Primary legal resources are the actual judicial rulings, legislative statutes, and administrative regulations issued by a court, legislature, or executive agency. Examples include California Reports and United States Code Annotated.

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The main types of legal information resources are:

- Primary resources
- Secondary resources
- Citators are a special type of secondary resource which allow users to track case or statute histories, as well as how the courts have subsequently treated cases or statutes.

Types of Legal Information Resources

Desautels, J. (2017, May). Joshua Desautels's INFO 210 Research Guide on Legal Reference Resources. Retrieved September 30, 2021, from https://ischoolblogs.sjsu.edu/info/jd203blog/

Primary Legal Resources

Secondary legal resources contain articles discussing various cases, laws, regulations, and related issues. It is often best to begin by researching secondary sources, because they can: provide terminology; often be easier to locate than primary sources; provide an overview of the relevant issue or event; refer users to related issues and subjects; be easier to understand, compared to primary sources; and syntehsize or process any information found through primary sources. Secondary sources can lead their users to the relevant primary sources. Examples include California Jurisprudence and the Harvard Law Review.

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