A primary authority is a term used in legal research to refer to statements of law that are binding upon the courts, government, and individuals. Primary authority is usually in the form of a document that establishes the law, and if no document exists, is a legal opinion of a court. The search for applicable primary authority is the most important part of the process of legal research.
Examples of primary authority include the verbatim texts of:
Verbatim re-prints by private commercial law publishing companies are also considered primary authority, as long as the document purports to be and actually is a verbatim re-print of the applicable document, statute, regulation, court opinion, etc. Many lawyers, legal scholars, government agencies and others use verbatim re-prints of texts published by private publishing companies.
The term 'primary authority' is used to distinguish primary authority materials from texts considered to be Secondary authority.