Legal Research 101: Federal Resources

Primary authorities or sources are regulations, statutes, and cases. These primary sources are binding on courts, the government, and individuals.

Primary authorities or sources are regulations, statutes, and cases. These primary sources are binding on courts, the government, and individuals.

Freely available government information useful for research and more.

Secondary sources explain and give background information on a particular area of the law. They also have citations to law and related articles that will further help you in your research.

USCCAN will help you locate legislative history on the federal statute(s) you are researching.

• HOW TO USE IT: Find the # of Congress (e.g., 92nd Congress, 1972) and the year in which your statute was enacted (this information is available at the end of the statute and should look like this: Pub. L. 92-318). In this example, the 92 refers to the 92nd Congress. Choose the volume that contains that Congressional session and the particular public law number (which will be listed on the spine). Once you find the public law, the entry will likely direct you to a different page within the same volume/congress (e.g., “for legislative history of Act see p. 2462”).
• WHEN YOU WOULD USE IT: This resource will give you information about the bill as it made its way through the legislative process (i.e., house number, senate number, committee findings, legislative hearings, etc.). This resource is useful when the wording of a statute is unclear.

You can also use THOMAS, a site maintained by the Library of Congress, to research legislative history, for free, from anywhere.

Use this resource to find public laws. It is organized chronologically according to congressional sittings. The Statutes at Large contain the laws as they were passed by Congress before they are codified in the United States Code. (Click here to access through Westlaw)

Model forms are samples of standard legal documents used often by lawyers in practice. There are basically two types of forms, instruments that are used to complete transactions between private parties, and pleadings which are filed in court.