Legal Research in The United States - Legislative Branch Sources (Statutes)

Legislative Branch Sources (Statutes)

Some jurisdictions provide copies of their statutes online while others do not. You can often find new, or "slip laws" on the web (arranged in chronological order), as well as the subject arrangement of the statutes, known as the codified version, or code. The official code for federal statutes, the United States Code is usually one to two years out of date both in print and on the web. Legal Researchers often use the more timely, commercially published United States Code Annotated (USCA) or the United States Code Service (USCS). The USCA is available on Westlaw while the USCS is available on Lexis. They are called 'annotated codes' because they include summaries of cases which interpret the meaning of the statute. They may also include references to journal articles, legal encyclopedias and other research materials so it is good to look in an annotated code either in print or online as soon as you know there is a statute involved in your research problem.

In addition to the text of the current law itself, legal researchers may also have to research the background documents connected with the statute, which is known as Legislative history. Legislative history is used to find what is known as the "legislative intent," or purpose behind statutory language. Again, legislative history documents may be found both in print in law libraries and government documents libraries, as well as in online formats such as Lexis and Westlaw.

THOMAS the Library of Congress legislative information service, provides the fulltext of proposed bills, bill status information (did it become a public law? who sponsored it? what committee was it referred to?), the text of debates from the Congressional Record, the full text of committee reports and other legislative information. The Library of Congress provides access to legislative documents from 1774 through 1875 as part of its American Memory Project Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation digital library.