Free Websites for Legal Research: US Legislative / Constitution

Find the most comprehensive and complete 50-state information in NCSL's searchable bill tracking databases.

Sponsored by FastCase. Same coverage, but better printing options than the free FastCase app. The paid FastCase subscription service has older case law.
•Cases from the U.S. Supreme Court and Courts of Appeals
•Cases from all 50 states back to 1997
•Federal statutory law and codes from all 50 states. These are links to the state websites containing the statutes.

This collection contains the Constitutions, Constitutional Convention records, and other related documents for the constitutions of the 50 United States. They were scanned from the Rutgers Law Library's microfiche collection.

From Justia Law

Portal to the texts of the state constitutions of the United States.

LibGuide from Jennifer Morgan, Government Documents Librarian at Indiana U. Law School.

Another page of this libguide.

11th Cir. case 10/19/18 holding that Georgia's Official Code with Annotations is not copyrightable.

This case has been appealed to the US Supreme Court and was argued 12/2/19.

from the Office of the Law Revision Counsel. Official, unannotated version. Very up-to-date.

from the Government Publishing Office. Unannotated, official code.

Relatively up-to-date free source on the web. Link on each code sections gives new public laws affecting that section. Popular Name Table.

The Library of Congress has made available online the main editions and supplements of the US Code from 1925 through the 1988 edition.

Law Library Journal article by Shawn Nevers and Julie Graves Krishnaswami (2020)

Incomplete, but very valuable free source for the US Serial Set.

US Congressional Documents and Debates 1774-1875. From the Library of Congress. Another incomplete, but valuable and free source.

The Serial Set and the American State Papers are available from HeinOnline on the Franklin County Law Library Public Computers.

U.S. Constitution annotated by the Congressional Research Service. Presented by Cornell Law School.

A helpful hyperlinked outline provided by the National Paralegal College.

National Constitutional Center

From the Cornell Law School, Legal Information Institute

From Middle Tennessee State University

from Harvard Law School Library.

Special exhibit from the Harvard Law School Library.

National Archives. CORRESPONDENCE AND OTHER WRITINGS OF SEVEN MAJOR SHAPERS OF THE UNITED STATES:
George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams (and family), Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison. Over 185,000 searchable documents, fully annotated, from the authoritative Founding Fathers Papers projects.

Law Librarians of Congress, In Custodia Legis Blog, 5/15/17

Includes the Continental Congress Broadside Collection, the Constitutional Convention Broadside Collection, and early printed versions of the U.S. Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. Access full color scanned images as well as text versions of documents. Full text searchable.

Offers access to images of the Constitution, Declaration of Independence, and the Bill of Rights. This page also includes access to articles, exhibits, and links to questions and answers.

Provides the full text (in html) of several pre-Constitutional legal documents such as the Magna Carta (1215) and the English Bill of Rights (1689), as well as numerous historical documents under the categories of “Revolution and Independence,” “Credentials of the Members of the Federal Convention,” “the Constitutional Convention,” and “Ratification and Formation of the Government.”

From the Library of Congress. Full-text collection of Hamilton's writings, many in his own handwriting.

Replaced THOMAS. United States Public Laws ( 1973-); Bills ( 1989-); Congressional Record (1989-); Committee Reports (1995-) . See "All Congressional Actions" for references to the Congressional Record, committee reports, related bills.

Govinfo.gov 1957-current

Congress.gov has seen a great increase in traffic since the beginning of the Trump Administration.

1873- 2009 from gov.info

1995-current, including the Daily Digest, from Congress.gov.

Available online for free for the first time, from Congress.gov

Roll Call 6/19/19

Contains similar items as Congress.gov, but not as far back. Links to two items not in Thomas: Committee Hearings (1985-) and Committee Prints (1995-) .

1789-1875 from the Library of Congress.

CRS Report 8/18/20