Archives Library Information Center (ALIC)

Law and Legal Resources

Links to laws and legal information including Federal law, court opinions, treaties, legal dictionaries and journals, and copyright information. See Bibliography of Law Resources for a selection of related materials available in ALIC.

Contents:

Comprehensive Legal Research

  • American Legal History Online Sources
    Created by D’Angelo Law Library, this site provides links to information about Charters and Constitutions, Legislative Resources, and publications.

  • Audiovisual Library of International Law
    The United Nations Codification Division of Office of Legal Affairs created this web site to "to provide high quality international law training and research materials to an unlimited number of recipients on a global level." Divided into three areas - the Historic Archives, the Lecture Series, and the Research Library - this is a multimedia resource offering video, audio, documents, and links to scholarly writings and research guides.

  • Chronology of U.S. Historical Documents
    (University of Oklahoma Law Center)
    Links to documents of historical importance to the United States, beginning with the Magna Carta.

  • Court Rules, Forms, and Dockets
    This useful metapage links to over 1,400 sources for state and federal court rules, forms, and dockets. Researchers may search by court type, type of resource, jurisdiction, state, or keyword.

  • Fedlaw
    Collection of references of use to people doing Federal legal research.

  • Florida Law
    "Florida Law documents the laws and legal heritage of Florida through texts digitized from the holdings of the University of Florida's Lawton Chiles Legal Information Center and the P.K. Yonge Library of Florida History; the State Library and Archives of Florida; and the Florida House of Representatives; as well as from the collections of legal professionals and scholars from across Florida."

  • Foreign and International Law Guide
    Created by the Cornell University Law Library, this site contains pointers in four major areas: foreign law, legal topics, topical guide, and U.S. Government sources on foreign and international law.

  • Guide to Law Online
    (Library of Congress Law Library)
    This site is an "annotated guide to sources of information on government and law available online. It includes selected links to useful and reliable sites for legal information."

  • H-Law
    Primarily designed for teachers and scholars with interests in constitutional and legal history, this site links to the H-Law discussion list as well as appropriate links to other legal history sites.

  • Jurist
    "Jurist is a Web-based legal news and real-time legal research service powered by a mostly-volunteer team of over 30 part-time law student reporters, editors and Web developers led by law professor Bernard Hibbitts at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law."

  • LawGuru.com
    Links to legal research and resources, and answers to legal questions.

  • Law Resources
    (Digital Librarian)
    Links to sites dealing with a variety of legal subjects.

  • Legal History Quotes
    This site provides quotations from various legal historians and translations of legal documents.

  • Legal History Pathfinder
    (Rutgers University)
    This site provides links to information about general history of law, ancient law, and common law, including British Legal History and American Legal History.

  • Legal Information Institute
    The Legal Information Institute (LII) is a research and electronic publishing activity of the Cornell Law School.

  • Legal Technology Resource Center
    Produced by the American Bar Association, this site provides a comprehensive collection of technology resources and information to the legal profession.

  • Legislative Source Book
    Important sources for legislative research are included in this compilation by members of the Law Librarian’s Society of Washington D.C.

  • LLRX: Law Library Resource Xchange
    This web site provides columns, feature articles, topical research guides, and legal-tech and library related news resources compiled from law librarians, attorneys, information technology specialists and legal technology consultants.

  • Native American Legal Resources
    (University of Oklahoma College of Law)
    Highlights of these resources include the American Indian Law Review and the Native American Constitution and Law Digitization Project.

  • Slaves and the Courts 1740-1860
    This Library of Congress site contains over 100 pamphlets and books concerning legal issues relating to African-American slaves.

  • Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics
    This resource brings together data from more than 200 sources about many aspects of criminal justice in the United States. It is funded by the U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, and the project is located at the University at Albany, School of Criminal Justice, Hindelang Criminal Justice Research Center in Albany, New York.

  • U.S. Supreme Court Opinions
    FindLaw’s searchable and browsable database of Supreme Court decisions since 1893.

  • The Virtual Chase: Annotated Guide to Resources for Legal Professionals
    Links to sites dealing with topics related to case law.

Top of Page

Copyright Law

  • Bitlaw
    A comprehensive resource on technology and intellectual property law, with over 1800 pages dealing with patent, copyright, trademark, and Internet legal issues.

  • Copyright & Fair Use
    (Created by Stanford University Libraries)
    Copyright FAQs, resources, charts and tools, and a blog are available on this web site.

  • Copyright Advisory Office
    (Columbia University)
    Among the resources available on this web site are the Fair Use Checklist and forms for permissions.

  • Copyright Information Page
    (The University of Michigan)
    Guidelines for scholars, researchers, staff, and students are presented on this site.

  • Copyright on the Internet
    (By Thomas G. Field, Jr., Franklin Pierce Law Center)
    This site deals with U.S. copyright issues of concern to those who post to or own email lists, or host web pages.

  • Copyright Term and the Public Domain in the United States
    This resource, provided by Cornell University, describes the copyright term for various works under various circumstances. A PDF version is available.

  • The Intellectual Property Law Server
    Provides information about intellectual property law including patent, trademark, and copyright. Resources include comprehensive links, general information, space for professionals to publish articles, and forums for discussing related issues.

  • Mass Digitization and Copyright Law, Policy and Practice
    (By Georgia Harper.)
    This publication discusses the impact of mass digitization projects on copyright law.

  • United States Copyright Office
    (Library of Congress)
    General information, application forms, legislative activity, text of copyright law, and U.S. Copyright Office records dating from 1978 to present are available at this site.

Top of Page

Federal Courts and Court Opinions

  • FLITE: Federal Legal Information Through Electronics
    (Fedworld)
    FLITE presents over 7000 Supreme Court opinions dating from 1937 through 1975, from Volumes 300 through 422 of U.S. Reports. The site was developed and maintained by the National Technical Information Service (NTIS).

  • Georgetown University Law Library
    Resources available here include research guides, tutorials, databases, decisions and opinions.

  • Legal Information Institute Supreme Court Collection
    (Cornell Law School)
    Supreme Court Decisions issued since May 1990 are updated daily, and are searchable by topic, keyword, or name. Also includes more than 600 other historically important Supreme Court decisions.

  • OpenJurist
    "Open Jurist is a resource for access to the case law of the United States. Our organization believes that because the laws of the land are in the public domain, they should be accessible by the public without restriction and especially without charge. Our collection includes approximately 647,000 opinions and other transactions from the: United States Supreme Court, beginning with the first session in 1790; and Lower Federal Courts, as published in the Federal Reporter beginning in 1880."

  • Oyez
    "The Oyez Project is a multimedia archive devoted to the Supreme Court of the United States and its work. It aims to be a complete and authoritative source for all audio recorded in the Court since the installation of a recording system in October 1955." Cases are browsable by issue and by term. Biographical information about justices is browsable by court and by seat.

  • PACER Service Center
    "The mission of the program is to facilitate and improve electronic public access to court information at a reasonable cost, in accordance with legislative and Judiciary policies, security requirements, and user demands." Users are charged a fee for each page accessed.

  • United States Courts
    (Administrative Offices of the U.S. Courts)
    The purpose of this site is to function as a clearinghouse for information from and about the Judicial Branch of the U.S. Government. It is designed for teachers and students, the media, jurors, researchers, legal professionals, and government agencies.

  • U.S. Constitution: Analysis & Interpretation of Cases Decided by the Supreme Court
    This publication is available on the GPOAccess website in PDF format.

  • U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
    This site provides access to the opinions and orders of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, along with the argument calendar, dispositions, and audio of oral arguments.

  • U.S. Judiciary: Federal Court System & Decisions
    Library of Congress’ Guide to Law Online’s gateway to information about the Federal Courts, including Special Jurisdictions and Federal Court Procedure.

  • U.S. Supreme Court
    The home page of the U.S. Supreme Court, this page gives general information about the workings of the Court, the docket, and other legal information.

  • U.S. Supreme Court Decisions
    Direct access to FindLaw’s full-text database on U.S. Supreme Court decisions since 1893 is available here.

  • U.S. Supreme Court Historical Society
    This web site provides a history of the Court, audio selections from Oyez, and digitized publications.

Top of Page

Federal Law

  • A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates, 1774-1873
    (Law Library of Congress)
    This site brings together online the records and acts of Congress from the Continental Congress through the 42nd Congress.

  • Federal Register 2.0
    On this new site "Federal Register documents are organized and displayed in an easier to read format; we have also added various web tools and user aids designed to help people find material relevant to their interests. We built this XML edition of the Federal Register to make it easier for citizens and communities to understand the regulatory process and to participate in Government decision-making."

  • Finding and Establishing Direct Links to Thomas and GPO Access Documents
    (Law Librarian’s Society of Washington D.C.)
    This site clarifies how to establish direct links to Thomas and GPO Access documents and bypass these sites’ temporary URL’s often offered by their search engines.

  • Internet Law Library
    Free public access to the basic documents of U.S. law is available here.

  • Laws, Policies, and Performance Measures Relating to Federal Agency Web Sites
    (Law Librarian’s Society of Washington D.C.)
    This site has links to information in the Statutes at Large and the U.S. Code that affect Federal agency web sites. Also included are guidance memos, circulars, and executive orders.

  • Office of the Federal Register
    (NARA)
    Published every Federal working day, the Federal Register provides legal notice of administrative rules and notices and presidential documents. It contains Federal Agency Regulations, Proposed Rules and Public Notices, Executive Orders and Proclamations as well as other presidential documents.

  • Thomas
    Thomas is the Library of Congress gateway to information and links about bills and amendments in Congress, including bill summaries and status. Also available are presidential nominations, the Congressional Record, treaties, and committee reports.

  • Tying It All Together: The Legislative Process
    This is an official House site that describes the process of creating legislation. Provides links to bill text and status, committee reports, and summary of proceedings.

  • U.S. Code
    Access is provided via Cornell Law School’s Legal Information Institute. The site includes a Table of Popular Names which contains the popular names of many laws.

Top of Page

Legal Dictionaries & Encyclopedias; Basic Citation

  • Introduction to Basic Legal Citation
    This is a citation primer by Peter W. Martin of Cornell Law School.

  • Lawcopedia
    (Maintained by the ’Lectronic Law Library)
    Information on this site is organized into Legal Topic Areas.

  • Legal Dictionary
    Users can find plain-English definitions for legal terms along with pronunciation guides.

  • WWLIA Legal Dictionary
    (World Wide Legal Information Association)
    This site offers a comprehensive dictionary of legal terms.

Top of Page

Law Reviews & Journals

  • Contents Pages from Law Reviews and Scholarly Journals Published in the United States
    (University of Texas, Tarlton Library)
    This web site is a good place to browse through the tables of contents of legal publications.

  • Law Journals
    (Washburn University School of Law Library)
    Links to full-text legal journals are available here.

  • Stanford Law & Policy Review (SLPR)
    (Stanford Law School)
    SLPR is an academic journal concentrating on issues of law and public policy published twice yearly by law students at Stanford.

  • University Law Review Project
    (Set up by FindLaw and the Coalition of Online Journals)
    Available here is a full-text search of law journals on the Internet. The site is also browsable, with journals organized by topic.

  • U.S. Law Reviews Online
    (Library of Congress, Law Library)
    This site includes links to full-text and free-of-charge electronic law reviews and other publications that offer substantial amounts of legal analysis.

Top of Page

Treaties

  • Multilaterals Project
    (Fletcher School of International Affairs, Tufts University)
    Full-text keyword search of multilateral treaty texts is provided here. Information dates mostly from the second half of the twentieth century, but also includes historical texts.

  • Treaties and International Agreements
    (University of California, Berkeley)
    This guide to treaty research introduces the basic sources for locating treaties.

  • Treaties in Force 2010
    (State Department)
    "The electronic edition of Treaties in Force is presented in Adobe Acrobat PDF format, which allows text searches and printing of individual pages or the entire document...Section 1 includes bilateral treaties and other international agreements listed by country or other international entity with subject headings under each entry...Section 2 lists multilateral treaties and other international agreements to which the United States is a party, arranged by subject."

Top of Page

Regulations

Top of Page

Archives Library Information Center (ALIC) >

The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration
1-86-NARA-NARA or 1-866-272-6272