My Top Ten General Legal Research Sites for U.S. Law

10. Wikipedia
A col­lab­o­ra­tive elec­tronic ency­clo­pe­dia, editable (in the­ory) by any­one. Sounds like a recipe for dis­as­ter? Perhaps, but Wikipedia entries do an excel­lent job explain­ing many legal prin­ci­ples in an approach­able way. Better for ini­tial research to under­stand an area of the law, rather than as an in-​​depth, reli­able source. Personally, I would never cite to Wikipedia or view its entries as author­i­ta­tive, but it’s a great place to start.

9. Nolo
A great place for non-​​lawyers (or lawyers unfa­mil­iar with a spe­cific area of law) to start legal research. Again, like Wikipedia, I would be unlikely to cite to Nolo, but it pro­vides great infor­ma­tion and resources, espe­cially on com­mon legal problems.

7. GPO Access
A ser­vice of the U.S. Government Printing Office that pro­vides free elec­tronic access to a wealth of impor­tant infor­ma­tion prod­ucts pro­duced by the Federal Government, includ­ing bud­get infor­ma­tion, Code of Federal Regulations and Federal Register, Commerce Business Daily and con­gres­sional bills, cal­en­dars, direc­to­ries, hear­ings, prints, reports, the Congressional Record, Supreme Court deci­sions, and much more.

6. Cornell University’s Legal Information Institute
Provides the U.S. Code, Supreme Court opin­ions, and Law about… A good source for actual mate­ri­als (as opposed to sec­ondary sources or analy­sis). Also con­tains a use­ful law dic­tio­nary and law ency­clo­pe­dia, infor­ma­tion on elec­tronic cita­tion, and much more. This resource is more appro­pri­ate for law stu­dents or legal pro­fes­sion­als, but parts should be use­ful to anyone.

5. THOMAS, from the Library of Congress
A col­lec­tion of leg­isla­tive resources, includ­ing bills, bill sta­tus, com­mit­tee reports, the Congressional Record, treaties, and other legislative-​​focused material.

5. Oyez
A mul­ti­me­dia archive devoted to the Supreme Court of the United States and its work. It aims to be a com­plete and author­i­ta­tive source for all audio recorded in the Court since the instal­la­tion of a record­ing sys­tem in October 1955.

4. JURIST
A Web-​​based legal news and real-​​time legal research ser­vice. From their site: “In US media terms, JURIST might be described as an online fusion of PBS and C-​​SPAN for legal news. In inter­na­tional terms, JURIST’s objec­tive news phi­los­o­phy and its global agenda are mod­eled on the BBC World Service.” Excellent for cur­rent legal research and analy­sis of top­i­cal legal issues.

3. FindLaw
A free site with tools for both the gen­eral pub­lic doing legal research as well as legal pro­fes­sion­als. Includes free access to many cases, espe­cially Supreme Court cases, and both state and fed­eral codes and reg­u­la­tions. One of the best free legal research tools for in-​​depth search and legal research.

2. Google
I always con­sult Google, even on the most obscure legal ques­tion. It’s amaz­ing what it can find, and with much less effort than man­u­ally hunt­ing through every legal research site. But remem­ber Google isn’t exhaus­tive, and that you shouldn’t believe every­thing you read on the Web… that’s why Real Lawyersâ„¢ always look to “pro­fes­sional” sources, like Westlaw or LexisNexis.

1. Westlaw and LexisNexis
I’ve com­bined these two because debate about which one is bet­ter often rises to reli­gious pro­por­tions! Both offer the kind of legal research tools for which law firms and attor­neys are will­ing to pay, such as the full-​​text of most pub­lished U.S. cases, abstracts and sum­maries of cases, full-​​text access to legal trea­tises, full-​​text access to many law reviews and jour­nals, cita­tion check­ing, and much more. No pro­fes­sional legal research is com­plete with­out a search of these two behemoths.

The above 10 sites pro­vide the tools I reg­u­larly use for gen­eral legal research. Obviously, when nar­row­ing in, other sites (like EFF, the CDT, and many oth­ers) pro­vide more focused, topic-​​specific infor­ma­tion. But you’ve got to start some­where in any research project. And of course, research into other coun­tries’ laws or inter­na­tional law is a whole other thing entirely…

Have other favorite, gen­eral legal research tools, or your own blog post on this topic? Let me know via email or in the comments!