Definition
Side reports are unofficial volumes or series of law reports published independently of the court's designated official reporter. The term encompasses two related but distinct categories:
1. Unofficial reports published by private compilers or commercial publishers covering the same court or jurisdiction as an official reporter, existing alongside (hence "side") the authorized series.
2. Collections of cases omitted from the official reports — decisions that were either overlooked, excluded, or simply not selected for inclusion in the authorized series but were preserved and published separately.
The term is descriptive rather than technical, applied loosely to any reporting publication that falls outside the official channel for a given court or jurisdiction.
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Common Confusion
Side reports are occasionally conflated with nominative reports, but the concepts are distinct. Nominative reports are named for the individual reporter who compiled them — a practice common in English and early American legal publishing — and may be either official or unofficial depending on the period and jurisdiction. Side reports, by contrast, are defined entirely by their relationship to an official series: they are unofficial by definition. A nominative reporter could produce what would now be called a side report, but the terms describe different attributes of the same publication.
Side reports should also be distinguished from annotated reports (such as American Law Reports), which are selective reporters organized around legal analysis rather than comprehensive coverage of a court's output.
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Why It Matters in Research
The concept of side reports is primarily a navigational tool for researchers working in historical legal sources, particularly pre-twentieth-century American and English case law.
**Coverage gaps are real.** Official reporters, especially in the nineteenth century, were inconsistent. Courts did not always publish every decision, reporter appointments were sometimes irregular, and official series frequently contained gaps. Side reports — particularly those preserving omitted cases — may hold the only published version of a decision. Researchers relying solely on official series risk missing controlling or influential precedent from the same jurisdiction and period.
**Citational authority varies.** Courts historically differed on whether side reports could be cited as authority. Some courts accepted them freely; others preferred or required citation to the official series when one existed. In modern practice, court rules typically specify approved citation formats and may address unofficial reporters. When tracing the authority of a historical citation drawn from a side report, verify whether the court of that era recognized it.
**Commercial reporters absorbed many side series.** What began as side reports were often folded into or superseded by the West National Reporter System and similar commercial compilations. Researchers encountering a citation to an obscure series should check whether the cases were later reprinted in a more accessible commercial compilation.
**Cross-jurisdictional confusion.** In English legal history, numerous competing private reporters covered the same courts simultaneously for centuries. Many of what English legal historians call "private reports" are the functional equivalent of American side reports. Researchers moving between English and American historical sources should recognize the parallel concept even when the terminology differs.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary (both the first and second editions) offer identical, brief definitions: side reports are unofficial volumes contrasted with those prepared by the official court reporter, or collections of cases omitted from the official reports. The definitions are consistent and uncontested across the two editions — there is no meaningful evolution between them, reflecting that the term was already established and stable by the time Black first codified it.
What the historical dictionaries do not address is the practical significance of these sources for researchers, the varying degrees of editorial reliability across different side report series, or the question of citational authority. The definitions describe what side reports are without engaging with when or why a researcher might need to consult them. Historical legal bibliography — works like Marvin's Legal Bibliography or Sweet & Maxwell's guides to English law reports — provides considerably more granular guidance on specific series and their reliability than the dictionary definitions alone.
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Jurisdictional Note
The term "side reports" is most commonly encountered in the context of American and English legal history. American states varied considerably in the regularity and completeness of their official reporting, meaning that the importance of side reports as a gap-filling resource differs significantly by state and period. English legal publishing had its own long tradition of competing private reporters that predates the formal concept of official reporting.
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