1. Federal and State Cases, Legislation and Regulations
Carol A. Watson, J.D., M.L.S.
Reference/Computer Services Librarian
University of Georgia Law Library

2. U.S. Constitution FindLaw GPO Access
Annotations of U.S. Supreme Court cases through 1996
Easy to navigate
Hyperlinks between Constitution sections
Hyperlinks to U.S. Supreme Court cases
GPO Access
Annotations of U.S. Supreme Court cases through 1998
Can find the text of the U.S. Constitution at many web sites.
Some sites have better formatting and are much easier to read than others
ONLY 2 sites, GPO Access and Findlaw include U.S. Supreme Court case law. Other sites that you visit may include historical documents or hypertext links between sections of the Constitution
GPO Access and Findlaw GPO Access - a literal print of the text of the Constitution.
FindLaw - The FindLaw version of the Constitution is more easily navigable than the GPO Access site.
Includes an analysis and interpretation of the Constitution prepared by the Library of Congress’ Congressional Research Service..
Includes annotations of U.S. Supreme Court cases decided through July 1996.
FindLaw has added links between the sections of the Constitution, as well as links to Supreme Court cases through 1996 cited in the annotations.

3. Findlaw - Hyperlinks between sections
Sample page from U.S. Constitution.
Fifth Amendment
You can choose text or annotations. Annotations links to the annotations section.
In this example, the annotations are divided into subjects such as indictment by grand jury, double jeopardy
Click on Indictment by grand jury.
Findlaw - Hyperlinks between sections

4. FindLaw - Hyperlinks to U.S. Supreme Court cases
Example of text of annotations for indictment by grand jury.
Note the hypertext links to footnotes.
Note hypertext link to U.S. Supreme Court case.
Click on U.S. hypertext link and you will see...
FindLaw - Hyperlinks to U.S. Supreme Court cases

5. Jumps straight to full text of U.S. Supreme Court cases.
Note also, the citator feature of Findlaw.
Similar to Shepard’s or Keycite.
Can locate Supreme Court of Circuit Cases that have cited this case.

6. GPO Access

7. U.S. Code
GPO Access - contains archived versions of Code from 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999
House Internet Library - source for the printed official version of the US Code
Cornell’s LII - easily searched, hyperlinks among code sections
No web sites offer a full text up-to-date version of the U.S. Code.
GPO Access - The GPO Access site contains archived supplements of the U.S. Code for 1995, 1996, 1997 and Atrociously cumbersome to search and maneuver.
The House of Reps Internet Library is the source for the printed version of the U.S. Code. The text of the U.S. Code is made available by the Office of Law Revision Counsel of the U.S. House of Reps
Cornell’s LII - This site contains the most recent version of the U.S. Code made available by the U.S. House of Representatives. Easily searched. Hyperlinks among code sections
The best site for searching and viewing the U.S. Code is Cornell.

8. Here’s an example of the various ways you can search the U. S
Here’s an example of the various ways you can search the U.S. Code at the Cornell site.
Listing of all titles/ search individual title
Table of Popular names - with links to full text if available
If you have a citation, plug it in
Or search full text. Clicking on find will retrieve documents matching your terms. Once you have an initial list, you may improve your search by checking the checkboxes next to documents similar to what you are seeking. Clicking on improve will then retrieve documents similar to the ones you chose.

9. Updating your search results
Let’s talk about updating your search results.
Remember I said none of the U.S. Code sites are 100% up to date.
1. Check the date of your code section. In this case it’s 3/28/98. Hard to read.
2. Then visit the updates section.
Updating your search results

10. 1. Check Table of Amendments for Public Laws 2. Retrieve full text of
For the past 6-9 months, this is the message I’ve gotten when I tried to get Cornell to automatically update my code section.
You can follow the instructions on this page and manually update your code section.
1. First visit the House of Representatives Internet Library to obtain the Table of Amendments for Public Laws. We only need to check the 106th Congress for our example because our Code section is current through March 1998.
2. Second, visit Thomas to read the full text of any public laws that have amended the code section that you’re interested in.
1. Check Table of Amendments
for Public Laws
2. Retrieve full text of
Public Law

11. When you visit the House Internet Library you will look for your title and code section in the table of amendments.
In this instance, we see that our code section has been amended by Public Law section 1 g 2
We now need to visit Thomas to read the full text of Public Law

12. Here at the Thomas site, we can find Public Law 106-44
Here at the Thomas site, we can find Public Law You can browse public laws by their numbers.
We can check section 1 g 2 and find the language that amends our code section.
Section 106 is amended by striking 120 and replacing with 121

13. Tracking Current Legislation & Legislative History
Thomas
Public laws, bills, roll call votes, House & Senate schedules, committee reports, Congressional Record
GPO Access
Public laws, bills, documents, hearings, reports, Congressional Record
Two highly recommended sites for tracking current legislation and legislative history. Many more listed in written materials. If you are interested in legislative information, these two should be your first Internet stop.
First is Thomas
Because this site was designed by librarians at the Library of Congress, it is easily navigable.
Named for Thomas Jefferson, this excellent web site from the Library of Congress.
Second is GPO Access provides the full text of congressional bills, documents, hearings, reports, Congressional Record, public laws and committee prints.

14. The full text of public laws can be accessed by Public Law number from the 101st Congress (1989) to present. Summaries of Public Laws are provided for the 93rd Congress (1973) to the 100th Congress(1988). The format of the text at the Thomas site is easier to read than the text at the GPO Access site.
Thomas is maintained by the Library of Congress and is the best source for federal legislative information available on the Internet. This web site contains legislative histories, Congressional Record (from the 101st Congress, 1989 to present), the full text of bills and public laws, roll call votes, and committee reports.

15. GPO Access provides the full text of congressional bills, documents, hearings, reports, Congressional Record, public laws and committee prints.

16. Federal Regulations Code of Federal Regulations
GPO Access -includes superseded volumes
Cornell’s LII
Federal Register
GPO Access
CFR is available at both Cornell and GPO Access
Note that the GPO Access site includes superseded volumes of the CFR while the Cornell site mentioned below includes the most recent version of the CFR.
Cornell’s LII - This web site provides an improved front-end to the most recent version of the CFR placed on the Internet by the GPO Access.
As with the U.S. Code at Cornell that we looked at in detail earlier, you can search the CFR from this site by citation, a detailed table of contents, an index of all section headings or the Government Printing Office search engine.
Federal Register - GPO Access - The GPO’s database includes the 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998 and 1999 Federal Register (Volumes 60, 61, 62, 63 and 64). The volumes are searchable by keyword or date. The newest feature of this web page is the ability to browse the latest Federal Register without having to search for a relevant section first.

17. Federal Case Law Meta-Indexes
Links to U.S. Supreme Court, Circuit Courts and District Courts
Include specialized courts such as U.S. Bankruptcy Courts, U.S. Court of International Trade
One possibility for locating Federal Case law is to use a meta-index. Meta-index is a term meaning comprehensive index.
Meta-indexes will provide links to U.S. Supreme Ct. Circuit Courts and District Courts as well as specialized courts such as Bankruptcy or International Trade.

18. Let me show you my four favorite meta-indexes for federal case law.
1. Federal Judiciary - maintained by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. Intended to be a clearinghouse from and about the judicial branch of the U.S. government. Links to ones mentioned previously plus Federal Judicial Center, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces, U.S. Sentencing Commission, and other sites of interest.
2. Courts.net - Courts.Net provides links to the Circuit and some District Courts.
3. Emory - includes clickable map
4. Villanova’s Federal Court Locator

19. U.S. Supreme Court FindLaw Decisions since 1893
Includes U.S. Reports page breaks
Browse by year & U.S. reports volume number
Search by cite, party names & full text
FindLaw’s database of the Supreme Court decisions since 1893 (US Reports 150-) is browsable by year and U.S. Reports volume number. FindLaw is also searchable by citation, case title and full text.
Remember Cornell’s site that we looked at in detail for the U.S. Code. It has excellent searching capabilities, but the coverage of Supreme Court cases only begins in Might be a better alternative if FindLaw is too slow or if you only need recent cases.

20. Federal Courts of Appeals
FindLaw
Search all of the U.S. Federal Courts of Appeals decisions available via the web
In your materials, lists of individual circuits web pages.
Point out FindLaw’s search engine for searching all Circuit Court opinions that FindLaw has available.

21. Federal District Courts
Use a meta-index such as Villanova’s Federal Court Locator or Emory’s Federal Court Finder or
try Legal.online.
Legal.online is a newsletter publication of American Lawyer Media, Inc which covers the Internet for lawyers and legal professionals.
Many District Courts have home pages, but very few of them offer the full text of opinions. I counted about 13 District Courts with full text opinions.
Use a meta-index such as FindLaw

22. State Legislative, Judicial and Administrative Information
Meta - Indexes -
Cornell’s LII - The LII collection of state legal materials gathers, state by state, Internet-accessible sources of the constitutions, statutes, judicial opinions, and regulations for the fifty states, plus D.C., and the U.S. territories and affiliated jurisdictions.
Yahoo - Missing 11 circuit link and many others.
Yahoo - Yahoo has listings for each of the 50 states although within each state Yahoo is not as well-organized as some of the meta-indexes
FindLaw - FindLaw has a well-organized index of resources from each of the 50 states including categories such as government, bar associations, courts, law schools, news, and law firms.
FRAN WILL COVER META-INDEXES!!

23. State Courts Villanova State Court Locator
This site is maintained by The Villanova Center for Information Law and Policy. This site links to court opinions, state administrative agency decisions, local courts and bar associations.
Most states provide cases law from approximately 1996 to present. A few states only provide recent cases (past few months) and a few states offer no cases.

24. State Courts
The National Center for State Courts links to state trial and appellate courts from each of the 50 states.
Note that NCSC even offers to host pages for some state courts.

25. State Courts
Courts.net is a centralized directory providing pointers and links to every trial-level court in the United States which currently has a web site.
This site is maintained by Superior Information Services, Inc., which assists law firms, professional offices, businesses and individuals in information systems and Internet communications technologies

26. State Statutes and Legislative Information
State Legislative Presence - Maintained by Multistate Associates Inc., this site provides of chart of legislative links for each state. The chart indicates whether full text legislative information is available and provides qualitative comments on each site.
The links on each state go directly to the web site described. For example, Georgia goes to GeorgiaNet which Sally will talk more about in her session.
Multistate Associates, Inc. is a state and local government relations lobbying firm.

27. State Administrative Materials
Internet Access to Administrative Rules
Internet Access - This thorough resource provides a table of each of the 50 states with links to the state administrative agency responsible for promulgating rules and regulations and the state code of rules and regulations if they exist on the Internet
This site is maintained by the Administrative Codes and Registers (ACR) Section of the National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS). This site links to administrative codes, registers of proposed rules and regulations, secretary of state offices, and any guidance manuals for rule-making agencies for each state.

28. Conclusion: What federal and state materials are available via the web?
U.S. Constitution with Supreme Ct. annotations
U.S. Code - unannotated
U.S. Supreme Court
U.S. Court of Appeals cases - last 3-5 years
U.S. District Court cases - very few
Code of Federal Regulations
State constitutions
State codes - unannotated
State courts - from 1996
State administrative codes
State materials: Most constitutions, codes & administrative codes. A few states might be missing one of these items.
Most states provide cases law from approximately 1996 to present. A few states only provide recent cases (past few months) and a few states offer no cases.

29. The End