Free and Low Cost Resources for U.S. Legal Research
Sheri LewisAssociate Law Librarian for Public ServicesD’Angelo Law Library
U. S. Supreme Court The Court’s site: http://www.supremecourtus.gov Cornell’s LII: http://supct.law.cornell.edu/supct/ Scotus Blog: http://www.scotusblog.com
Lower Federal Courts Justia: http://www.justia.com/courts/federal-courts/ Cornell’s LII: http://www.law.cornell.edu/federal/opinions.html Understanding the Federal Courts
http://www.uscourts.gov/understand03/
Researching Federal Law: Cases
U.S. Constitution: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/constitution/index.html
Sources for Slip/Session Laws (Congressional Acts) Thomas at Library of Congress:
http://thomas.loc.gov/bss/d111/d111laws.html
GPO Access: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/browse/collection.action?collectionCode=PLAW
U.S. Statutes at Large (1789-1875) http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/amlaw/lwsllink.html
(2003-2006): http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/browse/collection.action?collectionCode=STATUTE
Researching Federal Law: Statutes
Sources for the United States Code United States Code on GPO Access
http://www.gpoaccess.gov/uscode/index.html
Cornell’s LII – US Code Collection http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/
U.S. House of Representatives: downloadable version
http://uscode.house.gov/download/downloadPDF.shtml
Researching Federal Law: Statutes
Sources for Researching Congress Thomas
http://thomas.loc.gov
FDsys – GPO Access http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/
GovTrack http://www.govtrack.us
Capitol Spotlight: http://www.cspan.org/capitolspotlight/cqwatch.asp
DLL Legislative History Research Guidehttp://www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/law/db/ref/lh.html
Researching Federal Law: Legislation
Code of Federal Regulations on GPO Access http://www.gpoaccess.gov/cfr/ E - CFR http://www.gpoaccess.gov/ecfr
Federal Register on GPO Access & FDsys http://www.gpoaccess.gov/fr/index.html http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/browse/collection.action?collectionCode=FR
Regulations.Gov: information on proposed regulations http://www.regulations.gov/search/Regs/home.html#home
Federal Agencies: A to Z list on http://www.usa.gov
U.S. Government Manual: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/browse/collection.action?collectionCode=GOVMAN
Researching Federal Law: Regulations & Agencies
Cornell LII’s Law By Source: States http://www.law.cornell.edu/states/listing.html
Findlaw: Cases and Codes: http://www.findlaw.com/casecode/#statelaw
Uniform Commercial Code http://www.law.cornell.edu/ucc/ucc.table.html
National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform States Laws Web http://www.nccusl.org/nccusl/DesktopDefault.aspx?tabindex=2&tabid=60
Effective dates for state legislatures http://www.statescape.com/resources/Effective_dates/effective_dates.asp
NCSL 50-State Legislative Tracking Web Resources http://www.ncsl.org/programs/lis/lrl/50statetracking.htm
Researching State Law
The Seattle Public Library: Municipal Codes Online http://www.spl.org/default.asp?pageID=collection_municodes
LexisNexis/Book Publishing Co.http://www.bpcnet.com/codes.htm
American Legal Publishing Corporationhttp://www.amlegal.com/library/
Municipal Code Corporation
http://www.municode.com/Resources/online%20Library.asp
General Codehttp://www.generalcode.com/webcode2.html
Researching Local & Municipal Law
Cornell LII: Wex - a collaboratively-built law dictionary & encyclopedia
http://topics.law.cornell.edu/wex
Zimmerman’s Research Guide – Online Legal Encyclopedia
http://www.lexisnexis.com/infopro/zimmerman/
Cornell Law Library Research Guide Search Engine http://library.lawschool.cornell.edu/WhatWeDo/ResearchGuides/
Legal-Research-Engine.cfm
Secondary Sources
Cornell LII’sThe Bluebook: http://www.law.cornell.edu/citation/
Federal Judicial Center’s Biographical Database
http://www.fjc.gov/public/home.nsf/hisj
Martindale-Hubbell Law Directory http://www.martindale.com
Thomson Legal Record
(formerly West Legal Directory)http://legalrecords.findlaw.com/ss/search_index.jsp?ch=LP
Research Tools
American Lawyer Media's Law.com http://www.law.com/index.shtml
BLAWG: http://www.blawg.com/ LLRX Court Rules, Forms & Dockets
http://www.llrx.com/courtrules/ FindLaw for Legal Professionals - Federal and State
Resources, Forms http://lp.findlaw.com/
Internet Legal Research Group Forms http://www.ilrg.com/forms/
Practice Resources
The Public Library of Law http://www.plol.org Justia http://www.justia.com Google Scholar http://scholar.google.com Findlaw http://findlaw.com
LexisOne http://lexisone.com Loislaw http://loislaw.com Fastcase http://fastcase.com HeinOnline Short-Term Access
http://shop.heinonline.org/index?colshow=all
Free and Low Cost Law Databases
Jureeka: http://jureeka.blogspot.com
LII Citer: http://topics.law.cornell.edu/lii/citer
Citation Finder Tools
