Federal Resources  

Statutes and Legislative Materials

Cases, Court Rules, and Judicial Materials

Patent, Trademark & Copyright

Century of Law Making (Historic) Open Access

Congressional documents and debates for the period 1774-1875.

Congressional Mega Sites Open Access

The Library of Congress provides an extensive list of sources for legislative information. Categories include indexes to congressional sites, how-to guides to congressional data systems, and related information sites.

LexisNexis Congressional Universe Law Access

Congressional Universe is a very helpful tool for legislative history research. Among other things, it provides access to the CIS Index, the full-text of bills, congressional reports and transcripts as well as the Congressional Record. Congressional Universe also contains bill tracking information, the full-text of public laws, the United States Code Service, the Federal Register and the Code of Federal Regulations. 

Federal Web Navigator (Villanova School of Law) Open Access

Search by agency name or abbreviation or search by subject. The Federal Web Navigator includes over 800 links to Federal government agencies. Many of these links are annotated. Descriptions were gathered from the United States Government Manual and mission statements on agency web pages.

USA.gov ("Your First Click to the U.S. Government") Open Access

USA.gov is a free searchable website. As an interagency hub site administered by the U.S. General Services Administration, USA.gov provides organized links to a vast range of legal and general information residing on United States federal, state, tribal, and local government websites. USA.gov probably provides the most comprehensive search available for such information, which encompasses laws, agency reports, data, public-domain photos, government forms, and many other sources.

GovTrack Open Access

GovTrack is a free, public web service with information on federal legislation, congressional documents, legislators, and votes. GovTrack provides a fresh interface to data that is available from the Library of Congress THOMAS site, the House and Senate websites, and related sources.  GovTrack offers the ability to set up monitors, customized email alerts and RSS feeds. Monitors can be set up to track action on specific bills or bills indexed under a specific subject term, actions from a specific committee, or actions by a specific member of Congress.  GovTrack also has an array of ready-made RSS feeds:

• Active Legislation
• Active Legislation Excluding New Bills
• Newly Introduced Legislation
• New Laws
• Recent Votes
• Upcoming Senate Committee Meetings

GPO Access Open Access

The Government Printing Office (GPO) provides access to official government information. This full-text searchable database includes Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), Federal Register (FR), Congressional Record, Congressional Record Index, Congressional Bills, Public Laws, United States Code, GAO Reports, Commerce Business Daily, and other government publications.

Internet Law Library Open Access

This site provides access to the Code of Federal Regulations, court rules, laws of all jurisdictions by subject, U.S. federal laws, U.S. state and territorial laws, laws of other nations, treaties and international law, attorney directories, law school library catalogs.

Legislative Histories of Selected Federal Laws Open Access

This handy listing by the Law Librarians' Society of Washington, DC, Inc., includes links to both freely available and commercially prepared legislative histories. 

Legislative History Research Guide Open Access

This free public resource from Ohio State University explains how to identify and retrieve the documents relevant to the legislative history of a federal statute. This page offers concise step-by-step instructions and many helpful links to sources.

LLMC Digital Hamline Access, Walk-In Access

LLMC is a non-profit cooperative serving member libraries' needs for preservation, space recovery, and collection development on film and on-line. It has scanned over 7,500 titles, some 90,000 volumes, of interest to researchers in law and history. Its backfile is accessible on LLMC Digital and comprises the world's largest collection of legal literature and government documents in microform.

OpenCongress Open Access

OpenCongress brings together the "big picture" behind each bill on the Hill.  Users can browse by bill number, senator or representative name, House or Senate committee, industry, or topical issue, and track or share their interests using RSS feeds and tagging.  OpenCongress also provides widges and applications to download.

OpenCRS Open Access

OpenCRS offers CRS reports that are already in the public domain.  Two RSS Feeds are available from Open CRS: All Recent Reports RSS and All Recently Added Reports. 

Thomas Legislative Information on the Internet Open Access

The Library of Congress makes federal legislation information freely available to the internet public. Search the current congressional actions, bills, roll call votes, public laws, and major legislation. Online access to the Congressional Record, committee reports, and information on the legislative process is available. Bill text files are updated several times per day.

The United States Law Week (BNA) Law Access, Walk-In Access

USLW is a well-established current awareness service for keeping up with important new cases, statutes, regulations and pending legal matters across the United States in many areas of the law.

White House Open Access

Search White House documents including photographs, radio addresses, and executive orders in the White House Virtual Library. This site includes information about the President and Vice-President, daily notice of official meetings and speeches, and links to commonly requested federal services.