Library arched windowsempty space Site Index

Legal Resources on the Internet

Links to:
Professional Organizations Law Librarianship Legal Dictionaries
Understanding and Writing Legal Citations Legal Forms Directories of Lawyers
Codes Court Opinions
Court Rules Search Engines for Legal Information General Indexes to Legal Resources

Professional Organizations

  • National Federation of Paralegal Associations, Inc.
    Includes a career center, information on professional development, association publications, and listservs and chatrooms for paralegals.
           http://www.paralegals.org/

  • National Association of Legal Assistants
          http://www.nala.org/

  • The West Virginia State Bar
    Information for lawyers practicing in West Virginia, including a calendar of events, committee information, membership directory, research, continuing education, publications and a legal career center.
          http://www.wvbar.org/

  • American Bar Association Network
    Information for lawyers, students and the general public. Access to home pages for 70 sections and programs within the ABA, for example, children and the law, criminal justice section, commission on homelessness and poverty. These sections can provide fact sheets, compilations of court opinions on selected topics, newsletters, and web links. Provides a list of ABA approved law schools and advice for prospective law students.
          http://www.abanet.org/

Law Librarianship

  • LLRX: Law Library Resource Xchange
    An online newsletter of interest to those in the legal professions. Includes articles about using the internet for legal research and resources on topics such as International Law, State/Federal legislation, presentations and training and more.
          http://www.llrx.com/

  • The Virtual Chase: A Research Site for Legal Professionals
    Don't miss the tutorial, "Internet Research for Legal Professionals."  Includes articles on how to research, information quality, presentations and a guide to on-line sources of public records.
          http://www.virtualchase.com/

Legal Dictionaries

  • Duhaime's Law Dictionary
    Written by a Canadian Barrister and Solicitor. This dictionary is also made available through the WWLIA (World Wide Legal Information Association)site. Additionally, resources on various legal topics including bankruptcy, criminal law, family law and more.
          http://www.duhaime.org/diction.htm

  • 'Lectric Law Library's Legal Dictionary
    The 'Lectric Law Lexicon is based on Bouvier's Legal Dictionary, published in the 1850s, with many recent additions. "Explanations for 1000's of Law Related Words, Terms and Phrases."
          http://www.lectlaw.com/ref.html

  • Shark Talk: Everybody's Law Dictionary
    From the nolo.com Self-help Law Center. Nolo publications are committed to helping people "take charge of [their] own legal affairs." Includes resource centers for additional articles and products to expand on legal terminology.
          http://www.nolo.com/dictionary/wordindex.cfm

Understanding and Writing Legal Citations

Legal Forms

Forms for business and personal use predominate among those available over the internet, but litigation forms are not hard to find. Some sites charge a small fee for downloading. Each state has its own requirements for legal forms; consult a trustworthy source before modifying another state's form for West Virginia use.

Directories of Lawyers

Codes

Federal

  • Public and Private Laws
    Access slip laws by number.
    http://www.gpoaccess.gov/plaws/index.html

  • Code Classification Table

    • Identifies where public laws have been placed in code.
    http://uscode.house.gov/classification/tables.shtml

  • U.S. House of Representatives Office of the Law Revision Counsel
    Search by keyword or title, section, or other subdivision. Update by using the U.S. Code Classification Tables, which cross lists Code title and section, Public Law number, and Statutes number.
          http://uscode.house.gov/lawrevisioncounsel.shtml

  • Cornell's Legal Information Institute (U.S. Code)
    Search by title, section, or table of contents. Includes Table of Popular Names and a search engine that does not use Boolean connectors). Can restrict search to a specific title.
          http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/

  • GPO (Government Printing Office) Access to the U.S. Code
    Search the Code and its Supplements separately. Searchable by U.S. Code citation, Public Law number, Statutes-at-Large citation. Read "helpful hints" before search. Look at header in result for sections affected by later laws.
          http://www.gpoaccess.gov/uscode/index.html

  • Thomas: Legislative Information on the Internet
    Find the texts of Bills and their legislative histories by number of Congress. Provides links to the Congressional Record. Search by keyword, subject, bill number, stage in legislative process, date of introduction, bill sponsor, or committee name. Browse public and private laws by number, look for vetoed bills, and more.  
          http://thomas.loc.gov/

  • U.S. Code of Federal Regulations
    Provides the rules of Executive departments and agencies. Update using the Federal Register (below) where the rules are first published. Search by keyword (Boolean connectors must be all capitalized), citation, or title or browse through titles and/or volumes..
          http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/cfr-table-search.html

  • The Federal Register
    Search by volume, sections, issue date, and keyword. Browse the table of contents of today's Federal Register.  Also includes links to related resources.
           http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/index.html

Other

State

  • West Virginia Code
    Browse Code by chapter or try a keyword search. Contact lawmakers, read bills on-line and track the status of legislation.  This version of the Code is not annotated.
          http://www.legis.state.wv.us/

  • [West Virginia] Code of State Rules "The Code of State Rules, or CSR, is a compilation of the current rules in effect of all agencies, boards and commissions which are covered by the Administrative Procedures Act. In addition to the current rules, new proposed rules, emergency rules and historical rules are available."(from the Secretary of State's Administrative Law Division website)

          http://www.wvsos.com/csr/

  • West Virginia State Register "The State Register is the title of a weekly publication which gives the public current information about the status of rules moving through the rule making process, notices of meetings, newly filed orders, decisions and opinions and more."

          http://www.wvsos.com/adlaw/register/register.htm

  • Full Text State Statutes & Legislation on the Internet
    Links to the constitutions and codes of all 50 states.
          http://www.prairienet.org/~scruffy/f.htm

Court Opinions

Regional Courts

  • West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals
    Provides opinions by year, 1991 to date; has an incomplete topical index. Also hosts several legal references including a law library, court rules and forms, self help center and more.
          http://www.state.wv.us/wvsca/

  • U.S. Court of Appeals 4th Circuit
    Serves Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia. Search by year and month of decision, by party name, or keyword. For links to other Federal Circuit Courts, see "Federal Courts Finder" below."
          http://www.law.emory.edu/4circuit/

  • West Virginia Administrative Law
    Go to "Code of State Rules" then to "Opinions, Orders and Decisions" and "Executive and Agency Orders."  Find orders and opinions including executive orders, Attorney General opinions, ethics opinions and grievance decisions.
          http://www.state.wv.us/

  • U.S. Supreme Court

  • Cornell University's Legal Information Institute.
    Includes everything since 1990 searchable by topic, party name, and year. Gets decisions on the day they are given. Includes background information on current cases. Historic collection includes 580 of the court's most important decisions, accessible by party name, topic, and by opinion author.
          http://www.law.cornell.edu/

  • Find Law
    "Supreme Court Cases by oral argument date.  Includes links to lower court decisions, docket sheets, oral argument transcripts and Supreme Court briefs where available."
          http://www.findlaw.com/casecode/supreme.html

  • Supreme Court of the United States
    Official site for the U.S. Supreme Court.  Includes information about the court, its rules and its calendar.  Provides orders, opinions, case handling, guides and information for the public.
          http://www.supremecourtus.gov/

Links to Federal and State Courts

  • Courts.Net: The Nation's Court Directory.
    Links to federal courts and state courts.  Search public records, criminal records, marriages and more.
          http://www.courts.net/

  • The Federal Judiciary Home Page An indepth look at the federal judiciary. Includes the chief Justice's Annual Report, the federal courts newsletter, FAQs about federal judges, links to federal courts, and publications on federal judicial topics, such as death penalty cases and caseloads.
          http://www.uscourts.gov

  • Emory Law Library Federal Courts Finder A clickable map with links to U.S. Circuit Courts. Decisions by year and month for each Circuit.
          http://www.law.emory.edu/FEDCTS/

  • Washlaw Search Page Links to the Supreme Court, the U.S. Court of Appeals, Circuit Courts, City Codes, court rules for federal and state courts, state law, uniform laws, and more.
          http://www.washlaw.edu/

Court Rules

Search Engines for Legal Information

  • Law Crawler
    Powered by Google. You may search legal websites and FindLaw and web databases for options such as US Federal Case Law, US State Case Law, US State Codes and Regulations and more.
          http://www.lawcrawler.com

  • Law Runner
    Also driven by Alta Vista. The search engine for the Internet Legal Resources Guide. Search individual courts, U.S. government agencies, state and provincial governments.  Download legal forms, investigate salaries of legal professionals, continuing legal education and more.
          http://www.lawrunner.com

General Indexes to Legal Resources

  • American Law Sources Online
    Links to free online sources of North American (U.S., Canadian, and Mexican) law. Organized by region; provides abundant links to law, practice, and commentary pertaining to each geographical area.
          http://www.lawsource.com/also

    FindLaw
    Highly recommended directory to internet legal resources. Well-organized and easy to use. Uses Law Crawler for its search engine.
          http://www.findlaw.com

  • Internet Legal Resource Guide
    Global in scope, but emphasis is on the United States. Interested in providing links to unique, high quality legal resources on the internet. Includes legal forms, law school rankings, topical indexes, U.S. Statutes, U.S. Case Law, and more. Uses the Law Runner search engine.
          http://www.ilrg.com

  • Katsuey Kat's Legal Resource Links
    38 categories of legal information. Published by a para-legal who wanted fast, reliable, free sources.
          http://www.katsuey.com

  • The Legal Information Institute of Cornell Law School
    Purpose is to "explore new ways of distributing legal documents and commentary." A well-respected source of primary legal materials.
          http://www.law.cornell.edu/

  • Pritchard Law Webs.
    The highly acclaimed U.S. House of Representatives Internet Law Library was discontinued as of May 28, 1999. This site is one of several that will maintain and update the HR Law Library in its absence. Provides the U.S. Code, U.S. federal and state laws, treaties, laws of other countries, and other legal information.
          http://www.priweb.com/internetlawlib/

  • Yahoo! Government--Law
    Many subtopics in law, including lawyer jokes.
          http://dir.yahoo.com/Government/Law/
Send suggestions and comments to Peggy Turnbull, pturnbull@bluefieldstate.edu Links checked January 23, 2007.