Intro to Treatises
Treatises, not to be confused with treaties, are book-length expositions on the law as it pertains to a particular subject. Treatises may be scholarly in nature, such as Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Law, or they may be geared toward a legal practitioner, such as a manual or handbook.
A legal treatise maybe a short, single volume or a large, multivolume set. Many are available electronically as well as in print. Different kinds of treatises have different purposes:
Legal hornbooks are designed as teaching tools for law students. Hornbooks provide more detailed treatments of particular areas of law than an encyclopedia or ALR entry. They generally contain summaries of landmark cases and other useful details.
Nutshells provide an overview of a legal topic without the detailed analysis or extensive case referencing found in other treatises.
Some treatises are designed to serve as practitioners’ tools. These works tend to address realistic legal problems and often provide useful features for practicing lawyers, such as forms and tables.
Looseleaf services are an example of treatises designed to serve as tools for practitioners. Such works address realistic legal problems and often provide useful features for practicing lawyers, such as forms and tables. Looseleaf services are frequently supplemented treatises--hence the looseleaf binder format that enables single pages to be easily updated without republishing the entire volume--that often contain primary legal sources and finding aids in addition to secondary analytical material, making them an invaluable resource if one exists for your topic.
Still other treatises are designed to serve as self-help publications for the public, such as those published by Nolo Press.
