LAW

  • Index to Legal Periodicals and Books. New York: Wilson, 1994–. Index to legal journals, law reviews and books, government publications, institutions, and bar associations. Also available in electronic format. An earlier version of the index, covering only journal articles, was started in 1908; this retrospective index is available online in some libraries.
  • LexisNexis: Legal Research. Bethesda: LexisNexis, 1998–. The LexisNexis databases include an extensive legal section. Of particular note is the ability to search for the full text of state and federal court decisions (also known as "case law") by keyword, party name, or citation, and the Law Reviews section, which offers the full text of scholarly articles that analyze legal issues in depth.
  • WestLaw Campus. Eagan: West, 2002–. A database of legal research materials, including laws, cases, legal articles, and reference material as well as analysis of legal issues provided by West and an integrated system that indicates which cases remain precedent-setting.
  • Code of Federal Regulationshttp://www.gpoaccess.gov/cfr/index.html Provides access to federal "administrative law" — regulations set by federal government agencies to spell out how a law passed by Congress will be carried out. The CFR is searchable by keyword, title, or citation information or can be browsed by topic (or "title").
  • EISIL: Electronic Information System for International Lawhttp://www.eisil.org A directory of information on international legal issues, including international human rights, criminal law, use of force, environmental law, and economic law. Each section includes the text of important international agreements and links to significant organizations. EISIL is a service of the American Society of International Law.
  • FindLaw U.S. Supreme Court Decisionshttp://findlaw.com/casecode/supreme.html Provides the full text of Supreme Court decisions from 1893 to present, with handy hotlinks to cited decisions. Searchable by citation, party name, or keyword, the database is part of FindLaw, a commercial portal to legal information.
  • Guide to Law Online: Nations of the Worldhttp://www.loc.gov/law/guide/nations.html 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. The links are compiled by the Law Library of Congress.
  • LII: Legal Information Institutehttp://www.law.cornell.edu 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. The institute is a project of the Cornell University Law School.
  • Oyez: Supreme Court Multimediahttp://www.oyez.org/oyez/frontpage Offers information about the U.S. Supreme Court, most notably audio files of all oral arguments held before the Supreme Court since 1995, with selected landmark cases as far back as 1955. Oral arguments offer a fascinating glimpse into the background of decisions. The site also provides current Supreme Court news and a link to On the Docket, a news feed on Supreme Court matters from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.
  • U.S. Codehttp://uscode.house.gov/lawrevisioncounsel.shtml From the Office of the Law Revision Counsel, U.S. House of Representatives, this site provides the text of federal laws of the United States currently in force, arranged by topic (or "title") and section. The site offers an option to search or browse the code and provides a link to Thomas, a site maintained by the Library of Congress that provides the text of bills introduced in Congress. For state laws, consult official state Web sites or the LII directory.
  • Black's Law Dictionary. Ed. Bryan A. Garner and Henry Campbell Black. 8th ed. St. Paul: West, 2004. Offers brief, technical definitions of legal terms, with an emphasis on the U.S. legal system.
  • Encyclopedia of the American Constitution. Ed. Leonard Williams Levy et al. 2nd ed. 6 vols. New York: Macmillan Library Reference, 2000. Covers essential topics and landmark cases related to constitutional law.
  • Encyclopedia of the American Judicial System. Ed. Robert J. Janosik. 3 vols. New York: Macmillan Library Reference, 1987. Offers substantial articles covering the workings of the court system and its effects on society.
  • Historic U.S. Court Cases: An Encyclopedia. Ed. John W. Johnson. 2nd ed. 2 vols. New York: Routledge, 2001. Essays on major cases that have had an impact on American law and society, with sections on civil liberties, minority rights, women, and economics.
  • West's Encyclopedia of American Law. 12 vols. St. Paul: Gale Group–, West Group, 1998. Covers legal issues clearly in articles written for a general audience. This work is supplemented by The American Law Yearbook.
  
       
   
 
       
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