American Law Reports – Federal in United States
American Law Reports – Federal
American Law Reports (ALR), like national legal encyclopedias and state legal encyclopedias, are useful sources when beginning legal research. They provide introductory overviews on legal topics, usually explaining the current state of the law, the development of the body of law, relevant legal principles, and citations to primary law such as statutes, cases, and regulations.
American Law Reports (“A.L.R.”) annotations provide a straightforward, neutral analysis of the law, and they tend to discuss narrower legal topics in greater detail than legal encyclopedias. A.L.R. annotations are derived from select appellate court cases, making the entries fairly fact specific and often focused on rapidly developing or controversial areas of law. A.L.R.’s strength is that it presents an organized commentary and discussion of previously reported cases on a particular subject. Additionally, articles contain a Table of Jurisdictions, which identifies cases arising from a particular state. If there is an A.L.R. annotation on your topic, it can save you a great deal of time since it identifies the key cases, statutes, regulations and law review articles impacting your issue. See below to learn more about using, citing, and finding A.L.R annotations.
ALR: American Law Reports (KF 132)
Published since 1888, ALR contains countless articles on narrow topics of law. ALR articles, called annotations, provide background, analysis, and citations to relevant cases, statutes, law review articles, and other annotations.
ALR is published in series, two under its original title Lawyers Reports Annotated, and eight ALR series, one through six and two federal series. They are not jurisdiction specific. Within each annotation, there is a Table of Jurisdictions directing you to cases within specific states. (For the federal series, the Table of Jurisdictions directs you to cases within specific circuits.) All continue to be updated, though not on a regular schedule. Online versions include updates. When using the set in print form, check pocket parts for updates. ALR annotations can be superceded in entirety by later annotations. Online versions provide citations to superceding annotations. If using the set in print, check the History Table at the end of the ALR Index to verify that your annotation has not been superceded.
Find relevant annotations by using print indices or searching online. When using ALR online, it is most efficient to look for your terms in the titles of the annotations since their titles are specific, and reflective of content.
ALR Indexes:
- ALR Index, KF 132.2.I53 covers annotations written since 1948.
- ALR Quick Index, KF 132.6.A543 covers major annotations from ALR3d to present.
ALR on Westlaw contains ALR1st, 2d, 3d, 4th, 5th, 6th and ALR Federal 1st and 2nd. To browse the ALR index on Westlaw, use the citation field search ci(index).
Citing ALR with the Bluebook
Blue Book Rule 16.6.5
See e.g.: 25 A.L.R. Fed. 207 (1975) and 80 A.L.R.5th 1 (2000).
United Kingdom
Commenced in 1969 by the Lawyers Co-operative Publishing Company of Rochester, New York.
Like many law reports of the United States, ALR is generally cited without using any periods whatsoever, as in: ALR Fed; although it can be represented as: A.L.R.Fed. or A.L.R. Fed.
From the forward to 1 ALR Fed: “ALR-Federal will report in full on the leading decisions of the federal courts as they are handed down.”