Legal Research on the Web : 2. Government Information
The Internet remains an important source for legal information from federal, state and local governments. Below are some of the important sites for Federal Government information as well as a few starting points for locating state law information.
A. Federal Courts
* Court Links: The Administrative Office of the US Courts provides links to all available federal court web sites. Many courts provide at least a selection of their opinions online for free.
URL: http://www.uscourts.gov/links.html
* Findlaw provides a searchable database of U.S. Supreme Court opinions, as well as a Case Summary search for lower court opinions since 2000.
URL: http://www.findlaw.com
* Google Scholar offers free searching for, and full text of, published court opinions from the federal system.
URL: http://scholar.google.com/
* Cornell's Legal Information Institute provides a searchable archive of federal court opinions, including Supreme Court opinions back to 1990 (with selected "landmark" earlier decisions also included), as well as lower federal court opinions generally back to the mid-1990s.
URL: http://www.law.cornell.edu/federal/opinions.html
* Public.Resource.Org maintains an archive of federal court opinions, organized by reporter (Federal Reporter series and U.S. Reports) and then volume/page number.
URL: http://bulk.resource.org/courts.gov/c/
* The Supreme Court official website includes Court calendars and schedules, background information about the Court and justices, Court Rules, bar admissions information, case handling guides and general public information. Also includes slip opinions for the current term, PDF copies of the bound United States Reports back to 1991, and "sliplist" advance sheets (with links to opinions) for previous terms not yet published in a bound volume. For more information on researching the Supreme Court, see the Goodson Law Library's Research Guide.
URL: http://www.supremecourt.gov/
B. State Courts
* National Center for State Courts: Several courts provide their own opinions online in PDF form. The directory of State Court Web Sites is an excellent starting place.
URL: http://www.ncsconline.org/
* Google Scholar offers free searching for, and full text of, published court opinions in all 50 states.
URL: http://scholar.google.com/
* LLMC Digital Availability varies by court. Some volumes are available for all jurisdictions. This resource is most useful for historical information. NOTE: Remote access is limited to Duke University faculty, students and staff with a NetID and password.
URL: http://library.duke.edu/metasearch/db/id/DUK00927
C. Legislation and Regulations
Federal
* THOMAS Primary online source for federal legislative material. Contains new public laws, pending bills, status of bills, committee reports and hearings. Full text of legislation available from 1989 (101st Congress) to present. Depth of other material varies -- some items, including public laws, are earlier in scope. Very current
URL: http://thomas.loc.gov/
* Official U.S. Code Search Titles are equivalent to the 2006 edition and annual supplements. Users can select prior versions of the Code (back to 1988) if desired.
URL: http://uscode.house.gov/search/criteria.shtml
* FDsys Full‑text access to the CFR (back to 1996), Federal Register (back to 1994), Congressional Record (back to 1994) and other government documents from the Government Printing Office.
URL: http://www.fdsys.gov/
* Federal Administrative Agency Decisions & Other Actions Can be searched by agency or by subject. Availability of material varies by agency.
URL: http://www.lib.virginia.edu/govdocs/fed_decisions_agency.html
* ProQuest Congressional contains a great deal of federal legislative material, including: the U.S. Code, full text of public laws, Statutes at Large, CFR, Federal Register, CIS Legislative Histories for public laws, committee reports, Bills, Congressional Record, and congressional hearing testimony with various coverage dates. NOTE: Remote access is limited to Duke University faculty, students and staff.
URL: http://library.duke.edu/metasearch/db/id/DUK00841
* USA.gov provides one‑stop access to all online U.S. government resources (local, state and federal). Includes topical arrangements, a useful A-Z list of government agencies and departments and Spanish translation of several web pages.
URL: http://www.usa.gov/
State
* National Conference of State Legislatures: Many states provide their legislative enactments on free websites. To easily locate those states, begin with this site, which provides links to state legislature websites.
URL: http://www.ncsl.org/
* WashLaw Web: Washburn School of Law links to state government websites, where legislative administrative materials can often be found.
URL: http://www.washlaw.edu/