United States Laws and Legislation
Presidential Documents
- Executive Orders - Federal RegisterAn executive order is a signed, written, and published directive from the President of the United States that manages operations of the federal government. Executive orders are published in the Federal Register, the daily journal of the federal government that is published to inform the public about federal regulations and actions.
- Presidential Documents - Federal RegisterThis page contains executive orders, proclamations, memoranda, notices, determinations, letters, and messages that have been published in the Federal Register. Because the White House cannot deliver a document to the Office of the Federal Register (OFR) until after the President signs a document, there is always a delay (of at least one day, typically of several days) between when the President signs a document and when it is published. If you are looking for a recently-signed Presidential document, you may wish to check the White House website.
- Compilation of Presidential DocumentsThe Compilation of Presidential Documents collection consists of the Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents and the Daily Compilation of Presidential Documents which are the official publications of materials released by the White House Press Secretary. It is published by the Office of the Federal Register, National Archives and Records Administration (NARA)
Legislation and Statutes
- ProQuest Congressional
ProQuest Congressional is especially useful for performing legislative histories and locating Congressional documents. It is also very useful for tracking legislation and major public policy issues, locating recent Congressional documents and related material in full text, and learning more about Congress and the legislative process. - ProQuest Legislative Insight
Congress produces a variety of publications as a bill moves through the legislative process on its way to becoming a law. A compilation of these full text primary source publications produces a legislative history that is valuable to a wide variety of researchers. Legislative Insight offers a research citation page that not only links to the full text of the associated primary source publications, but allows the user to do a Search Within from that very page that searches the full text of all the associated publications with one-click.
- Congress.gov
Full-text database useful for tracking legislation in Congress, produced by the Library of Congress. - United States Code (Office of the Law Revision Counsel)The United States Code is a consolidation and codification by subject matter of the general and permanent laws of the United States. It is prepared by the Office of the Law Revision Counsel of the United States House of Representatives.
- United States Code (Government Publishing Office)
Contains the text of the general and permanent laws of the United States. - National Survey of State LawsRichard Leiter’s National Survey of State Laws provides an overall view of some of the most frequently sought-after and controversial legal topics in the United States. This database is derived from the print edition’s convenient chart format and enables users to make basic state-by-state comparisons of current state laws.
Regulations
- ProQuest Regulatory InsightRegulatory Insight offers U.S. federal administrative law histories beginning in 1936, organized by federal statute and Executive Order. Regulatory Insight creates regulatory histories for individual federal statutes and Executive Orders by compiling pertinent Federal Register articles into a research-friendly workspace similar to the workspace provided in its companion database, Legislative Insight. "Search within" functionality and the ability to limit by content type (e.g. notices, proposed rules, final rules) are available through the filters.
- Code of Federal Regulations
The Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) annual edition is the codification of the general and permanent rules published in the Federal Register by the departments and agencies of the Federal Government. See also the Electronic Code of Federal Regulations, a regularly updated but unofficial version of the CFR. Find, review, and submit comments on Federal rules that are open for comment and published in the Federal Register using Regulations.gov. - Legal Information InstituteAnother great resource for state, federal and other countries’ constitutions, statutes, judicial opinions, and regulations.
Constitution
Judicial Law
- ProQuest Supreme Court Insight
Supreme Court Insight, 1933-present, is a complete online collection of full opinions from Supreme Court argued cases, including per decision, dockets, oral arguments, joint appendices and amicus briefs. Content associated with each case is compiled on a dynamic page organized to facilitate understanding of the judicial process, and is also retrievable on a document by document basis. - Nexis Uni
All available Federal and State case law. Includes U.S. Supreme Court, U.S. Court of Appeals, Federal District Courts and State case law for all 50 States plus the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands and other U.S. territories. Also includes specialty courts such as Military Appeals, Customs, Patents, Tax, Trade, Commerce, Veteran Appeals and Bankruptcy.
- FindLaw
Contains state and federal (including U.S. Supreme Court) case law. Run a search for case summaries or select a jurisdiction to browse court decisions. - Supreme Court of the United States
General Information about the Supreme Court, justices, and text of opinions. - U.S. ReportsUnited States Reports is a series of bound case reporters that are the official reports of decisions for the United States Supreme Court.
- Internet Archive's PACER/RECAP Collection
The documents in this collection are from the US Federal Courts. A large number of these come from the federal government's service called Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER). PACER provides electronic access to U.S. District, Bankruptcy, and Appellate court records. For more information on the RECAP project which is harvesting these PACER documents, visit the RECAP website. - Legal Information InstituteAnother great resource for state, federal and other countries’ constitutions, statutes, judicial opinions, and regulations.
- C-SPANC-SPAN is a public service created by the American cable television industry to provide C-SPAN's audience access to the live proceedings of the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate, and to other forums where public policy is discussed, debated and decided––all without editing, commentary or analysis and with a balanced presentation of points of view.
- Oral ArgumentsThis handy guide from UC Law San Francisco Law Library provides suggestions for finding oral arguments.
