HOW TO SHEPARDIZE A STATUTE

Shepard's Statute volumes indicate subsequent legislation and court decisions citing your citation. These volumes also allow you to Shepardize federal and state constitutions, court rules, session laws, treaties, charters and ordinances. For information on Shepardizing cases see How to Shepardize a Case.

The method used below can be applied to all state and federal statute citators.

Shepard's Citations are located on the main floor of the College Library in the Paralegal Area. In the College's library, Shepard's Citators are placed after the set to which it pertains (for example, Shepard's Federal Statute Citations are located after United State Code Annonated).

A. Locating Shepard's Statute Citations

1. Find the appropriate set of volumes for your citation (for example, for Federal statutes, use Shepard's Federal Statute Citations; for Pennsylvania cases, use Shepard's Pennsylvania Citations, Case & Statute Edition). The set usually consists of bound volumes and paper supplements.
2. Find the most recent pamphlet of the set. The front cover will indicate what volumes are included in the set under the heading "What Your Library Should Contain."
3. Gather all of the volumes (including supplements!) that contain your citation. Be sure to check every volume in the set for your citation.
4. To find your citation turn to the "Table of Contents" in the beginning of each of these volumes and find the statute division. Within the statute division the codes are covered in chronological order. Find the section covering the most recent code.
5. Find citations to your reference by locating the title and section that correspond to your citation. Title and section numbers appear in bold type at the top corner of each page and are also set off in a box on that page.
6. In addition to Shepardizing your statute as a whole, you can also Shepardize statute sections and subdivisions. Citations to the statute as a whole appear first followed by citations to sections and groups of sections. Citations to subdivisions appear under the related section.

1. Subsequent legislative enactments (i.e., amendments, repeals, etc.)
2. Cases citing to the statute
3. Attorney General Opinions
4. Legal periodicals
5. Annotations in American Law Reports and United States Supreme Court Reports, Lawyers' Edition

1. Shepard's uses unique abbreviations. To interpret these abbreviations turn to the "Abbreviations-Analysis" section in the front of each bound Shepard's volumes or on the inside front cover of the paper supplements.
2. The letter appearing before a legislative citation indicates what happened to the statute. The citation following the abbreviation will tell you where in Purdon's Pennsylvania Statutes Annotated you can find the change. For example: A 1998No162 means that the statute you Shepardized was amended by the Pennsylvania Legislature by Act No. 162 of the 1998 Pamphlet Laws.
3. A letter appearing before a judicial citation will indicate whether the court ruled on the constitutionality or validity of the statute. For example: C 726A2d441 shows that the statute was held to be constitutional in the case beginning on page 441 in Volume 726 of the Atlantic Reporter 2d Series.

1. To Shepardize a statute on Westlaw, enter your citation in the Key Cite box.
2. It is possible to Shepardize Federal statutes, Pennsylvania statutes and most other state statutes.