Editing Common law (section)

=== Common law adjudication ===

In a common law jurisdiction several stages of research and analysis are required to determine "what the law is" in a given situation.<ref>Jane Kent Gionfriddo, Thinking Like a Lawyer: The Heuristics of Case Synthesis, 40 Texas Tech. L.Rev. 1 (Sep. 2007) [https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1012220] [https://lawdigitalcommons.bc.edu/lsfp/207]</ref> First, one must ascertain the facts. Then, one must locate any relevant statutes and cases. Then one must extract the principles, analogies and statements by various courts of what they consider important to determine how the next court is likely to rule on the facts of the present case. More recent decisions, and decisions of higher courts or legislatures carry more weight than earlier cases and those of lower courts.<ref>''e.g.'', ''Ex parte Holt'', 19 USPQ2d 1211, 1214 (Bd. Patent App. & Interf. 1991) (explaining the hierarchy of precedent binding on tribunals of the United States Patent Office)</ref> Finally, one integrates all the lines drawn and reasons given, and determines "what the law is". Then, one applies that law to the facts.

In practice, common law systems are considerably more complicated than the simplified system described above. The decisions of a court are binding only in a particular [[jurisdiction]], and even within a given jurisdiction, some courts have more power than others. For example, in most jurisdictions, decisions by [[appellate courts]] are binding on lower courts in the same jurisdiction, and on future decisions of the same appellate court, but decisions of lower courts are only non-binding persuasive authority. Interactions between common law, [[constitutional law]], [[statutory law]] and [[Regulation (law)|regulatory law]] also give rise to considerable complexity.