This guide is aimed at current Harvard University affiliates researching U.S. federal and state law. It features Harvard Library subscription resources. The guide aims to provide alternatives to databases available solely to Harvard Law School affiliates. Content in HLS-only databases is not included. For individual assistance, please Ask a Librarian.
Before beginning legal research, it can be helpful to gain an overview of the sources of law by branch of government.
Case law refers to the written opinions of judges. Note that only a small fraction of cases are published. Many cases settle. Trial-level cases rarely result in full written opinions. Even appellate courts in the federal and state systems publish only a small percentage of all opinions.
Court filings include complaints, motions, briefs, orders and more. Courts assign a docket number to each case/prosecution. Syntax varies but usually includes a year notation and the number of the case as filed chronologically. A docket sheet is a chronological list of all materials filed in a particular litigation/prosecution in a particular court. For additional research guidance see HLS Guide to Records, Briefs & Court Filings.
Note: PACER is a fee-based service to access Federal district and appellate court records and filings. It does not include records for the U.S. Supreme Court or state courts. The HLS Library does not have an institutional PACER account available to the University. Anyone may create an account but fees can add up quickly. Some PACER users are kind enough to donate their downloads to a public, searchable, growing database: RECAP Archive.
Constitutions are the highest form of law. Even though they are not statutes, constitutions are included at the beginning of codes of laws. Annotated codes include the current version of the constitution, with research references and brief summaries of cases interpreting and applying the article/section.
Codes are the subject-arranged, in-force laws created by the legislative branch. They are under constant revision by session laws (described below). Beneath each code section, there are notations to the session laws that created and amended the current language of the section. Annotated codes include research references and short descriptions of cases interpreting and applying the section.
Legal researchers frequently need to compare state laws on a topic, referred to as a 50-state survey. To find precompiled surveys, run an internet search such as "50 state survey" and "Your Topic Phrase" or use one of the sources below.
Session laws are the acts/laws passed by a legislature. Session law publications contain acts in their exact form as passed, in chronological format. They are subsequently broken up by section and subject arranged into codes. (Legislatures convene in sessions; sessions of the U.S. Congress comprise two years.)
A legislative history is the collection of documents produced in the course of a bill's passage into law. Researchers consult legislative history to determine legislative intent. Documents may include bill versions, reports, hearings and debates. To create a legislative history, you will need to begin with any of the following: bill number and date/session number of legislature; public law/act number; or a session law publication citation. It is not possible to locate legislative history materials using a code citation.
A statutory history is a comparison of the language of a code section over time. This can be partially achieved using the notations beneath a code section and/or viewing historical codes. Nexis Uni provides Archived Code Versions for about twenty years; find the link on the right of the code section you are viewing.
Regulations/rules are the laws created by administrative agencies. Regulatory codes are the subject-arranged, in-force regulations created by all agencies in the jurisdiction. They include promulgations by the jurisdiction’s highest executive, i.e. President or Governor.
Registers are newspaper-like publications that cover a jurisdiction's executive actions and administrative agencies' official notices and rule-making announcements.
Law review articles are lengthy, cover fairly narrow topics, and provide many footnotes for further research. For virtually any legal topic, beginning research in law review articles is an efficient way to find references to primary law.
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