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Law and Legislation

A general guide for basic legal research and citation

Welcome to the David L. Rice Library Law and Legislation Research Guide!

In this guide, you will find a collection of tools, texts, and links to library databases and resources useful for finding information about the law (cases and decisions, state and federal legislation, and legal reference and citation guides) for use in several different disciplines (business, communication, political science, criminology, etc.). This guide is designed to provide appropriate starting places for legal research and citation for non-experts, and should not be treated as a source of actual legal advice.

How to use this guide

Material provided in the Law and Legislation Research Guide has been broken down into three different categories:

  • If you want to find cases and court decisions and learn more about federal and state courts, use the Cases and Courts tab.
  • If you want to learn more about legislation and legislative bodies, use the State and Federal Legislation tab.
  • The International Law page provides a set of basic resources for learning more about that subject.
  • Links to basic law dictionaries and citation manuals (as well as a few other general reference sources for legal study) are found at the Citation and Legal Reference tab.

There may be some redundancy in the database link lists for each tab, but keep scrolling! While each research area has resources in common, they also have specialized material of their own for you to find.

General Research Links and Citation Help

Research Links

Citation Help