Black 39;s Law Dictionary 9th Edition Citation
Kristin Banyas
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Commission on Women in the Profession, American Bar Association, From Visible Invisibility to Visibly Successful: Success Strategies for Law Firms and Women of Color in Law Firms (2008), available at
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Susan Boland is the Interim Director for the University of Cincinnati Robert. S. Marx Law Library. She teaches legal research and offers reference and research support services to all law library users. Prior to joining the law library faculty, she was the Head of Information Services for the Ruth Lilly Law Library at the Robert H. McKinney School of Law and the Research & Instructional Services librarian at Northern Illinois University College of Law. She has also held positions at a public library and community college library and served as a judicial clerk for the Iowa District Court for the Fifth Judicial District. She is a member of various professional associations both regionally and nationally. She has served as Chair of the Computing Services Special Interest Section of the American Association of Law Libraries and President of the Mid-America Association of Law Libraries. She is currently Vice-President of the American Association of Law Libraries Animal Law Caucus. She has presented at regional and national conferences, as well as at continuing legal education programs. Her publications include annotated bibliographies on the death penalty and election law, as well as articles on legal research, technology, and teaching.
Black, Henry Campbell. A Law Dictionary. Containing Definitions of the Terms and Phrases of American and English Jurisprudence, Ancient and Modern, And Including the Principal Terms of International, Constitutional, Ecclesiastical and Commercial Law, and Medical Jurisprudence, with a Collection of Legal Maxims, Numerous Select Titles from the Roman, Modern Civil, Scotch, French, Spanish, and Mexican Law, and Other Foreign Systems, and a Table of Abbreviations. Originally published: St. Paul, Minn.: West Publishing, 1910. 1314 pp. Reprinted 1995, 2018 by the Lawbook Exchange, Ltd. ISBN-13: 9781886363106; ISBN-10: 1886363102. Laminate hardcover. New. $195. * The second edition of Black's classic dictionary incorporates many new definitions and additional citations to decided cases, besides being a thorough revision of previous entries. Also included are many Latin and French terms overlooked in the first edition. Medical jurisprudence in particular is enriched, with new definitions for insanity and pathological and criminal insanity. The second edition (1910) is an essential complement to the first edition (1891) as it provides the scholar and student of law important insights into the rapid development of law at the turn of the century. The second edition is also notable for its revamped system of arrangement, with all compound and descriptive terms subsumed under their related main entries. Libraries, students, historians, and practitioners will all benefit from this historically significant research tool.
"Well-known enough that it is recognizable simply by the name of its long-deceased creator, Black's is the most widely used law dictionary in the United States today. . . . [I]t has become the predominant American law dictionary." Sarah Yates, Black's Law Dictionary: The Making of an American Standard, 103 Law Libr. J. 175, 175 (2011).
The following member databases include historic editions of Black's Law Dictionary. Members must be logged in to jenkinslaw.org to access these databases. These databases are also available in the library.
Dictionary of Law Containing Definitions of the Terms and Phrases of American and English Jurisprudence, Ancient and Modern (1st ed.) [1891]
Available on HeinOnline. Also available on LLMC Digital.
Legal dictionaries are trustworthy sources used to look up unfamiliar terminology (including Latin words and phrases) that you encounter while conducting legal research or in your law school courses. The most commonly used legal dictionary in the United States is Black's Law Dictionary, but there are a number of other titles available.
Like all dictionaries, legal dictionaries provide brief definitions and pronunciations of words, but legal dictionaries often offer more. Definitions, for example, may be accompanied by citations to relevant primary law sources such as cases, which can jump-start your research in an unfamiliar area of law. Some legal dictionaries contain other useful material. Black's, for example, provides references to the West American Digest System under which case law related to certain defined terms may be found. The print version of Black's also offers some popular "extra" appendices, including a list of legal abbreviations, a reprint of the U.S. Constitution, and a "legal maxims" section that explains the meanings of certain established principles of law as expressed in Latin (e.g., Veritas est justitiae mater).
So, keep a legal dictionary handy as you begin your research. However, remember that legal dictionaries, like all secondary sources, do not contain official, authoritative pronouncements of the law. Rather, they repackage legal information in a way that is easy to understand.
Legal dictionaries work like all dictionaries. If you know the correct spelling of the word for which you are seeking a definition, the process is as straightforward as using any dictionary. Never think of a legal dictionary as a final stop in your research. While some, like Black's, are considered very trustworthy, remember that the definitions in a legal dictionary are not official, authoritative statements of the law.
If a book is published in a loose-leaf format so that it can be updated, it is not fixed in time like a book that has been bound. It is important to let the reader know how current the book was when you consulted it. You will find the records of when the loose-leaf book was updated at either the front or back of the book.
A case comment is a special type of journal article. Often, a journal article will comment on a case, and perhaps compare and contrast a case with others, with no mention of the term "case comment." Cite these articles like other journal articles.
Dictionaries are not normally cited, but are used as one begins research to learn the meaning of words and phrases, and to develop a research vocabulary. After the bibliographic information, introduce the word or phrase with sub verbo, which means "under the word." See the following examples.
Legal encyclopedias are not normally cited, but are used as one begins research to learn about a legal issue and find references to primary sources of law. Examples for the print and electronic versions of the two Canadian encyclopedias follow.
The CED is currently in its 4th edition (shorten to 4th). The loose-leaf set of the CED is published in two versions - Ontario (Ont) and Western (West). There is an alphabetical arrangement of subjects (known as "titles"). The online version, available via WestlawNext Canada, sometimes refers to the Ontario or Western versions; include this information in your citation if it is provided.
Halsbury's is currently in its 1st edition but reissues volumes periodically. It is important to include this information in your citation because it is similar to an edition statement. Halsbury's uses an alphabetical arrangement with no volume numbers. Note that in the print version and online version, available via Lexis Advance Quicklaw, a shortened designation for subjects is used. For example, HLP stands for Halsbury's Legal Profession.
Legal dictionaries are trustworthy sources to use to look up unfamiliar terminology - including Latin words and phrases - that you encounter in your legal research or in your other law school courses. The most commonly used legal dictionary in the U.S. is Black's Law Dictionary, but there are a number of others available to legal researchers.
Like all dictionaries, legal dictionaries provide brief definitions and pronunciations of words, but legal dictionaries often offer more. Definitions may be accompanied by citations to relevant primary law sources, such as cases, which can jump start your research in an unfamiliar area of law. Some dictionaries contain other useful material. Black's, for example, provides references to the West Digest System Topics and Keywords under which case law related to certain defined terms may be found. The print version of Black's also includes some popular "extra" appendices, including a list of legal abbreviations, a reprint of the U.S. Constitution, and a "legal maxims" section, which explains the meanings of certain established principles in law as expressed in Latin phrases (for example, Veritas est justitiae mater).
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