ABSTRACT
A HOW CASES ARE ORGANISED 105
1 How the case report and judgment are organised 105
2 Using headnotes to understand a case 106
B HOW PRECEDENT WORKS 111
1 Precedent 111
2 Persuasive authority 115
3 How to analyse the effect of an earlier case on your issue 115
Chapter 7
Finding the right court decision (case) is the heart of the legal research method outlined in Chapter 2. No matter how clear a statute or regulation may seem on its face-and few fit that description-you need to find out what the courts have done with it in situations like yours. And the best path to that result is first to find one relevant case that, through the cross-reference materials covered in Chapter 9, will lead you to others.
