The purpose of this page is to provide the best available jump stations for obtaining government information, first federal, then state and local, then caselaw, then uniform laws, then freedom of information, then other sources. For instructions on how to find government information jump to tutorials below.

United States Law

• Findlaw may have the most useful annotated U.S. Constitution online, and a Constitutional Law Center, as well.  For analysis and interpretation see the Library of Congress Congressional Research Service presentation.   

• Here is an authoritative and up to date source of the U.S. Code.  Here is how to search and update it.  Some internet and commercial online and CD Rom sources lag behind the most recent updates, sometimes considerably. However, that said, the process of updating can be quite complex and some of the expensive commercial services (see, e.g., Quicklaw America (QLA), which, for a stiff price, guarantees the most up-to-date US Code and CFR available online. QLA is also one of the private entities which has posted the former House of Representatives Internet Law Library.  The Cornell site has special virtues. See all of this explained, with instructions.

• The House of Representatives still provides one of the best ways to search the U.S. Code.

• FindLaw is a good place to go for statutes, and for U.S. Supreme Court decisions since 1893. "Browsable by year and US Reports volume number and searchable by citation, case title and full text. This is a free service that will remain free." There is limited coverage of Circuit Court decisions and very sketchy links to state court decisions.

• The  U.S. Supreme Court has a homepage.  The University of Pittsburgh has a Supreme Court site of contemporaneous interest.  The New York Times Supreme Court Guide is a good journalistic overview of the workings of the U.S. Supreme Court, as well as coverage of current happenings there.  FLITE - Free Legal Information Through Electronics - from Fedworld has U.S. Supreme Court decisions since 1937, searchable by case or keyword.

• The Federal Web Locator, from Villanova, "is intended to be the one stop shopping point for federal government information on the World Wide Web", and is very good indeed. FedLaw is the GSA's attempt to do the same thing.  The portal FirstGov is another entry.

• For some purposes American Law Resources Online - ALSO - may be the best available jump station for United States codes, statutes, rules, regulations and case law. There are multiple links to the U.S. Constitution, U.S. Code, Code of Federal Regulations, Federal Register, Supreme Court and Circuit Court decisions, Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Federal Rules of Evidence, Statutes at Large, additional Rules of Practice and Procedure, and more.

• LLRX.com is probably the most useful online source of federal and state court rules, forms and dockets, and jury instructions.  Here is another good site for Rules of Court and Statutes.

• The House of Representatives Internet Law Library survives in private hands at several locations, including Findlaw and the LawGuru site.

• Here is a start point for finding executive orders and proclamations.

• The Regulation Homepage is a good place to find administrative law. Here is another. Here is a handy Federal Government Agencies Directory. CFR update is available to within a day or two from the List of CFR Sections Affected (LSA). The Federal Acquisition Regulation has a website.

• The Federal Administrative Decisions and Other Actions page links to administrative law documents of federal agencies and departments. The "page is not an attempt to link to Federal Register or the Code of Federal Regulations information for each federal agency. It links to other administrative actions which are outside the scope of the CFR or the FR."

• The U.S. Government Printing Office - GPO - can be accessed several ways. The opening jump station links to a list of databases online, access methods, and specialized search pages for the various databases: USC, CFR, GAO Reports, Federal Register, Congressional Record, etc. There are other searchable GPO Gateways as well. One of the most useful is provided by the University of California.

• Here is a quick and easy unofficial jump station to all branches of government, and an official one, more comprehensive and harder to use.

• Government Information Locator Service - GILS / Government Documents Center: Electronic Services Request. See also the Government Information Exchange - GIX. I have received surprisingly helpful service from their phone number, too. (1-800-688-9889)

• "The Office of the Federal Register - OFR - a component of the National Archives and Records Administration, provides ready access to Public Laws, Presidential documents, Federal regulations, and other official actions of the United States Government."

• THOMAS is the Library of Congress' legislative information on the internet - current floor activities of house and senate, bills, the Congressional Record, historical documents, and a lot more. This is new: "Users wanting the most sophisticated search features for legislation should still use THOMAS, but those interested in exploring the intersection of U.S. legislation with other published literature will find the addition of this collection to ESS useful." ESS is the Experimental Search System, and in the legislation collection it offers search options not available in THOMAS, and links to summary and status information on all bills introduced since 1973. About 175,000 of them!

• For those who need to keep track of federal legislation, CRFilter "is a free service that works with THOMAS to help you monitor your specific interests".  The Law Librarians Society of Washington, DC provides a sourcebook for current legislative and regulatory activity.

• The Congressional Record Index (1983 to present) "is updated daily when Congress is in session and indexes the daily issues of the Congressional Record. Unlike the paper editions, these databases cumulate from the beginning of the session of Congress". A History of Bills and Resolutions is one section of it.  For research on legislative history and legislative intent see the site provided by the Law Librarians Society of Washington DC.

• The Directory of Electronic Public Access Services to Automated Information in the United States Federal Courts is available online. It has no links, but is an up-to-date list of U.S. Court information available through Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER), and other services. For example, as of November 17, 1997, "The U.S. Party/Case Index will provide the capability to perform national or regional searches on party name and social security number in the bankruptcy index, party name and nature of suit in the civil index, and party name in the criminal and appellate indices." PACER is at present quite difficult to use, but indications are that access via internet will be available, perhaps within a year.

• After obtaining a login and password, which takes about a week, one can access the U.S. Party/Case index of PACER and buy pages for seven cents each.  The Pacer Service Center provides a way to search for a district by county name, for all counties in a district, and for details by county code.

• CourtLink provides a commercial interface with PACER, searchable access to U.S. district courts and bankruptcy courts. So does CourtExpress.com. Here is a review of the latter. See also CaseStream.  An article, Court Docket Services, is "a comparison of Pacer, CourtLink, CourtExpress.com and CaseStream".

• Emory University provides a useful Federal Court Finder, with a linked map. Note: the official Circuit Court sites leave a lot to be desired. For example, at least a few cases from the Ninth Circuit which can be found on FindLaw are missing from the official site (Coughlin v. Tailhook is one of them).

• Fedlaw tries to keep track of what is available on District Courts. Cornell has a page giving access to a database of "about 3.7 million federal district-court civil cases terminated over the last 17 fiscal years".

• There is a directory to U.S. Court websites on the Federal Judiciary Homepage.  Another is provided by Courts.Net, with state, county and city courts.

• The United States Court of Federal Claims now has a website.

• Georgia State has a useful "meta-index" of specifically legal searchable indexes, with first step links to federal sources only.

• Use the GAO's Federal Yellow Pages to find all manner of applications, forms, and . . . well, the scope is too vast to describe. Just go there and have a look. Searchable.

• Here is an alphabetical catalog of government periodicals. The U.S Government Manual is available in PDF and ACSI format. There is also a Government Manual search page.

• There is a search form provided by GovBot to locate U.S. government websites. The database contained 197,655 sites as on February 22, 1997. By March, 1997 that was 307,826. November, 1997: 535,391. March, 1998: 628,000 plus. As of February, 2001, make that over 1.5 million.  FirstGov is a portal for federal government information of all kinds.  GovSpot is another.

• Here is a compact and comprehensive index of U.S. Government links.

• SearchGov, SearchMil and SearchEdu are comprehensive for those domains and include government and non-gonvernment sources.

• Here is the best source of Military Justice links.

• Everyone's favorite destination: IRS Tax Forms and Publications.  The US Tax Court has posted opinions, rules and forms.

Law of the States and Localities

• The best jump stations for state law appear to be, again, ALSO, and Findlaw. See in addition the Washburn University index for state law.

• Here is an easy to use source linking to state constitutions, statutes, legislation, session laws and administrative rules.

• Find state statutes indexed by topic.

• Here is a jump station for legal dockets online.  And here are over 700 links to court rules, forms and dockets, federal and state.

• For a pioneering effort at affording public access to public documents, including court decisions, see the Texas Center for Public Information.

• Here are some state Administrative Codes and Registers. The ABA and Florida State law school also maintain an Administrative Procedure database.  Public record databases online, by state, are available from Search Systems.

• Here is a very good consolidated guide to state and local government information on the internet.  Counties On-Line tries (unsuccessfully) to link to every county which has a website.  Here are links to cities and counties, by state.  Important for asset search:  County Tax Assessors nationwide.  More and more municipal codes are being made available.  The Municipal Code Corporation is trying to keep track of them.

• "This page contains information about where to obtain vital records (such as birth, death & marriage certificates and divorce decrees) from each state, territory and county of the United States."

caselaw

LexisONE offers free access to recent state and federal cases.  

Other free sources of caselaw on the internet are very spotty and in some places, including some of the official circuit court sites, unreliable. 

For a first sweep I like VersusLaw a lot, at $6.95 per month.  However, it is far from perfect and results need to be checked in the library.  Here is a review of results to be expected, as well as a comparison with associated Eastlaw.   WestDoc will locate and sell you a state or federal case, and now a lot of other documents for $10 apiece if you can identify what you are after. Westlaw's KeyCite is now accessible via the internet. So is The New Shepard's. Not cheap, but maybe the most economical way to research caselaw. Shepard's now has a page for pay-per-view shepardizing ($4.95 per citation), or by subscription.

Here is a review of the new KeyCite.  Here is a review of the new Shephard's.

The National Law Library is a newer commercial source of caselaw and statutes, being sued by Loislaw for copyright infringement.

Findlaw has an excellent Supreme Court case database, and some circuit court and state links.  In a significant breakthrough, Findlaw now offers a comprehensive caselaw database for California, back to 1934.

Uniform Law Locators

Uniform Commercial Code - UCC / Uniform Probate Code / Uniform Rules of Evidence / Uniform Code of Matrimonial, Family and Health / Uniform Business and Finance Laws.

Here are Drafts of Uniform and Model Acts from the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws.

Freedom of Information

There are numerous links relating to the Freedom of Information Act. The most user-friendly starting point may be the Citizen's Guide on using the Freedom of Information Act and the Privacy Act to request government records. There is also an excellent guide to planning a FOIA request, along with tips on what to expect when you process one, or try to. 

Many federal agencies have FOIA handbooks and references. One of them is the Department of Justice, which offers an overview on FOIA and the Privacy Act, and updates. Here is the FBI site.

State contacts for all fifty states are provided by the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ). The SPJ has lots of other FOI links, including FOI Resources, and instructions on how to file.

The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press (RCFP) has an FOI Services Overview.

FOIA resources are also available from the University of Missouri and Syracuse. The ACLU has a step by step guide to using the FOIA.

Electronic information is subject to the FOIA.  Here is an article on E-FOIA.

Other Sources of Government Information

Pretty comprehensive:  Try GovSpot.com.

Laws of all jurisdictions, indexed by subject.

A compilation of links to federal, state and local court rules.

The Federal Court Locator links to decisions. The Guide to Law Online from the Law Library of Congress links to free sources of the law of the United States and of other countries, and of international law. See the Global Legal Information Network - GLIN. Foreign government information can be obtained from the embassies in Washington, D.C.

The General Accounting Office - GAO - page links to reports and testimony, federal agency rules, Comptroller General decisions and more. The Consumer Information Center of the General Services Administration makes hundreds of consumer publications available from its website. Search tool onsite.

EDGAR is the SEC's database of corporate information. Global Securities Information, Inc., gives us this:  "More than just a document retrieval system for EDGAR filings, LIVEDGAR WEB is engineered as a powerful research tool and resource for legal writers and financial professionals."  See also Edgar Online and FreeEDGAR.

Personal Injury lawyers will want to look at pages from the Consumer Product Safety Commission - CPSC - the Food and Drug Administration - FDA - the Department of Transportation - DOT, and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration - OSHA. The Federal Aviation Administration - FAA - has an Aviation Safety Information site.

The Department of Labor Office of Administrative Law Judges - OALJ - recently put its Law Library online.

The University of California's Infomine is a massive searchable database with federal, state and some local government information, constantly updated.

The Constitution Finder "offers constitutions, constitution drafts, and other documents related to national and state constitutions and constitutionalism."

Online Tutorials

Highly recommended: Pitchon & Tyburski's Government Resources on the Internet, the Tyburski seminar Internet Skills and Strategies for the Legal Researcher - and - Cruse & DeDecker's How to Effectively Locate Federal Government Information on the Web.