A reference source, Handbook of Legal Research in Massachusetts can serve as a valuable companion to the above, particularly if the researcher wishes to learn in-depth about the process. Chapter three, “Massachusetts Legislative Procedure and History,” written by the book’s editor Mary Ann Neary of the Boston College Law School, provides detailed information about how a bill does or does not become law.
Other Chapters, written by experts in their fields, include two by the Honorable Margot Botsford, Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. These are entitled: “statutes and session laws,” and “the judicial system.” A third by Judge Botsford and Karen Dean-Smith, is “the Massachusetts constitution and structure of government.”
Brian Harkins of the Social Law Library has written “electronic legal research.” Other chapters include overviews of “municipal law” and “administrative law.”
The library owns the third edition of this source and it contains a 2012 supplement. The publisher is MCLE, Massachusetts Continuing Legal Education, Inc.
Visit us here in the State Library to use this source.
Pamela W. Schofield
Legislative Reference Librarian
State Library of Masaschusetts
