing the History of Your Case or Statute to see what sort of history is available and how you can customize the display.

• Direct History follows your case through the appeals process and shows both prior and subsequent history. If you select Direct History (Graphical View), you can see the appellate history of your case displayed in a hierarchical chart.
  
• Negative Citing References shows other cases that cite your case in a negative way. These may have a negative effect on your case’s value as precedent.
  
• Related References show see other cases that have the same parties and facts as your case, whether the legal issues are the same.
  

Statutory history indicates whether a statute has been amended, repealed, or revised in any way and if there is pending legislation that may affect the statute.

Citing References to a Case

Select Citing References in the KeyCite summary to see a list of cases, administrative materials, secondary sources, briefs, and other court documents that cite your case or statute.

Depth of treatment stars indicate how much in depth a citation is. This can range from an extended discussion of the case to a brief mention of the case in a footnote or in a string of citations.

A big purple quotation mark indicates that the citing sources contains a direct quotation of the source it is citing.

References that cite a case are listed in the following order:

• References that cite your case negatively are listed first.
• Other cases are listed next, categorized by how in-depth their treatment is.
  
• Administrative materials are listed next.
• Secondary sources such as law reviews are listed last.

References that cite a statute are listed in the following order:

• Court opinions that affect the validity of the statute
• Pending legislation
• Cases from the Notes of Decisions section in U.S.C.A. and state statutes
• Other cases that do not appear in Notes of Decisions
• Administrative materials
• Secondary sources

For more information, see the Westlaw KeyCite User Guides from Thomson-West.

Comparison of Shepard’s and KeyCite

Shepard’s

• Arranges citing opinions by jurisdiction, with higher courts followed by lower courts.
• Allows limiting of the list with a Boolean search (by using FOCUS feature to search within a citing case).
• Includes a positive treatment signal.
• Allows you to change the defaults.
• Finds citations for law review articles.
• Lists the status of each case cited in your case (Table of Authorities).

KeyCite

• Arranges citing authorities by type of treatment and depth of analysis.
• Allows limiting of the list with a Boolean search (by using LOCATE feature to search within a citing case).
• Helps determine how extensively citing authority analyzes your case (using depth of treatment stars).
• Identifies which authorities quote your case (using big purple quotation marks).
• Can keep you up to date on the latest changes in the status of your case (using KeyCite Alert feature).
• Lists the status of each case cited in your case (Table of Authorities).
  

Currentness of Citators

In order to stay current, it is best to check both citators if you can.

Shepard’s

• Cases are updated every day, including weekends and holidays.
• All analyses are added within a couple of days after the case is received.

 KeyCite

• Direct History is updated within a few hours after the information is received.
• If a case is overruled, the information is updated within 24 hours.
• Citing cases are listed as soon as the cases are added to the database, but the analysis may not be available for several days.