Index to Legal Periodicals and Books.
New York: Wilson, 1994–. Index to legal journals, law reviews and books, government publications, institutions, and bar associations.
Some libraries have an accompanying archive that covers publications from 1908 to the present in addition to full texts of
over 300 law journals.
LexisNexis: Legal.
Bethesda: LexisNexis, 1998–. The LexisNexis databases include cases, codes, and research under the Legal tab. 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 Research.
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 Regulations
http://www.gpoaccess.gov/cfr. 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 Law
http://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 Decisions
http://www.findlaw.com/casecode/supreme.html. Provides the full text of Supreme Court decisions from 1893 to the present, with handy links 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 World
http://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 Institute
http://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 Multimedia
http://www.oyez.org/. Offers information about the U.S. Supreme Court, most notably audio files of all oral arguments held before the 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. The site is supported by grants from the National Science Foundation, Northwestern
University, and other donors.
U.S. Code
http://uscode.house.gov. From the Office of the Law Revision Council, U.S. House of Representatives, this site provides the text of federal laws
of the United States currently in force, arranged by 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 in this section.
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.
Ed. Jeffrey Lehman, Shirelle Phelps. 2nd ed. 13 vols. Detroit: Gale, 2005. Presents legal issues clearly in articles written
for a general audience. This work is supplemented by The American Law Yearbook.
