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

Questions?

Sheri Lewisshl@uchicago.edu