Law
Overview
Law, according to a definition from the website of the New Jersey Legislature, is "All the official rules and codes that govern citizens’ actions, including the Constitution, statutory laws enacted by the Legislature, case laws established by court decisions, and administrative law as set forth by executive branch agencies." (http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/legislativepub/glossary.asp, 9/3/08)
There are many different flavors of the the law--property law, criminal law, constitutional law, administrative law, and so on. But for our purposes we have divided them into two sections: case law, and statutory/regulatory law.
Disclaimer
UNAUTHORIZED PRACTICE OF LAW DISCLAIMER: It is against state law for library staff to engage in any conduct that might constitute the unauthorized practice of law (ORS 9.160, 9.166 and 9.21). They may not interpret statutes, cases, or regulations, or advise patrons regarding their legal rights. They may, however, assist patrons in locating materials or links that would aid in individual research.
Law Reference
General Reference Works
Oxford Reference Online Premium brings together reference works from one of the world's biggest reference publishers into a single cross-searchable resource. The Core Collection contains over 100 dictionary, language reference, and subject reference works published by Oxford University Press. In Law, these include:
- The Oxford Companion to American Law
- A Dictionary of Law
- The Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court of the United States
- The Oxford Guide to United States Supreme Court Decisions
Dictionaries and Encyclopedias
Black's Law Dictionary, 8th ed. (KF156 .B53 2004)
LAW.COM online dictionary
Legal systems of the world : a political, social, and cultural encyclopedia / edited by Herbert M. Kritzer. 4 vol. (K48 .L44 2002)
Indexes and Finding Tools
See under the various tabs in this guide for more suggestions.
General and Decennial Digests
KF141
Oregon Digest
KFO2457 .O71
Digests contain short case notes arranged alphabetically by legal subject and indexed by keywords.Also includes table of cases volume to locate citations by case name.
Shepard's U.S. Supreme Court Names Citator
KF101.2 .S51
Allows you to retreive citation if you know the name of a case.
Shepard's United States Citations
KF101.2 .S53, KF101.2 .S54 or LexisNexis
Shepard's Pacific Reporter Citations
KF135 .P22 S529
Citation indexes list cases (and statutes) only by citation, not by case name. Once a citation is located in Shepard's, you can locate subsequent cases that cited the case of interest and can determine the current status of the case of interest. It can also be used to locate lower court opinions on the same case.
Corpus Juris Secundum (legal encyclopedia) (Cancelled in 2007)
KF154 .C56 1936
Arranged by subject, in alphabetical order, CJS states a general principle of law, followed by exhaustive case references in footnotes. Use the general index if the subject you are looking for does not appear in the main volumes or if the subject is too broad to be easily covered.
Blue and White Book
K .P21 1928
Cross references citations for Oregon Reports and West's Pacific Reporter.
The bluebook : a uniform system of citation
KF245 .B58
Guide to legal citations and abbreviations. Only latest edition is kept.
Law Databases
Bills
Federal
Senate Bills (S.B.) and House Bills (H.R.): Federal Legislation before the U.S. Congress
Congressional Record (CR): Official proceedings and debates of the U.S. Congress; includes the text of some bills
Oregon
Senate Bill (or Measure) (SB) and House Bill (or Measure) (HB) - Oregon legislation, 1995-present (Ref JK9076 .A5 or on the Oregon State Legislature website)
Other Sources for Bills and Legislation
LexisNexis Congressional - Index to Congressional publications--reports, hearings, and documents. Indexed by subject, name, and bill, Public Law, and report numbers. Includes legislative history for "significant" laws of a given year. 1970-present.
Laws and Legislation
Federal
publication path of federal laws:
Slip law -> Statutes at Large -> U.S. Code
United States Code (USC) - Federal laws currently in force (Ref KF61 .U51 or on GPO Access)
The United States Code is the codification by subject matter of the general and permanent laws of the United States. It is divided by broad subjects into 50 titles and published by the Office of the Law Revision Counsel of the U.S. House of Representatives. Since 1926, the United States Code has been published every six years. (GPO Access page)
United Stated Code Annotated (USCA) - Federal laws currently in force, annotated with reference to federal and state court reports (KF62.5 .W45)
United States Code Service (USCS) - Similar to USCA (on LexisNexis Academic under Legal Research/Federal Code/U.S. Code)
U.S. Statutes at Large (Stat.) - Official publication of all public and private laws of the U.S. in chronological order, 1789-present (KF50 .U5, or 1789-1875 online from the Library of Congress )
Every law, public and private, ever enacted by the Congress is published in the Statutes at Large in order of the date of its passage. Until 1948, all treaties and international agreements approved by the Senate were also published in the set. In addition, the Statutes at Large includes the text of the Declaration of Independence, Articles of Confederation, the Constitution, amendments to the Constitution, treaties with Indians and foreign nations, and presidential proclamations.(Library of Congress' American Memory Project page on Statutes at Large)
U.S. Code Congressional and Administrative News (USCCAN) - Laws arranged by Public Law number, plus legislative histories, 1968-present (KF48 .W45)
Oregon
Oregon Revised Statutes (ORS) - Oregon laws currently in force (Ref KFO2429 .O73 or on Oregon.gov )
Rules and Regulations
Overview
The term Case law refers to the legal interpretations contained in the decisions of courts as applied to a specific set of facts.
For a fine tutorial on doing legal research, visit the University of California-Irvine Libraries web page. Cases and Digests is found here .
Finding a Case in LexisNexis
OSU's primary access to case law is the LexisNexis Academic database. It includes a comprehensive Legal Research section that allows you to access full text of court cases by topic or by case name and number, as well as providing access to law journals and reviews.
Click on the Legal tab to get access.
Here you can search Law Reviews (the default search) as a guide to finding important legal cases or law related to a particular legal topic. You can also choose to search:
Federal & State Cases This allows the user to search for decisions from all federal court level cases (Ex: Supreme Court, Court of Appeals, District Courts, Bankruptcy Courts, Tax Courts, Customs Courts, Military Courts, etc.) and/or to search state court and appellate court decisions by keyword, case name, citation number, or by name of the judge, counsel or firm.
Shepard'sTM Citations: "Shepardizing" is a way to make sure that a case has not been overturned. It ensures that a case is still "good law." Shepardizing also allows the user to find additional cases that stand for the same legal principle as the original case.
You may also search for tax law, Canadian court cases or legislation, International law, and patent law.
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LexisNexis Academic
Comprehensive index to newspaper and magazine articles, radio and TV news program transcripts, legal material and other reference sources. Primarily focused on news, business and legal topics.
Includes full-text.
Concurrent Users: unlimited
Law Reporters
Case Law Reporters in the Valley Library
While case decisions are widely available online (such as in LexisNexis Academic), the print citation is still used to identify a particular case. You can then enter this into LexisNexis to retrieve the text of the decision.
One way to find the full citation is to use a printed book called a reporter. Reporters usually contain reports from appellate courts in specific geographic areas and specific jurisdictions. There are separate reporters for state courts and federal courts, and, as the legal field increases in complexity and specialization, there are a number of speciality or subject reporters.
United States Reports (U.S.) - Supreme Court Decisions (Official) KF101 .U58 or LexisNexis
OSU has: vol. 284-date (1931-date)
Supreme Court Reporter (S.Ct.) - Supreme Court Decisions (Unofficial) KF101 .A322 or LexisNexis
OSU has: vol. 1-120 (1809-1999)
Federal Cases (Fed.Cas.) - Important Federal Cases,
1789-1880 K .F295
OSU has: vol. 1-30
Federal Reporter, 1st-3rd series (F., F2d, F3d) - U.S. Courts of Appeals KF105 .F432 or LexisNexis
OSU has: vol. 1-222 (3rd series) (1880-2000)
Federal Supplement (F. Supp.) - U.S. District Courts, etc. KF120 .F42 or LexisNexis
OSU has: vol. 1-108 (1932-2000)
Oregon Reports (Or.) - Oregon Supreme Court (official) K .O78 or LexisNexis
OSU has: vol. 1-231 (1853-1964)
Pacific Reporter, 1st-3rd series (P., P2d, P3d) - Oregon Supreme Court (unofficial) KF132 .P2 P32 or LexisNexis
OSU has: vol. 1-46 (3rd series) (1884-1999)
Other state reporters exist and you may sometimes see abbreviations for them. The best place to look for those citations is in LexisNexis Academic under the Legal tab.
Finding a Case Online
Internet sources for Case Law include:
Supreme Court decisions from 1990-present as well as some Circuit Court and some States' Supreme Court decisions are available on the Internet. Click on the Law on the Internet tab to see a list of links to these decisions.
Oregon Case Law: State of Oregon Law Library Digital Collection "contains unofficial copies of Oregon Supreme Court (SC) and Court of Appeals (COA) Briefs and Opinions. Briefs coverage begins approximately May 2007, continuing to the present. (COA Briefs start with 212orapp488; SC Briefs start with 342or1). The long-term goal is to include Briefs back to the mid 1980's. Opinions coverage is 1998 to present." Recently added are
Oregon Voters' Pamphlets for Marion County elections.
Case Law
The Supreme Court
Circuit Courts (U.S. Courts of Appeals)
- Federal Circuit Court opinions are available from Findlaw.
State Courts
- State courts can be located by going to the Resources by Jurisdiction page on FindLaw, clicking on the state and finding the link for Courts.
Legislation and Statutory Law
The U.S. Code, Bills and Public Laws on GPO-Access The Government Printing Office's Wais databases provide access to the full text of Congressional Bills from the 103rd Congress forward, Public Laws of the 104th forward, the U.S Code since 1994, as well as several other databases. Also available from several Federal Depository Library Gateways.
THOMAS: Legislative Information on the Internet Includes full text of legislation from the 101st Congress onward, lists of "hot" bills by topic, number and short or popular title, the Congressional Record, Committee information, and more.
The U.S. Code (From the Office of the Law Revision Counsel, U.S. House of Representatives) This server provides full text searching of the Code.
The U.S. Code Hypertext version of the Code from the Legal Information Institute.
The House of Representatives - Internet Law Library Includes selected historical and current laws by source and title.
State Legislatures, State Laws and State Regulations Links to legislative resources on the Internet for all 50 states. From the Law Librarians' Society of Washington, DC.
Oregon Law
Law Directories
Federal Web Locator
from the Center for Information Law and Policy
Europa
European Union Homepage - includes the Parliament, the Council, the Commission, the Court of Justice, the Court of Auditors and other bodies of the European Union (EU).
Legal Information Institute
from Cornell Law School
FindLaw
Directory of legal information on the Internet, including cases, law schools, firms, association, information by subject, and much more.
Directory of Legal Academia
A directory of law professors and law librarians in American law schools. From the Legal Information Institute at Cornell University.
Regulations
Law by Subject
Google and Law