Reading a Legal Opinion

Understanding legal terminology is the first step to reading a legal document. But there is more to the language of a legal document then archaic, sometime foreign, terms. What the law states may also suggest something about the society for which it was written, and knowing how to navigate a legal document is the first step in understanding its content. But what does it mean to "navigate" a document? This section uses the Supreme Court Decision Plessy v. Ferguson to demonstrate where and how to look for specific information within a legal text.