Research Tip: Reporters

What is a reporter?

Reporters are the books where case opinions are published or reported. Cases are printed in chronological order, so you need to already have a citation to locate a case in a reporter.

What about jurisdiction?

Reporters are available for individual states (California Reporter) or regions of the country (Pacific Reporter – 15 states including Colorado). There are also reporters for the different levels of federal courts:

• District
  
  • Federal Supplement
• Courts of Appeals
  
  • Federal Reporter
• U.S. Supreme Court
  • United States Reports (U.S.),
  • United State’s Supreme Court Reporter (S.Ct.)
  • United States Supreme Court Reports, Lawyer’s Edition, (L.Ed.)

What are the parts of a citation?

Brooke v. Restaurant Servs., 906 P.2d 66 (Colo. 1995).

Volume => 906

Reporter => P

Series =>2d

Page => 66

State => Colo.

Date => 1995

What is a series?

A new series is created when a reporter reaches a certain number of volumes. For example, when the Pacific Reporter, Second Series (2d) reached 999 volumes, the Pacific Reporter, Third Series (3d) was created and started with volume 1.

By Patty Wellinger, originally e-mailed to 1Ls 10/5/07