Abuse of Process
(a.byoos ov pross.ess) n. The use of legal process in a manner not contemplated by the law to achieve a purpose not intended by the law.
Example: causing an ex-husband to be arrested for nonsupport of his child in order to secure his agreement with respect to custody.
American Association for Paralegal Education (AAPE)
n. A national organization of paralegal teachers and educational institutions, which provides technical assistance and supports research in the paralegal field, promotes standards for paralegal instruction, and cooperates with the American Bar Association and others in developing an approval process for paralegal education.
Corpus Juris
n. the body of the law, meaning a compendium of all laws, cases and the varied interpretations of them. There are several encyclopedias of the law which fit this definition, the most famous of which is Corpus Juris Secundum. Several states have such series of books covering explanations of the law of that state.
Corpus Juris Secundum
n. is an encyclopedia that uses American case law (federal and state) to provide an overview of almost all areas of law.
Inter Alia
(in-tur eh-lee-ah) prep. Latin for “among other things.” This phrase is often found in legal pleadings and writings to specify one example out of many possibilities.
Example: “The judge said, inter alia, that the time to file the action had passed.
Shepard’s Citations
n. In legal research, Shepard’s Citations is the best-known citator, a list of all the authorities citing a particular case, statute, or other legal authority. The name derives from a legal service begun by Frank Shepard (1848-1900) in 1873, when Shepard began publishing these lists in a series of books indexed to different jurisdictions. Among lawyers in the United States, the verb Shepardizing refers to the process of consulting Shepard’s (or another citator) to see if a case has been overturned, reaffirmed, questioned, or cited by later cases. Shepard’s was purchased by LexisNexis in 1996. Today, LexisNexis users can easily Shepardize citations online; all cases displayed on LexisNexis show an icon in the upper left corner indicating the status of the case as citable authority.
