Legal Portals and Pathfinders
Justia provides Internet users with free case law, codes, regulations, legal articles and legal blog databases, as well as community resources. Free access to Federal District Court dockets are available in their Dockets & Filings section. Track new regulations of specific federal agencies and subscribe to RSS feeds for daily updates with their Regulation Tracker.
Cornell Legal Information Institute (LII)
One of the oldest legal information resources on the Web, Cornell LII offers an abundance of information for lawyers, students and legal researchers. Find a legal encyclopedia (Law About) that provides an overview of covered topics and includes linked references to relevant federal statutes, regulations and constitutional provisions. The site also enables searching and displaying many primary legal documents, including the United States Code (U.S.C.), Code of Federal Regulations (C.F.R.), the Uniform Commercial Code (U.C.C.), the U.S. Constitution and more. It offers a collection of U.S. Supreme Court opinions, which covers May 1990 to present as well as select historical decisions. It also maintains two massive collections--one on legal ethics and the other on social security.
Wex is a free legal dictionary and encyclopedia sponsored and hosted by the Legal Information Institute at the Cornell Law School. Wex entries are collaboratively created and edited by legal experts. More information about Wex can be found in the Wex FAQ.
Jurist is a legal news and real-time legal research service based at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. Articles and researched and written by law students legal scholars, leading policymakers and key legal practitioners from the US and abroad.
LLRX provides legal, library, IT/IS, marketing and administrative professionals with the most up-to-date information on a wide range of Internet legal research and technology-related issues, applications, resources and tools.
Nolo's free legal articles and frequently asked questions cover a variety of "everyday" topics.
Owned and powered by Fastcase, The Public Library of Law (PLoL) makes available all cases from the U.S. Supreme Court, federal appellate cases from 1950 forward, appellate cases from all 50 states back to 1997, the U.S. Code, select statutes or codes from all 50 states, as well as select state regulations, court rules and constitutions. While the case law appears to come directly from Fastcase, other legal documents originate from external sources, such as the House of Representatives (U.S. Code), state legislatures and other trustworthy legal sources. PLoL simply offers an alternate search interface.
The American Bar Association offers information for consumers on a variety of issues including financial management, health care, family issues, buying and selling a home, criminal law, and more.
Find a directory of legal resources arranged by jurisdiction and topic. Some areas of the site provide a search interface to select external sources. Unfortunately, the directory has not been kept up to date. Many of the links are broken and some of the search interfaces neglect to include current sources. For example, the federal search section does not include legislation from the current Congress, regulations from the current Federal Register, or current U.S. Supreme Court opinions.
The site also hosts calculators for Child Support and DWI penalties.
HG claims to offer research guides for more than 200 subjects.
Cornell Law Library offers this database of new law-related Web resources. Librarians evaluate each resource and provide annotations. Search the database for resources covering your topic. Cornell Law Library spotlights approximately four legal resources per week. Receive notification by email or search the InSITE database.
Subtitled a legal directory, the site categorizes links to useful legal and factual Web-based resources. It covers a wide array of topics, including banking and finance, criminal law, ethics, intellectual property, real estate, tax law, and others. You will also find several articles written by the site's owner, Peggie Brown.
The Law Student Guide to Legal Research
Written by law librarian Sarah Glassmeyer and sponsored by Cornell's Legal information Institute, CALI and Justia, this helps law students navigate the confusing world of Internet legal resources. Of particular help, a handy flow chart outlining Legal Research in Ten Easy Steps.
Law and Policy Institutions Guide
An excellent starting point for legal research, this guide categorizes and annotates useful Web-based resources in law and government. It offers a database of abstracted legal articles, an attorney directory and a free search service (under separate domain) for finding expert witnesses, investigators, process servers, court reporters, ADRs (alternative dispute resolution), practice consultants and notaries.
Whether lawyer, student, or consumer, researchers will find useful commentary and recommended resources here. Parts of the site require a subscription.
This legal information search engine queries content available in the Law.com network of Web sites as well as content from select legal information Web sites. Query by simple keyword only - no Boolean (AND, OR, NOT), no command qualifiers or other advanced search features. You may limit results by choosing from options that appear in the left-hand menu once the results display. These include information types (articles, news) and sources.
LawGuru.com offers legal news (from various sources via RSS news feed), the former House of Representatives Internet Law Library, a directory of legal information sites, various chat rooms for discussion of legal issues, an attorney-locator service, and more. Some notable features include legal forms (incurs a charge) and FAQs, which compose numerous legal questions and answers (free).
This free version of SurfWax, LawKT provides directory and search access to law firm publications on numerous topics. Select a topic from the index or enter keywords in the search box at the top of the page. The engine returns links to articles written by lawyers. Terms entered in the search box may generate different results than selecting the same terms from the index.
Designed primarily for those who seek Minnesota or Wisconsin legal information, LawMoose, by Pritchard Law Webs, serves as a portal to state, local and federal law. Find statutes, legislation, court opinions, legal research primers, attorney disciplinary records and more. The public portal is free. Paying subscribers receive access to the Enhanced Edition of LawMoose, which is designed specifically for Minnesota lawyers.
Formed to facilitate the distribution of scholarly information, the Legal Scholarship Network (LSN) provides access to the Social Science Research Network's (SSRN) database of article abstracts. Search the database, or browse a list of legal sources covered, which also provides access to the table of contents for current issues. Look for the download document button, which appears at the end of an abstract, to find a link to the full-text of the published paper. LSN is part of the Social Science Research Network.
Create a Federal Legistlative History - Tips and links from the Marian Gould Gallagher Law Library of the University of Washington School of Law on how to compile legislative histories of bills and laws.
LexisNexis offers a number of legal or law-related sources via this site. Find a lawyer by personal or firm name, location or practice area. Search for articles on law-related topics by keyword. Find experts by keyword or category, legal organizations or events, descriptions of key LexisNexis online resources, such as the Law Digest, and more.
Registration is required to access and use this site. Some services are fee-based.
Multistate: State Legislative Presence on the Internet
MultiState Associates Incorporated offers this no-nonsense chart of official state legislative information.
Published by Internet Legal Research Group. This resource annotates and links to legal information sites. Access resources by legal subject. The site also provides a legal forms archive.
Created and maintained by Washburn University School of Law Library, the resource indexes virtually every legal information site. Look for your topic in the opening page's index.
Lawyer-librarian Andrew Zimmerman authors this extensive guide to finding legal and factual information. Hosted by LexisNexis via its LexisONE portal, the guide provides brief explanations about specific aspects of legal, business and factual research. You can search the guide by selecting the option for querying the entire LexisONE site. You can also browse it using the comprehensive index provided on the front page of the guide. Entries include linked cross-references for finding related information.
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