The West Thomson Reuter publishing company has recently added another special subject reporter to its units of the National Reporter System. 

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West’s American Tribal Law Reporter includes cases decided in American Tribal Law courts and appeals of cases from those courts to the U.S. Courts of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court.  In this publication, the tribal cases have very short “Background” and “Holding” sections in place of a synopsis of the case; however, otherwise the tribal cases have the typical West publication format, including headnotes describing the points of law.  (A quick scan of the headnotes in one volume shows, not surprisingly, that most points of law are classified with key numbers under the West topic “Indians”.)  

Based on past practice, West will probably eventually publish a digest to provide access to cases in this reporter; until that time,  access in print is limited to using the non-cumulated digests at the end of each volume, or by case name or by specific tribal court through the “Cases Reported” section at the beginning of each volume.  Although this reporter has only recently been published, volume 1 started with cases from 1997 and it is already up to volume 7.   We have shelved our set of this new reporter in the treatise collection with our other native American materials , and it has the classification number KF8220.A519W47. 

Westlaw has a developing database called “Tribal Materials” which currently includes only headnote coverage of the cases included in the American Tribal Law Reporter.  Although presumably the full text of these cases will be on WESTLAW soon, now you can only access them online by searching the headnotes of the cases.   However, searching the headnotes by terms and connectors would be the best way to locate cases now and easier that any print method of access described above, even though at this time you would have to go to the print volumes to obtain the full text of a case.  This database also includes a “Codes and Indexes” section which is currently not operational.  West may be in the process of adding the tribal codes to the database. 

Obviously the current edition of the Bluebook does not provide a citation format for this new reporter.  West suggests citing it as 1 Am. Tribal Law 1 (Cherokee 1997), which is consistent with citation format for other National Reporter System units.  The Nineteenth Edition of the Bluebook, currently under development, should clarify the proper citation format when it is published.   

Predictable and organized access to the tribal cases has historically been a problem, so the legal community should welcome this additional unit to the National Reporter System.  West has a commendable tradition of publishing special subject reporters as add-ons to the National Reporter System, especially when the subject matter of the cases is adjudicated by specialized courts not otherwise covered by regular federal or state units of the National Reporter System.  Other special subject West reporters include West’s Bankruptcy Reporter, West’s Military Justice Reporter, West’s Veterans Appeals Reporter, and West’s Education Law Reporter.  Pierce Law Library includes all of these reporters in the treatise area of our collection, under their respective subject areas.  You can locate them through our online catalog MelCat.