American Jurisprudence 2d
Now that we have covered C.J.S., let’s look at the other major legal encyclopedia, American Jurisprudence 2d (“Am. Jur. 2d”). Am. Jur. 2d is a 139-volume set formerly published by Lawyer’s Co-Op. Lawyer’s Co-Op used to be the second largest legal publisher in the U.S., but in 1996 its parent corporation bought West Publishing. The two separate legal publishing companies have since consolidated their activities and recent revisions to former Lawyer’s Co-Op publications now show the West imprint. Also, and more importantly, features formerly found only in West publications are now included in these former Lawyer’s Co-Op titles, such as Am. Jur. 2d.
Am. Jur. 2d divides its content into several hundred Titles, each Title covering one broad area of the law. These Titles are Am. Jur. 2d’s system of organizing all of American law into one large, comprehensive outline. Each Title is divided into a detailed outline of that broad area of law and each section in every Title’s outline provides an overview of a very narrow aspect of that Title’s subject. Shown here is the beginning of the list of Titles found in Am. Jur. 2d. |
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While at first glance the Titles in both Am. Jur. 2d and C.J.S. seem similar to the West Digest Topics, and though West now publishes both C.J.S. and Am. Jur. 2d (and has always published the Digests in the National Reporter System) the C.J.S. and Am. Jur. 2d Titles are not the same as the Digest Topics. Some of the same terminology is used for both the Digest Topics and the Am. Jur. 2d Titles (as well as the Titles in C.J.S.), but there is a good bit of variation in how each of these works organizes the law.
For comparison, the chart on the next page gives you the first fifteen Titles from both Am. Jur. 2d and C.J.S. and from the West Digest Topic outline.
Note the similarities and the differences in the broad categories of law in both Am. Jur. 2d and C.J.S., as well as in the Digests. To briefly re-emphasize the distinction: as encyclopedias, both Am. Jur. 2d and C.J.S. contain substantive discussion about the law, but the digests are finding tools for locating all cases in a given jurisdiction on a specific legal issue. |
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Here are a few sample pages from Am. Jur. 2d, starting with the first page of the Title “Abduction and Kidnapping.” Note that it provides a “Scope of Topic” that describes what is covered in this Title, a brief explanation of the “Federal Aspects” of this Title, and a list of related legal issues that are “Treated Elsewhere.” |
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Here is the first page of the outline of the Title “Abduction and Kidnapping” in Am. Jur. 2d. Each section discusses a specific aspect of the broad subject of Abduction and Kidnapping. |
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Here is an example of one of the sections within Abduction and Kidnapping, specifically the one on “Hostage Taking.” This brief discussion covers the definition of “hostage taking” under federal law. Notice the extensive footnotes, most of which are to cases, but which in this section also refer you to the relevant U.S. Code sections dealing with kidnapping. |
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Am. Jur. 2d has a seven volume paperback index. The index is used to look up terms related to your research, and entries in the index refer you to specific sections of Am. Jur. 2d where subjects related to those terms are discussed. |
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