LibGuides: Free Online Legal Research: Legal Research Guides

Law Library Research Guides

Most law libraries provide online access to their research guides. Although they may contain information specific to the library's collections, these guides provide references to treatises, Web sources, major case law, legislation, and other relevant sources that can aid in one's research.

If your research is state-specific, you may want to browse the Web sites of a handful of major law libraries in that state.

The following are just three examples of law library research guides.

UCLA Law Library's Research Guides
If you are reading this, you have already found our research guides. Browse all of our guides by title or by subject.
Cornell Law Library's Research Guides
Cornell's Research Guides cover U.S. Research Guides by Topic and Foreign and Int'l Research Guides.
Georgetown Law Library's Research Guides
Browse guides by topic or use the search feature. Other options include tutorials and a treatise finder.
Georgetown's Free & Low Cost Research Guide
Gives overview and links to sites that provide free access to federal case law, statutes and codes, legislative history sources, and administrative law materials. The second part summarizes the features and costs of less expensive legal databases.

Legislative History Research Guides

State Legislative Histories Research Guides on the Web
Compiling a legislative history can be a daunting task, especially if you are unfamiliar with this type of legal research. In fact, once you know the steps involved, legislative history research can be straightforward. Compiled by Jennifer Bryan Morgan, Documents Librarian, Indiana University Bloomington Maurer School of Law Library, this page provides researchers with an alphabetical list (by state) of all the legislative history guides available online.
LLSDC's Legislative Source Book
The Law Librarians' Society of Washington, D.C.'s Legislative Source Book is compiled by members of the Legislative Research Special Interest Section. Some of this material has been published in print for many years, and is now also available on this Web site. Resources include a guide to federal legislative history. Also note the Legislative Histories of Selected U.S. Laws on the Internet page which includes a selection of laws organized by popular name and public law number.
HeinOnline's U.S. Federal Legislative History Library (UCLA only)
This Library contains Sources of Compiled Legislative Histories Database (derived from the loose-leaf publication by Nancy P. Johnson) and U.S. Federal Legislative History Title Collection (full-text legislative histories on some of the most important and historically significant legislation of our time.

Other Research Guides

Nolo.com
Nolo publishes legal guides (written in plain English) to help answer common legal questions and to provide information useful for those representing themselves in legal proceedings. Although the aim of the Web site is to sell its (very popular) self-help books, Nolo's site also contains articles on a myriad of legal subjects. The articles are brief, are geared for the non-attorney, and are organized by topic. Most articles include links to related subjects and other online tools.

SCALL's Locating the Law

Locating the Law: A Handbook for Non-Law Librarians
The latest edition is freely available for download at the above link (scroll down on the page and view individual chapters and appendices or download).
The table of contents is as follows:

Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: How to Read a Legal Citation
Chapter 3: Basic Legal Research Techniques
Chapter 4: Legal Reference vs. Legal Advice
Chapter 5: California Law
Chapter 6: Bibliography of California Resources
Chapter 7: Federal Law
Chapter 8: Citators
Chapter 9: Assisting Self-Represented Litigants
Chapter 10: Bibliography of Self-Help Resources
Chapter 11: Availability, Accessibility and Maintenance of Legal Collections
Chapter 12: Major Law Publishers
Appendix A: Glossary of Legal Terms
Appendix B: Common Abbreviations in the Law
Appendix C: California County Law Libraries
Appendix D: California Law Schools