Persuasive Authority and the Nebraska Supreme Court: Are Certain Jurisdictions or Secondary Resources More Persuasive Than Others?

Authors

Stefanie S. Pearlman, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow

Date of this Version

3-2018

Citation

The Nebraska Lawyer, March/April 2018, pp. 33-37.

Comments

Copyright (c) 2018 The Nebraska Lawyer. Used by permission.

Abstract

In this article, the author analyzes whether the Nebraska Supreme Court—as currently composed—favors particular jurisdictions or certain types of secondary resources as authority when there is a lack of precedent on a given legal issue. For this study, the author reviewed the advance opinions in Volume 295 of the Nebraska Reports to address two hypotheses: (1) When there is an absence of binding authority, it is typically better to cite to a state similar to your state—one that borders your state or that shares the same circuit; and (2) When using secondary resources, it is better to use resources authored by more esteemed authors and sophisticated resources.