| CUNY's official law library
is located at the CUNY Law School in Queens, however, researchers at Brooklyn
College will find a basic paper collection on campus for questions dealing
with: NY State law, Federal Statutes, Federal regulations, and US Constitutional
law. We also subscribe to Lexis-Nexis Academic Universe which provides
users with online full-text case law, statutes and law reviews. In addition,
the expansion of free legal resources on the internet has vastly increased
the amount of material available to users without easy access to a law
library. Most sites listed below are free and can be used from any location.
Licensed sites that require on-campus, RPA or proxy server use are noted
as licensed products.
Indices
Lexis-Nexis
Academic Universe
Find articles
from newspapers around the world and legal information including codes,
regulations and law reviews for your term papers. [Available on campus
and through proxy server]
Government
Periodicals Universe
Covering 245
titles produced by Federal agencies this index provides a key to hard to
find government information and includes titles like the FBI Law Enforcement
Bulletin, Army Lawyer, many Bureau of Justice Statistics publications,
Civil
Rights Journal, Crime Laboratory Digest, EPA Journal,
and the Social Security Bulletin among others. It provides only
citations, no full-text.
Paper Indices
(unless
otherwise noted, paper editions are located in the Documents Information
Center)
Index to
Legal Periodicals & Books
(Field Library Reference KF8.I5)
Shepard's
Acts and Cases by Popular Names
US Supreme
Court Digest
To find a list
of law periodicals at Brooklyn College Library go to CUNY+ and do a subject
search
S=Law--Periodicals
S=Law Reviews
(journals produced by law students)
Online Full-text Legal Resources
DocsLaw
With their
usual thoroughness Washlaw has tracked down an impressive selection of
federal regulatory and oversight agency websites complete with links to
their manuals, publications, forms and opinions where available.
elaws
Advisors
Interactive
site designed to allow workers and small businesses to find out about your
rights and their responsibilities under the employment laws and regulations
administered by the Department of Labor (DOL).
FedLaw
Created as
a legal resource for federal lawyers and other government employees the
site has topical, subject and title indices. It includes federal laws and
regulations, Federal Judiciary, Congressional Resources, and arbitration
and mediation materials. Also includes links to legal research guides.
FindLaw
One of the
very best, easy to navigate and nearly comprehensive guides to legal information
on the WWW. Includes many levels of law for US state and federal materials
as well as international jurisdictions.
Law
Library of Congress
Contains the
following:
Introductions to the Legal System & the Nation
Constitution & Constitutional Law
Congress & Federal Legislative Process
US Code & Other Federal Legislation
Executive Agencies & Regulations
Law - Particular Fields
Federal Courts & Decisions
States & Associated Jurisdictions
Criminal Justice System (including states)
Law Reviews Online
Native Peoples ("American Indian Tribes")
Other Online Guides & Lists to United States law
NAFTA - North American Free Trade Agreement
World Trade Organization & GATT
Judicial
Resources Page
Statutes,
regulations, judicial opinions, court rules, Comptroller General decisions,
law journals, and links to law related Internet sites.
Law
Reviews Online
If you haven't set up proxy yet
and need full-text legal journals online this page links to more than 60
law reviews. Coverage varies, but generally extends back to 1990s. Some
links to other sites with limited law journal coverage are included.
Legal
Information Institute Cornell Law School
This WWW server
integrates both the Gopher based and the WWW-based offerings of the Legal
Information Institute (LII), Cornell Law School. Includes recent Supreme
Court decisions and indexes cases by justice's name, constitutional issue
and case name. Also includes recent opinions of the New York Court of Appeals,
full US Code and many other important legal documents. Provides links to
other law sites.
Washlaw
Web
This page isn't pretty to look at, but you'll keep coming back because
their resources are good and extensive. Their simple grid layout makes
this page very easy to navigate.
WWW
Virtual Library-Law
A collection
of subject related Web sites maintained by institutions throughout the
world, each administering a different subject. Material within the Virtual
Law Library is organized by organization type (i.e., US government servers)
and by legal topic (i.e., contracts). There is also a list of search tools
and other comprehensive sites for law. Includes links to online legal periodicals.
One stop shopping for legal information.
U.S Legislative Resources
Paper
Hearings (indexed
in CUNY+ since 1976)
Statutes
at Large (aka Public Laws): the laws of the United States as passed
by Congress
Federal
Register
Code of
Federal Regulations (current volumes only)
US Reports:
the comprehensive set of Supreme Court decisions.
Constitution
of the United States (various editions)
Online Resources
Historic
Materials
Core
Documents of US Democracy
Includes many
essential historical documents of the US Government, including the Constitution.
Century
of Lawmaking for a New Nation
US Congressional
Documents and Debates from 1774-1873 including full-text primary sources
such as the Journals of Congress, Journals of the Continental
Congress, Elliot's Debates, Farrand's Record, and selected
volumes of the US Serial Set.
Bills, Hearings, Laws
and Regulations:
The legislative
process involves several stages. Bills are introduced in Congress, whose
activities can be tracked using the Congressional Record. They are
considered by committees which generate hearings. New laws are first published
as Statutes at Large and later codified into the US Code.
The actual application of laws is governed by the regulatory process which
is published daily in the Federal Register and compiled annually
in the Code of Federal Regulations.
THOMAS
Options include:
Bills in the News, bill summaries and status for the current Congress,
roll call votes, Public Laws by PL number back to the 93rd Congress, Congressional
Record back to the 101st Congress, and Committee Reports from the 104th
Congress to date. Major new laws are available through Thomas and via GPO
Gateway sites such as: http://www.gpo.ucop.edu/or
http://www.lib.umich.edu/libhome/Documents.center/
Congressional
Record Index Historical
Congressional Record Index
Track Congressional
action on bills using this topical index to the Congressional Record.
Browse Date and Part indexes for the 103rd and 104th Congresses and search
daily proceedings on House and Senate Floors from 1994-to-date.
The Congressional
Record Index is updated daily when Congress is in session. One of the
major advantages of the online versions is that these databases cumulate
from the beginning of each session of Congress. Individual years
may searched and the Historical database option searches all years except
for the current year.
The
Historical History of Bills and Resolutions (1983- present)
The History
of Bills and Resolutions is a section of the Congressional Record Index
that
provides information about all bills and resolutions introduced during
that session of Congress. Entries for each bill include actions that are
reported in the Congressional Record and reference issue, date and pages
where the action is reported.
Congressional
Publications
Hearings,
bills and other material from recent Congresses are now available.
Bills
and Public Laws at GPO Access
Materials
from the 104th-106th Congress. Files are available in both ASCII
text and PDF format.
Regulations
Federal
Register
The official
online edition contains Presidential documents, proposed and final
Federal Regulations, general notices and other documents. It is published
Monday through Friday except on federal holidays. The table of contents
from the current issue is available here on the day of publication. The
issue date is always the same as the day of publication.
Unified
Agenda (Semiannual Regulatory Agenda)
Twice a year
(April and October) federal agencies are required to publish regulatory
information they are developing or have recently completed in the Unified
Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions. Its index assumes
the user has a detailed knowledge of regulatory material.
Code
of Federal Regulations
The Code
of Federal Regulations (CFR) is a codification of the general
and permanent rules published in the Federal Register by the executive
departments and agencies of the federal government. Its 50 titles correspond
directly to the titles of the US Code. Multiple years are available.
GPO
Gate's CFR
University
of California's GPO Gate offers an enhanced adaptation of GPO Access. The
enhancements include searching multiple variables such as title, part and
page number, keyword, and linked tables of contents.
The Courts
Supreme
Court
Supreme
Court of the United States official site
Supreme
Court Decisions 1937-1975 at GPO Access
Supreme
Court (FindLaw)
This site offers a longer range
of decisions than most with Supreme Court decisions from volume 150
of the U.S. Reports (1893). A very valuable aspect of their site
is the links from citations within decisions to earlier decisions referenced.
Can be searched by US Reports volume number, year of publication, citation,
title or full text.
USSCPLUS
A commercial site, with extensive
Supreme Court coverage including 16,783 cases. Cases go back to 1897 and
there are selected cases back to 1793.
The
Oyez Project
Northwestern
University's site has selected cases and arguments back to 1961. You must
have the "Real Audio" plug-in in order to use this site.
Federal
Judiciary Homepage
Information
by and about the work of the Federal circuit and district courts with links
to the various courts' websites. Includes press releases, news, some decisions
and reports.
State and Local Sites
Paper
New York
State Register (2 years + current issues)
NY Reports,
Court of Appeals, 2d Series (no index)
NYS Session
Laws (no index)
McKinney's
Consolidated Laws of New York State
New York
City Charter and Administrative Code
Electronic
NY State
Case Law
Lexis-Nexis
Academic Universe
Select either
State Case Law or Get a Case from the Legal Research menu.
State and
NYC Laws and Information
NY
State Constitution
NY
State Legislature
Offers consolidated
laws of NYS by chapter, and information about the working of the State
Senate and Assembly.
NY
State Senate
Offers bills,
laws, reports, and information about the work of the state senate.
NY
State Assembly
Has bills,
reports, information on Assembly members; committee, commission and task
force updates.
Selected
NYS Regulations
Not all agencies
and not all regulations are available, but with few online sources for
regulations this site is plum.
NY
State Attorney General
NY
State Unified Court System
Information
about New York State's legal system, legal opinions, jury service, legal
forms and much more.
NYS
Government Information Locator Service
Links to official
NYS WWW pages and provides subject and branch of government access.
Selected
Legal Resources from the NYS Library
Legal directories,
links to courts and cases, municipal law and even a few international links.
These sites
have state level legal information:
Washlaw
New York
FindLaw
New York
Library
of Congress State and Local Governments
Local
New
York City Official Web site
City agencies,
forms, and publications.
Who
Represents Me?
NYPIRG's'
version of the League of Women Voters classic covers local, state and federal
officials.
International Law
NYU
School of Law Guide to Foreign and International Legal Databases
Possibly the
best on this subject available. This is a nearly comprehensive guide to
resources in this field.
American
Society for International Law Electronic Resources Page
Offers subject
and organizational links.
Guides to Legal Research
Virtual
Chase
Sponsored
by a law firm this site is intended to teach users how to do legal research
on the Internet. It has legal content as well as explanatory material about
legal issues and information on how to evaluate other sites for usefulness
and accuracy.
Legal
Analysis and Research Strategy
If you are new to legal research
this should be your starting point. It clearly defines the underlying principles
of law and legal research and guides users to the questions they should
be answering in their research. There are even links to definitions of
legal terms within the text.
Dictionaries
Paper
Black's
Law Dictionary (Field Library Reference KF156.B53Z)
Online
Everybody's
Legal Dictionary
Supported
by consumer legal publishers Nolo Press, this dictionary, while still
authoritative,
is less formal than most.
FindLaw
Legal Dictionary Online
Based on the
1996 Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of Law, this source is not only
authoritative, but links within the entries show users related terms and
the correct legal use of concepts and phrases.
Forms
Legal
Forms
A nice range of free legal forms
including federal court forms, and popular consumer forms such as wills,
letters, agreements, and contracts.
Findlaw
Forms
Findlaw really is the complete resource.
Users can find state forms, federal forms, and official bankruptcy forms.
Consumer forms including sample letters, wills, employment contracts, corporate
forms, and tax forms are also available. There are links to other web sites
with forms as well as links to commercial sites where users can purchase
forms.
Internet
Legal Resource Guide: Forms
A "forms archive" with a broad range
of consumer and business oriented forms for downloading. They offer
most forms for business and personal needs in clean, ready to print formats.
Send comments, suggestions or URLs to:
Prof.
Jane Cramer |