National legal research resources

The following are useful web sites for general and comprehensive online legal research.

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Legal research >

Free legal research sites
Sites listed here (mostly commercial or educational) provide, in general, nonpaying free public access to legal research resources, tools, and links.

• Criminal Law Links. A useful listing from a member of the Kentucky Department of Public Advocacy.
• FindLaw. A comprehensive guide to Internet law resources, including federal and state case and statutory law, government sites, law schools, law reviews, etc.
• Georgetown University Legal Explorer. Extensive and well-organized justice and law links.
• Hieros Gamos. "Every organization, association, law school, firm, vendor, consultant, etc. directly or indirectly involved with the legal profession in one place." U.S. and international listings.
• Internet Legal Resource Guide (ILRG). A categorized index of over 2900 web sites in over 230 countries and territories intended as a comprehensive resource on law and the legal profession on the Internet, with an emphasis on the U.S.
  • ILRG Search
• LawCrawler. A search engine designed specifically for searching legal and government information, with options to search legal information nationwide, in other countries, or other options.
• The Law Forum. A comprehensive directory of legal resources on the Internet.
• Legal Information Institute (Cornell University). This server offers recent Supreme Court decisions, recent decisions of the New York Court of Appeals, the full U.S. Code, and other important legal documents. Also includes the Cornell Law Review, information about published hypertext law materials available on disk (with ordering information), and information about Cornell Law School and the Cornell Law Library.
• The Legal List. A comprehensive guide to Internet legal resources, with numerous annotations; organized by method of access. This guide is also available here, and in many other sites, in a text-only downloadable form.
• Meta-Index for U.S. Legal Research. Provides multiple search forms for federal statutory and case law, legal directories, online law journals, and other sources of law, including U.S. Supreme Court decisions, the U.S. Code, etc. The index comprises searches of resources availabe at other sites, and links directly to those sites are also provided. A service of Georgia State University College of Law.
• NativeWeb: Law and Legal Issues. Resource listing dedicated to information about law and legal issues involving indigenous peoples of the world.
• Seamless Website. One of the largest and oldest commercial legal sites; includes over 1000 links to other law sites, a job listing service, listing of expert witnesses, and original writings on law-related topics.
• Villanova Center for Information Law and Policy. Home of the Federal Court Locator, the State Court Locator, and the Federal Web Locator. with links to numerous other legal sites.
• WWW Virtual Library: Law. A collection of law-related websites maintained Indiana University School of Law—Bloomington, which was chosen to administer this portion of the World Wide Web Virtual Library by CERN.
• Yahoo - Government: Law: Legal Research

General government sites
Sites listed here are government or government-affiliated sites providing online access to court decisions, laws, and other government documents. Many of the resources available at these sites are categorized below for easy research.

• FedLaw. A guide to federal law on the Internet from the General Services Administration.
• FedWorld. A comprehensive central access point for locating and acquiring government information, including instructions on how to access numerous federal bulletin board systems that are currently not available through the Internet. From the National Technical Information Service (NTIS).
• GovBot Database of Government Web Sites. The GovBot has gathered 307,826 web pages (as of Mar 19, 1997) from U.S. government and military sites around the country, which can be searched through this search engine.
• GPO Access. Search the full text of the Federal Register, the Congressional Record, Congressional bills, and other federal government information online; locate and download electronic information from numerous federal agencies. A service of the U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO).
• GPO Gate. University of California's interface to the Government Printing Office's suite of "GPO Access" databases, which contain the full text of information published by the U.S. government. Titles available through GPO Gate include the Federal Register, Congressional Record, congresssional bills, the United States Code, Economic Indicators, and General Accounting Office reports.
• Library of Congress (LC)
  • Library of Congress. Another LC website.
  • LC Marvel (Library of Congress gopher)
• U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO). Information about access to federal government publications from the Superintendent of Documents, Federal Depository Libraries, and online via GPO Access.
  • Federal Depository Libraries: Federal Locator Services. Aids in the identification of Federal Depository Libraries receiving publications listed in the Monthly Catalog of U.S. Government Publications. The nearly 1,400 Federal Depository Libraries, including several libraries in Alaska, provide free public access to a wide variety of federal government information, in both print and electronic formats.
• THOMAS -- U.S. Congress on the Internet. Complete federal legislative information, including current House and Senate floor activities; bill text, summary, and status; Congressional Record text and index; committee information, historical documents; information about the legislative process; and links to other U.S. government internet resources. A service of the Library of Congress.
• U.S. House of Representatives Internet Law Library. Federal laws arranged by original published source and by agency; U.S. state and territorial laws; laws of other nations; treaties and international law; laws of all jurisdictions arranged by subject; law school library catalogs; attorney and legal services directories; reviews of law books.

Fee or subscription-based legal research sites
Sites listed here provide legal research resources and tools through subscriptions or other fees. Some also provide public resources at no charge.

• Counsel Connect. Subscription service available only to practicing lawyers and their staffs; a complete legal research site including resources that may not be available free online, online continuing legal education (CLE) resources, and other resources. See also the Counsel Connect Public Site, which includes links to law schools online, an attorney directory, and Counsel Quote, a resource for journalists covering legal stories.
• lawschool.westlaw.com. A virtual law school community where law students and faculty can access a variety of legal resources including Westlaw, The West Education Network (TWEN), current legal news, career services and other content from West Group.
• LEXIS-NEXIS Communication Center. Information about LEXIS-NEXIS and its legal, news, and business research services available to subscribers by Telnet; fee-based research for nonsubscribers is also available.
• Westdoc. West Publishing's fee-based service which permits retrieval of state and federal court decisions, including all U.S. Supreme Court decisions, at a flat fee per case viewed (billable to credit cards).
• WESTLAW Information Home Page. Information about West's computer-assisted legal research services, which includes over 9000 databases including federal and state court cases, the U.S. Code Annotated, state statues, federal regulations, administrative law decisions, legal periodicals, gateway access to Canadian law information, and other resources.