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It's Time to Take Another Look at LII's U.S. Code Collection

By Abbie Bradfield Mulvihill

I recently took a new look at Cornell University Law School Legal Information Institute's (LII's) U.S. Code Collection and I have to say, I'm very impressed. You may have heard that they now have RSS feeds to alert you to recent changes to the U.S. Code. That, alone, is a pretty fantastic addition. You can get feeds for titles as well as individual sections. You can also browse and search titles and, more importantly, click for updates to any section or title.

LII uses the official version of the U.S. Code from the U.S. House of Representatives Web site. It's updated using the Law Revision Counsel's Classification Tables. If you want to stay current, this is current. All you have to do is follow the trail to double-check the work they've already done for you!

So, let's say you want to cite 10 USC 2467. Click on that cite link and take a look at the right-hand side. You'll see Notes that provide the history of the section - you can see that it was added to the Code by PL 100-456; a 1988 public law. Click on the "Updates" (or "How Current is This?") and you'll see that this section was repealed earlier this year. LII tells you which public law repealed it and specifically which section. They also provide links to the law so that you can double-check this information yourself. Links to parallel authorities are also included on the right-side of each section.

LII's U.S. Code Collection has really improved. It's a great starting point.

Full post as published by AbsTracked on August 25, 2008 (boomark / email).