Presented by: Jason P. Webb Barnes Dulac Watkins
How and where to find information on: ◦ Statutes, Bills and Legislative History ◦ Regulations and Agencies ◦ Court Opinions, Forms, Rules and Dockets
Attorneys are in the business of interpreting the law. Depending on what information you have will determine the best way to locate the information you’re seeking The baseline: google.com. This presentation is geared towards going to the source.
Statutes, Bills and Legislative History
A “statute” is enacted legislation. With respect to the federal government, a statute is legislation that has been passed by Congress and signed into law by the President (or by overriding veto).
If you know the year of enactment you can search the Statutes at Large. tab.action tab.action Statutes at Large are a list of what laws were enacted during each two-year Congress. Statutes at Large are maintained by the GPO (Government Printing Office) as part of FDsys (Fed’l Digital System)
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If you have a citation, use Cornell’s Legal Information Institute (“LII”), Justia, or other meta-sites. LII provides free access to the U.S. Code, an index of all federal law grouped by subject matter
The House of Representatives maintains a searchable U.S. Code at
First a word on Consolidated vs. Unconsolidated Statutes and P.S. vs. Pa.C.S.A The general assembly’s website is versatile. ◦ Good search functionality ◦ Search by citation ◦ Search by year of enactment
For local laws, go to the local government homepage: (sites.state.pa.us/govlocal.html)sites.state.pa.us/govlocal.html
For legislative information for the City of Pittsburgh: (pittsburgh.legistar.com/Legislation.aspx(pittsburgh.legistar.com/Legislation.aspx)
It was a bill. There are thousands of bills that are introduced during each two-year Congress. Approximately 5 percent of bills will be enacted into law.
Go to Thomas, a free site maintained by the Library of Congress.
Thomas is the template for the software used on Capitol Hill to track legislative action It is updated frequently It permits you to perform bill number, subject matter and text searches. It provides text of all bills pending in Congress
The Pennsylvania General Assembly is a good resource for past and current legislative information. me/bills/ me/bills/
Three main bases for Legislative History are: ◦ Committee Reports/ Conference Reports / Hearings ◦ Floor speeches / Debate / Sponsor Statements ◦ Presidential Signing Statements Legislative History = U.S. Serial Set a.k.a Congress’ papers
After being introduced, a bill is assigned to the committee responsible for the relevant subject matter. A committee report provides a detailed overview of the legislation. It can include definitions, findings of fact, justification for action by Congress, as well as cost estimates.
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Conference Reports are agreements between the House and Senate that are prepared to resolve differences in House- and Senate-passed legislation. Older committee and conference reports are in the U.S. Serial Set available at:
The Congressional Record is a daily transcription of what is said on the House and Senate floors.
Committee Reports / Conference Reports “Hearings are not published and in most situations committee reports are not distributed.” utory Instead – use legislative deliberations / debate
Journals are available online for Pennsylvania’s General Assembly
For older legislation, use A History of House and Senate Bills in conjunction with hard copies of the Journals. For additional assistance tracking down a resource, call the Pennsylvania Legislative Reference Bureau at
All federal legislative information is available online for free beginning in the early 1990’s. If what you want was published prior to that, you may need to get thee to the library. There are six libraries in Pittsburgh that are repositories of federal materials ◦ CMU, Pitt, Pitt Law, Duq., LaRoche and Allegh. Cty Law Library
Regulations and Agencies
A regulation is agency policy making that has the force of law. A regulation is promulgated or made effective by a federal agency following notice and comment rulemaking. Where to find a regulation depends on what you know.
If you know the subject matter, go to
If you have a citation, you can go directly to the Code of Federal Regulations (“CFR”) Navigating the CFR without a cite can be daunting Organization of CFR: ◦ Part ◦ Chapter ◦ Sub-Chapter ◦ Part __ (number) ◦ Sub-part _ (letter)
The CFR is the administrative equivalent of the U.S. Code:
The Pennsylvania Code is the Pennsylvania analog to the CFR.
Sources: ◦ Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NRPM) ◦ Preamble to final rule ◦ Agency guidance on interpretation
The Federal Register is a daily publication containing all official administrative actions taken by agencies of the federal government.
Pennsylvania Bulletin is published on a weekly basis.
Agency home pages are often very helpful in finding relevant regulatory history
There are often informal statement of policy that will not be published in the federal register.
Another valuable resource is guidance regarding the meaning of the regulation provided to its own employees.
Court Opinions, Forms, Rules and Dockets
Portals (meta-sites) ◦ One-stop-shopping ◦ Intended to quickly direct you to all the resources you are likely to want Examples: ◦ Cornell Univ’s Legal Information Institute ◦ FindLaw ◦ Justia ◦ Washburn Univ's WashLaw.
Use Google? But, if you only know the parties, use Justia.com or plainsite.org
Similarly, if you know the year of decision and the deciding court, you can use Justia.com
The U.S. Courts maintains a great site, ( Complete sets of Rules (Civil / Criminal / BKR / Appellate / Evidence / Local)
Pacer.gov is a fed’l govt. site that provides access to dockets save yourself some dimes Additionally, see plainsite.org, which provides detailed docket information
Rules can be obtained at: Rules can be obtained at: 1toc.html 1toc.html Forms can be obtained at: Forms can be obtained at: public public
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