Free Online Legal Resources

Created by two lawyers who clerked for the 1st Circuit of Appeals, Casetext is a platform that gives free access to cases, statutes, and regulations. This open source database covers all federal cases, statutes, and regulations but has limited state resources. Casetext also has a unique community of lawyer-authors who contribute analysis and annotations through posts and comments.

This free online resource provides articles on a variety of legal topics, from criminal law to tax law. This is a great starting point for any legal topic, and the articles direct the reader to important laws and cases on each subject.

Justia is an open access database that provides legal resources to all. Users will find U.S. case law, codes, and regulations as well as legal resources for all 50 states. You can research the law by subject, find local lawyers, and learn all about law school. You can also subscribe to Justia newsletters, which send daily court opinion summaries, as well as legal news and analysis.

LII is an open access database from the Cornell University Law School. The LII collection covers federal law (specifically Supreme Court cases, the U.S. Code, and the Code of Federal Regulations, as well as the Uniform Commercial Code). LII also links each state’s website so users can access state constitutions, bills, laws, and much more. There is also access to Wex, a legal dictionary and encyclopedia edited by legal experts.

From the IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law, this website follows every move of the Supreme Court, and is the archival home of the high court’s oral arguments. Type a case name into the search box and get an abbreviated version of the case, with a summary of facts, the essential question being asked, a synopsis of the decision, and how each justice voted. You can browse cases by term or issue, read justice biographies, and take a virtual tour of the Supreme Court building. A great resource for the Supreme Court.

Ravel Law is free with a .edu email address and is a great legal resource for case law. You can use easy keyword searching, narrow by the jurisdiction you want, and Ravel Law will give you a detailed map of case law. The most important cases are larger circles with lines connecting them to smaller circles that denote similar cases. Recently, Ravel Law announced a project to digitally house the entire Harvard Law School collection and just added the United States Code.

Legiscan is a free database that monitors current legislation in all 50 states, as well as the U.S. Congress. This open access resource devotes a page to tracking each state’s active legislation. The state legislation pages also include top bill sponsors, a list of the most viewed and monitored bills, and an overview of past legislative sessions. The database allows you to easily browse Congressional bills by House and Senate and by their current status. Register for a free account and track bills being debated in your home state or current federal legislation.

Open States gives an overview of recently introduced and pending legislation in all 50 states. For each bill, you can view the bill text, any actions taken, who sponsored the bill, and much more. You can browse by state using their interactive map or use your address to discover the bills your local legislators are considering. The site also provides the contact information of current legislators, the committees they belong to, and what bills they have sponsored. With the use of Influence Explorer, you can search for legislators and view who contributed to their campaign. Open States now has an app for your phone, so you can track legislation on the go.

Municode provides codification and publishing services for more than 4,200 cities and counties in all 50 states. More than 3,200 municipal codes are available online for free in the Municode Library. All the codes are easy to browse using a side panel table of contents, and the changes function lets you see what sections have recently been edited.

The American Association of Law Libraries special committee LISP-SIS provides legal research resources through its public library toolkit. The site helps librarians understand the legal research process and offers best practice guides. There are also toolkits for all 50 states, which include information and links for each state’s constitution, statutes, bills, regulations, and so much more.

NCSC is a best practices website tailored mostly to court employees, but it has a variety of resource guides that anyone can view. The resource guides cover topics from court security to technology in the courts. There are a variety of data projects that compare the state courts, like the Court Statistics Project, which examines caseload data from all 50 states. Best of all, the site has compiled a list of state court databases, which house court dockets and documents (if available, every state is different).

NCSL is an organization that provides research and resources for legislators and their staff. This website is a great resource if you are looking for information about the differences and similarities of legal topics between states. The research tab is divided into a variety of topics like agriculture and transportation. Under each topic you can find reports on a specific legislative issue. These reports are a great starting point for researching current issues facing state governments.

These reports are provided to Congress by the CRS and cover a variety of topics from healthcare to cyberterrorism. The University of North Texas has archived all CRS reports that have been made public in their digital library. These reports are extremely well researched and give detailed background information and legislative history on a large number of topics.

With more than 300,000 works devoted to law scholarship, the Digital Commons Network is a great place for access to free, full-text law review articles and legal scholarship. Using the subject heading wheel, you can explore disciplines from family law to transportation law. Each discipline has its own page that showcases popular articles, institutions, and authors.

SSRN allows authors to post their scholarship for all to read. SSRN encourages not only the dissemination of ideas, but also discussion of research between authors and readers. Works are grouped in research and working paper series in subjects covering topics from globalization and public policy to taxation. You can view both abstracts of each work or the full text (if available).

Many of the ABA committees produce reports and publications on a variety of legal topics. Many of these reports are free through the ABA website and can give great background information or current best practices on both federal and state legal issues. The public resources page includes a legal help finder, information about preparing for law school, statistics about the legal profession, and information about the courts.

Founded in 1972, the NWLC promotes and advocates for policies and laws that benefit women and their families. Includes topics such as Child Care and Early Learning, Title IX, Health Care, Reproductive Rights, Racial and Ethnic Justice, and Workplace.

A non-profit law and advocacy organization established and directed by American Indians.

To help figure out the abbreviated title in a legal citation, try Cardiff’s Index to Legal Abbreviations. This easy to use database lets you plug in what you know and then gives you a list of possible titles. When you click on the title, the database gives you publication information, so you can easily track it down.