Law Reference Library
It would be very convenient if all state and federal codes, statutes, and case law were available on the World Wide Web. This would give lay people easy access to the laws that they must follow and it would allow attorneys to do legal research without having to leave their office to go to a law library, or pay for expensive collections of casebooks.
Unfortunately, economic realities dictate that we may never see all of the substantive law of all the states on the Web. Several states receive quite a bit of income by selling the exclusive rights to publish that state’s case law. In addition, it is quite expensive to publish and maintain a web site, and money for such a project is not available in all states. Case law on the Web ideally would include decisions from at least the last 30 years, a sophisticated search engine for locating relevant law, case summaries, head notes, etc. Providing all of these on a Web site would be very expensive.
Given the above, it is impressive how much substantive law is already available on the Web. Every state now has a Web site with some substantive law posted. Unfortunately the quality, accessibility, and completeness vary considerably from state to state. Rarely will you see more than the last few years of a state’s supreme court opinions on the Web. Often the opinions that you find will only be summaries. You will almost never see head notes included. And though many sites allow you to search for a case by name, they often don’t provide an index so that you can determine which cases are available.
Below are links to the substantive law resources that I know of. The author of this Web site would very much appreciate information as to other such resources that are not included here. I rely heavily on the assistance of visitors to this site to help me keep this site as comprehensive as possible. I would also appreciate knowing if a link on this site has gone dead or has changed. My e-mail link can be found at the bottom of this page. Thank you!
Contents:
State Law
Additional Sources for State Law
Municipal Codes
Federal Law
U.S. Court of Appeals
Law by Topic
Antitrust
Bankruptcy
Family Law
Federal Criminal Law
Intellectual Property
Taxation
Canadian Law
International Law
TPO’s California Legal Research Page
Alabama Supreme Court and Courts of Civil and Criminal Appeals
(Register here first )
Alaska Supreme Court since 1991
Alaska Court of Appeals, since1991
Alaska Court of Appeals (recent slip)
Alaska Court of Appeals (recent memoranda)
Arizona Court of Appeals, Division Two, last 30 days
Arizona Real Estate Law (once there, choose “resources”)
California Supreme Court decisions in MS Word & PDF format
California opinions (subscription only)
Calif. Expunging Police and Court Records
Colorado Statutes (Subscription)
Colorado Statutes (no registration required)
Colorado Statutes with Annotations (Gopher)
Florida Statutes and Constitution
Florida World Wide Web Legal Research Collection
Idaho Code and current legislation
Idaho Supreme Court, last 60 days
Idaho Court of Appeals, last 60 days
Illinois Supreme Court and Appellate Court
Illinois Recent State Court Opinions
Illinois Supreme Court Opinions – coming soon
Indiana Constitution and Statutes
Iowa Code (searchable by keyword or section)
Iowa Supreme Court “coming soon”
Iowa Civil Rights Statute and Rules
Kansas Statutes (Subscription only)
Kentucky Revised Statutes; requires Adobe Reader to read the files, available free through a link on the site.
Maine Supreme Judicial Court – Follow the directions to “Law Court Opinions.”
Maryland Court of Appeals and Court of Special Appeals opinions since 1992
Massachusetts Supreme Court and Appeals Court – Recent
Massachusetts Supreme Court since 1937 and Appeals Court since 1972 (membership required)
Michigan Statutes and Legislation
Michigan Quick Index to State Laws
Michigan Court Decisions by Law Journal Extra
Michigan Court of Appeals Decisions
Minnesota Court of Appeals Opinions from Finance and Commerce Appellate Courts Edition
Minnesota Supreme Court, Court of Appeals, Tax Court, Office of Administrative Hearings, Workers’ Compensation Court, and Attorney General
Mississippi Supreme Court (Frames)
Mississippi Supreme Court (No Frames)
Montana Supreme Court Opinions
Montana Supreme Court (recent)
Nebraska Supreme Court and Ct of Appeals
Nevada Revised Statutes and Nevada Administrative Code
New Mexico Codes (password req., but free)
New Mexico statutes (Registration is required, but there is no fee.)
New York Ct. of Appeals
New York Court of Appeals synopses of decisions sent by e-mail.
To subscribe, send a message to:
listserv@lii.law.cornell.edu
In the body of the message put this exactly, substituting your name for “your name”:
subscribe liibulletin?ny Your Name
North Carolina Court of Appeals
North Carolina Court of Appeals (recent)
North Carolina Supreme Court (recent)
North Carolina Keyword Searching for Supreme Court Opinions (Gopher)
North Carolina Keyword Searching for Supreme Court Advance Sheets (Gopher)
North Carolina Supreme Court Opinions by Date (Gopher)
Oklahoma’s Constitution, Statutes, Decisions and other resouces (Searchable)
Oklahoma Supreme Court, Court of Appeals and Court of Criminal Appeals
Oklahoma Sup., Crm App. and Appeals
Oklahoma Bar Association Recent Ct Opinions
Oklahoma statutes and constitution
Oregon Supreme Court opinions (recent) Summaries of Supreme Court and Court of Appeals opinions are available via e-mail by registering at this site.
Pennsylvania Supreme Court opinions, since November 1996
Tennessee rules of criminal procedure
Texas constitution and statutes
Texas Court of Criminal Appeals
Code of Virginia and the Virginia Administrative Code
West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals
West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals2
West Virginia by subscription only
Wisconsin Supreme Court Opinions
Wisconsin Court of Appeals Decisions
Verdicts and Settlements Database
TRY THESE LINKS FOR ADDITIONAL STATE LAW
U.S. State and Territorial Laws
(Contains state laws and materials that may not appear on each state’s Web site above.)
Laws of All Jurisdictions (States) (Arranged by Subject)
LOIS (subscription)
Lawyers Legal Research (subscripton)
WestDoc (subscription)
Advantage for the Web – Lexis (subscription)
MUNICIPAL CODES.
Municipal Codes for many cities in the U.S.
Municipal Code Corporation
FEDERAL LAW
- Web Guide to the Constitution of the United States
- All Supreme Court cases since 1937. Searchable by citation, case name and full text as well as browsable by year and US Reports volume. The cases contain US Reports page markers and hyperlinks within the cases to other cited cases for easy navigation.
- US Supreme court searchable by citation, parties, or text
- U.S. Supreme Court Decisions
- Supreme Court Opinions and Other Judicial Information
- Congress and Legislative Agencies including Selected Federal Register (FR) and Code of Federal Regulation (CFR) Areas
- Searchable Federal Register , Congressional Record, Congressional Bills and other Federal Government information
- Searchable Federal Register
- HUDCLIPS (Federal Register, Codes, Handbooks and Notices, Letters, Inspector General, Travel Regulations, Housing Waivers, OGC Documents, and Legal Opinions.)
- U.S. Code /Cornell
- U.S. Code /House of Representatives
U.S. Court of Appeals
- Search engine for searching all the circuit courts
- U.S. Court of Appeals, Federal Circuit
- District of Columbia Circuit
- 1st Circuit
- 2nd Circuit
- 3rd Circuit
- 4th Circuit
- 5th Circuit
- 6th Circuit
- 7th (Emory) Circuit
- 7th (Kent)
- 8th Circuit
- 9th Circuit
- 9th Circuit (Findlaw)
- 10th Circuit
- 11th Circuit
Federal District Court decisions (Subscription: $49 for software and $75/hour for searching)
U.S. Federal laws (arranged by agency)
U.S. Federal laws (arranged by original published source)
FEDERAL STATUTES AND REGULATIONS
Federal Rules of Civil Procedure
Rules of Professional Conduct Regarding Lawyers
Administrative Procedures Act (Federal)
LAW BY TOPIC
Cyberspace Law-The Law and the Web
Federal Securities Act of 1933 – 33 U.S.C.
Federal Securities Exchange Act of 1934 – 34 U.S.C.
Indigenous Peoples Law and Legal Issues
Antitrust
- Antitrust Policy
- Antitrust Law Library (by topic)
- Antitrust Law Library (by title)
- Antitrust Magazine
- Antitrust Law Journal
Bankruptcy
- Bankruptcy
- Supreme Court Bankruptcy Opinions
- Bankruptcy Online
- Frequently Asked Bankruptcy Law Questions
- Chapter 7
- Chapter 13
- Internal Revenue Regulations pertaining to bankruptcy
- Bankruptcy Statutes
- Bankruptcy Code (Title 11 U.S.C.)
- American Bankruptcy Institute
Family Law
- Family law
- Uniform Family Law Acts
- Tables Summarizing Family Law in all Fifty States Find out what family laws apply to your state.
- Marital Status: The Comprehensive On-Line Resource for Divorce and Remarriage
- Divorce Magazine
- Divorce Central
- The Divorce Page
- Family Law: An Overview
- 42 U.S.C. 1983 – Civil Rights of Children
- 42 U.S.C. 620 – Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of 1980
- 42 U.S.C., Chapter 6 – The Children’s Bureau
- 42 U.S.C., Chapter 7 – Social Security Act
- 42 U.S.C., Chapter 67 – Child Abuse Prevention and Adoption Reform Act
- Divorce Law Materials (family)
- Family Law – Subject and Title Index for Lawyers Worldwide
- Divorce & Family Law Links
- Family Medical Leave Act (P.L.103-3)
Federal Criminal Law
- Federal Pardon Resource Center
- Criminal Law and Evidence Catalog
- Criminal Law Links
- Criminal Justice Resources – Indiana U.
Intellectual Property
- Intellectual Property Law
- U.S. Copyright Office
- Copyright Law
- Copyright Office Electronic Registration, Recordation & Deposit System
- Copyright and Intellectual Property Rights
- Copyright and Intellectual Property Resources
- Copyright Act from the U.S. Code
- U.S. Patent and Trademark Office
- Patent Searching from IBM and Optipat
- U.S. Patent Database – Searchable
- Internet Patent Search
- Title 35 of the U.S. Code
- Trademark searches
- Trademark Resources
- U.S. Trademark Act
- Trade Secrets
Taxation
- Tax Law
- IRS Revenue Rulings
- Complete Set of IRS Forms Downloadable in PDF, LaserJet, Postscript, or SGML formats.
- IRS publications retrieval
- IRS tax forms
- Tax Regs in Plain English
- U.S. Tax Code Online searchable by keyword
- Internal Revenue Code
- State Taxation Information Page
- TaxSites – State Tax Law in the United States
CANADA
- Canada/Supreme Court-Recent Rulings
- Canada/Supreme Court-Search the Database Using Keywords
- Canada Law Links
- Canada
- QUICKLAW (research/reference, Canada)
- British Columbia
INTERNATIONAL LAW
- Laws of Other Nations
- International Government, Law and Courts
- International Court of Justice (United Nations)
- Legal Research on International Law Issues Using the Internet
- Treaties and International Law
- Australasian Legal Information Institute
- Australian Law
- International law
- Japanese laws
- New Zealand
- South Africa Constitutional Court and Land Claims Court
- UK
- UK House of Lords decisions can be accessed by navigating from this link.
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