LibGuides: A Guide to Law: Start

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Finding Case Law (Court Opinions)

For more information on finding information about the Supreme Court, please consult the POL 390: Constitutional Law guide, in addition to the following resources:

Findlaw
A commercial directory to law resources. Includes a handy law dictionary and a well-designed full text database of US Supreme Court decisions from 1893 to the present. Site requires free registration.
Legal Information Institute, Cornell University
A directory to legal information on the web, including texts of case law and statutes for state, federal and international jurisdictions. The site - organized alphabetically by topic - also provides links to court opinions and directories to law organizations and journals. From the Cornell University Law School.
United States. Supreme Court. United States Reports.
The text of Supreme Court decisions are published in this series in chronological order. As decisions are made, they are published in pamphlet form, called slip decisions before being cumulated into volumes. If you know the citation of a case - e.g. 521 U. S. 844 - you can find it in volume 521, beginning on page 844, or you can browse the online case finder by clicking the link above.

International Law

Interested in international law? Try these resources, which will both link you to specific sites and also provide information on how to conduct research in international law.

Guide to Law Online: Nations of the World
A country-by-country directory of legal information, including constitutional, executive, legislative, and judicial law as well as related information such as human rights reports. From the Law Library of Congress.
How to Do Research in International Law
This guide, from Harvard International Law Journal, walks you through the basics of conducting research in international law. An excellent place to start.

Finding Law Reviews and Articles

Law reviews can be found in a couple of databases. Explore the following databases to find law reviews and other legal research.

Academic Search Premier This link opens in a new window
A good place to start research on most any subject. This multi-disciplinary database indexes nearly 8,050 publications and provides full text for nearly 4,600, including more than 3,900 peer-reviewed journals. Access is provided by eLibraryMN (ELM).
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
JSTOR is a digital library of journals, academic eBooks, images, and primary sources. JSTOR provides book and journal content from the date of initial publication up to a "moving wall" of 3 to 5 years before the present year.

Research in Law

This guide points toward some of the state, national, and international statutory, regulatory, and case law available in the library and through the Internet, as well as to reference books exploring legal issues. Legal information has its own organization and traditions, and it is constantly being updated, reinterpreted, and changed.

Photo credits: United States Constitution - http://www.flickr.com/photos/lloydyweb/3139507225/;

Finding Statutes

United States Statutes at Large - Ref KF 50 .A3
Earlier volumes available on microfilm. Current laws and bills before Congress are available online. Here federal laws are arranged chronologically by the date they were enacted. Slip laws are issued to keep the bound volumes up to date. The counterpart for Minnesota Statutes is the Session Laws of the State of Minnesota (Ref KFM 5425 .A3 and online). Other state laws can be found at the Legal Information Institute.
United States Code - Ref KF62 2000 .A2 2001
In this set laws are arranged by subject (or "titles"), bringing relevant laws together. There is a table of acts by popular name as well as a five volume general index. From time to time supplement volumes are published to update the Code, although it never is as current as the slip laws.
Legal Information Institute, Cornell University
A directory to legal information on the web, including texts of case law and statutes for state, federal and international jurisdictions. The site - organized alphabetically by topic - also provides links to court opinions and directories to law organizations and journals. From the Cornell University Law School.

Finding Regulatory Law

Federal Register - Government Documents and online.
A daily publication listing all regulations issued by federal government regulatory bodies as well as presidential proclamations and executive orders. A counterpart for regulations issued by the state of Minnesota is the State Register (Ref KFM5436 .S7 and online).
Code of Federal Regulations - Government Documents and online
Codifies all federal regulations in force, putting them into subject categories. State of Minnesota administrative laws (called Rules) can be found online also.

Finding Legislation

You'll be able to access many government documents online, although it gets a little trickier the farther back you go, as not everything has been digitized. These resources will point you to on legislation at both the federal and state levels.

Federal

Congressional This link opens in a new window
Index to congressional publications from 1970 to the present, legislative histories for public laws, testimony at congressional hearings, and biographical and committee information. Also allows searching of the Congressional Record and Federal Register.

Congress.gov (formerly THOMAS)
From the Library of Congress. Provides the text of bills introduced in Congress along with committee action from the 104th Congress (1995) to present. Users can search the site by bill number or keyword to learn about the legislative process, find a state's members of Congress, and access a comprehensive database on current and past legislation. The site also provides a full-text search of the Congressional Record, a daily record of activity in Congress, and committee information. Most official state Web sites provide similar bill-tracking information for state legislatures.
Congressional Research Service Reports
The Congressional Research Service (CRS) is a federal legislative branch agency located within the Library of Congress that conducts in-depth analysis and research on various topics for members of Congress. Their reports are authoritative, objective and nonpartisan and are an excellent source of information on various public policy issues.
GovTrack.us
From their website: "GovTrack.us began in 2004 as a project to use technology to make the U.S. Congress more open and accessible. Today we’re the leading non-governmental source of legislative information and statistics."
Legislative Explorer
"An interactive data visualization that allows anyone to explore actual patterns of lawmaking in Congress."

State

National Conference of State Legislatures
An excellent source for exploring state-level legislation on various issues.
Minnesota State Legislature
Also look at your state's legislature site; the example above takes you to Minnesota's State Legislature, but if you're working on another state, search the web to find their government portal.

Additional Government Resources

You can also search the Gustavus Library catalog for other government documents, both in print and online. We're a selective Federal Repository Library (bonus - scroll to the bottom of this page for more links on finding government documents). The links below will also have some information.

LSU Libraries Federal Agencies Directory
Offers links to federal agency Web sites, arranged hierarchically and alphabetically, with a search engine.
Federal Register
A list of proposed rules and regulations
Code of Federal Regulations - Government Documents and online
Codifies all federal regulations in force, putting them into subject categories. State of Minnesota administrative laws (called Rules) can be found online also.

Specialized Reference Sources

Gun Regulation and Legislation in America This link opens in a new window
This collection brings together journals, compiled legislative histories, congressional hearings and reports, Supreme Court briefs, and more related to gun regulation.

Librarian

Julie Gilbert

Email Me

Contact:

Hello! I look forward to working with you. If you have any questions about research, an assignment, or the library in general, please contact me via email or make an appointment. You can reach any of the reference librarians at folke @ gustavus.edu or via the Ask Us! button on the library's homepage.

Subjects: African Studies, Communication Studies, Physics, Political Science, Scandinavian Studies

Encyclopedias

Here's a sample of books in the reference section (main floor, Beck Hall side) that can help define terms and provide overviews of legal topics. Be sure to browse the entire K section to find more.

Black's Law Dictionary by A. Bryan Garner (Editor-In-Chief)
Call Number: REF KF 156 .B53 2014
ISBN: 9780314613004
Publication Date: 2014-05-01
Documents of American Indian Diplomacy (2 Volume Set) by Vine Deloria; Raymond J. DeMallie; Vine Deloria
Call Number: REF KF 8202 1999 (2 vols.)
ISBN: 0806131187
Publication Date: 1999-12-15
Encyclopedia of American Civil Rights and Liberties [4 Volumes] by Kara E. Stooksbury (Editor); John M. Scheb (Editor); Otis H. Stephens (Editor)
Call Number: REF KF 4748 .E53 2017 (4 vols.)
ISBN: 9781440841095
Publication Date: 2017-09-21
Encyclopedia of Constitutional Amendments, Proposed Amendments, and Amending Issues, 1789-2015 by John R. Vile
Call Number: REF KF 4557 .V555 2015 (2 vols.)
ISBN: 9781610699310
Publication Date: 2015-07-20
Historical Dictionary of the U. S. Supreme Court by Artemus Ward; Christopher Brough; Robert Arnold
Call Number: REF KF 8742 .A35 W37 2015
ISBN: 9780810872486
Publication Date: 2015-08-13
Surveillance in America by Pam Dixon (Editor)
Call Number: REF KF 5399 .S87 2016 (2 vols.)
ISBN: 9781440840548
Publication Date: 2016-02-12