Which statement correctly distinguishes primary authorities from secondary authorities?

• A. Primary authorities are not the law; secondary authorities are binding.
• B. Primary authorities are the law and binding; secondary authorities are commentary that helps locate primary authorities.
• C. Secondary authorities are the primary law.
• D. There is no difference.

Answer: (B)

Primary authorities are the actual legal rules that bind courts and parties—think constitutions, statutes, regulations, and case law. They establish what the law is in a given jurisdiction and carry binding force.

Secondary authorities, by contrast, don’t create or bind with legal rules. They’re commentary and analysis that help you understand, interpret, and locate the primary authorities—things like treatises, law review articles, restatements, legal encyclopedias, practice guides, and citators. They can be persuasive and provide valuable explanations, but they do not themselves set the law or bind courts.

So the statement that best captures the distinction is that primary authorities are the law and binding, while secondary authorities are commentary that helps locate and understand primary authorities. In practice, researchers use secondary sources to find the relevant primary sources and to gain interpretive context, but the binding effect rests only with the primary authorities.