Advance Sheets

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Pamphlets containing recently decided opinions of federal courts or state courts of a particular region.

Cases appearing in advance sheets are subsequently published in bound volumes containing several past pamphlets, usually with the same volume and page numbers as appeared in the advance sheets. Sometimes a court will publish an individual opinion soon after it has been rendered by the court. This is called a slip opinion, which later may appear in an advance sheet.

Advance Sheets in the National Reporter System

The National reporter System, published by West Publishing Company, St. Paul, Minnesota, is the most comprehensive collection of the decisions of the appellate courts of the states and of the United States. There are eighteen reporters in the National Reporter System. Eight of the units cover federal courts and ten units cover the fifty states and the District of Columbia.

Advance sheets are published fifty times each year (weekly, except for the last week of September and the first week of October) for the regional units reporting state cases. Three units report federal cases fifty-two times per year. Of the remaining units, one publishes advance sheets biweekly, one monthly, and one semi-monthly, during the term of the Supreme Court of the United States.

All decisions, opinions, and memoranda of the United States Supreme Court are published in the Supreme Court Reporter (cited as S. Ct.). The advance sheets are issued semimonthly during the term of the Court. At the end of the term, two or three hardbound volumes are published, depending on the number of cases decided.

The Federal Reporter (F.), Federal Reporter, Second Series (F.2d) and Third Series (F.3d) contain the reported cases of the United States Courts of Appeal, Court of Claims, Court of Customs and Patent Appeals, and Temporary Emergency Court of Appeals. The Federal Supplement (F.Supp.) reports decisions of the United States District Courts, the United States Court of International Trade, and the Judicial Panel on Multistate Litigation. Federal Rules Decisions (F.R.D.) contains District Court opinions construing the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Military Justice Reporter (M.J.) carries the cases of the Court of Military Appeals and Courts of Military Review. Bankruptcy Reporter (Bankr.) reports decisions of the United States Bankruptcy Courts and bankruptcy decisions of other federal courts.

The regional units of the National Reporter System report the opinions of the highest courts of all fifty states and the District of Columbia. In addition, these reporters contain opinions of state intermediate appellate courts that are selected by the courts for publication. Many of the states have designated the unit of the National Reporter System in which their cases appear as their official reports.

The regional units of this system are the Atlantic Reporter, Second Series (A., A.2d); North Western Reporter, Second Series (N.W., N.W.2d); Pacific Reporter, Second Series (P., P.2d); South Eastern Reporter, Second Series (S.E., S.E.2d); Southern Reporter, Second Series (So., So.2d); and South Western Reporter, Second Series (S.W., S.W.2d). Because of the large volume of reported cases, three states have their own reporter units. They are the California Reporter (Cal. Rptr.); Illinois Decisions (Ill. Dec.); and New York Supplement and New York Supplement, Second Series (N.Y.S., N.Y.S.2d).