United States Federal Codes/Statutes
United States Code from Cornell's Legal Information Institute
Cornell Legal Information Institute offers this gateway to federal laws and regulations. Cornell's version of the US Code is generated from the most recent official version made available by the US House of Representatives. The date of any text appearing on this site appears in italics at the upper right in every Code section. The site also provides a table of popular names.
Nice features include internal hyperlinks to referenced sections of the Code, historical notes with links to public laws when available, references to relevant sections of the CFR, and an update feature.
The Office of the Law Revision Counsel of the U.S. House of Representatives prepares and publishes the United States Code pursuant to section 285b of title 2 of the Code. Search through the Code, browse classification tables and view a popular names list.
United States Code from FDsys (Formerly GPO Access)
Since 1926, the United States Code has been published every six years. In between editions, annual cumulative supplements are published in order to present the most current information. FDsys contains versions of the US Code from 1994 - Current. Files are available in a variety of formats. Go here, to search the Code by a specific citation.
Formerly known as Thomas, the Congress.gov website offers an alternative legislative and regulatory information source to GPO Access. The site provides bill summaries and status as well as the complete text of legislation. It provides access to public laws, the Congressional Record, Congressional committee reports, and numerous historical documents including The Federalist Papers, the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and papers from the Continental Congress and Constitutional Convention.
The Congressional Record records debate on the floor of Congress. Many times, Congressmen read a company's written remarks into the record. Find debate, select committee reports and bills, and commentary. GPO Access offers this information from 1994.
The Congressional Record is also available from Congress.gov.
Congressional Research Tutorials
The University of California at Berkeley Library offers Flash tutorials on how to find Congressional materials in the Library and on the Internet. Currently, the tutorials cover finding legislation, hearings and debates. Use of the tutorials requires the Flash video player.gre
The National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws offers drafts and final versions of Uniform and Model Acts. When relevant, the site also provides meeting agendas, statements, and commentary.
Federal Legislative History Research
The Law Librarians' Society of Washington, D.C. offers this resource which explains, in detail, the process of researching, compiling and sifting through the legislative documents for legislative intent. It links to relevant Web sites and provides an extensive bibliography of law journal articles and other Web sites dealing with federal legislative history research.
Legislative History Research: A Basic Guide [PDF]
Produced by the Congressional Research Service (CRS), this guide provides of overview of federal legislative history research, the legislative process and where to find congressional documents.
Created by a graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania (but unaffiliated with the University), GovTrack helps you monitor federal legislation. You can track activity involving certain bills, Congressmen or subjects. Useful search aids help you find relevant legislation or the Representative for your district. GovTrack's sources include Thomas, the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives.
Register free with the site to begin monitoring. You can then monitor new information online, or via e-mail or RSS feed.
House and Senate Floor Proceedings
The Library of Congress supplies this research guide to electronic sources of floor proceedings. Check out the audio links!
This official web site provides weekly schedules of events, information about the legislative process, roll call vote tallys, and more.
Non-profit organization, Public.Resource.Org, whose mission is to make all court cases available online for free, now offers the content of the former FLITE database. FLITE, launched by the Judge Advocate General's (JAG Corps) JAG Corps, later changed hands and became the Department of Justice's JURIS database.
JURIS consists of a virtual federal law library. "The general legal data base currently includes the full text of over 225,000 federal cases, including headnotes, as well as headnotes from over 475,000 state court cases. The data base also contains a large number of statutory, regulatory, and administrative files."
The Library of Congress offers select primary source material pertaining to U.S. military law. Find the Military Law Review, the quarterly journal of the U.S. Armed Forces. Full-text articles are available from 1958 to present in PDF. Also available is the 9-volume series, Enactments and Approved Papers of the Control Council and Coordinating Committee of the Allied Control Authority. Issued from 1945 to 1948, the documents represented law during post-World War II occupied Germany. You can access the papers by subject, or by type of enactment chronologically. Recently added to the collection is a legislative history on the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ). The history consists of the 1950 edition of the law, select 1912-1920 revisions to the Articles of War, and the Elston Act (1948)--a revision of the Articles of War, which also served as the precursor to the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
Learn more about recent legislative actions, find information about committees and senators, and much more at this official site of the United States Senate.
United States Statutes at Large
The Library of Congress introduces digital images of early Statutes at Large volumes. Statutes at Large represents the official publication of the laws and resolutions of the United States Congress. It contains all private and public laws in chronological order. Prior to 1948, it also published all treaties and international agreements approved by the Senate.
University of Michigan Research & Technology Guides
One of the best Internet sources for government information, the University of Michigan Documents Center offers numerous research guides pertaining to federal, state, and local government information.
A commercial site which offers comprehensive coverage of both federal and state case law, codes and regulations. Use as a lower cost alternative to more expensive legal databases.
This commercial site offers databases of state and federal case law. An alternative to traditional online legal research systems, VersusLaw provides access to federal and state case law, as well as, federal statutes and regulations, legal news, and forms. Online documentation indicates tribal and foreign court availability, but does not specify which courts.
LLRX features three articles by reviewer T.R. Halvorson, which cover this service. See Survey of Online Legal Information Alternatives for Small Law Firms and Public Law Libraries, Preview of VersusLaws USConline, CFRonline, and CFRupdate!, and VersusLaw's V.: A View through the Southern California Online Users Group Rating Scale Lenses.
