Legal Research

State statutes: copyright vs. public access
Once upon a time, the only way to access cases, statutes, and regulations was in hardcopy at a library, or via subscription databases like Westlaw and Lexis. Over the past decade or so, sites like Justia, the LII, and others...

Open Access to Statutes
James Grimmelmann wrote a nice primer on copyright, statutes and open access, and how publishing statutes openly online benefits democracy: Copyright, Technology, and Access to the Law: "Recently, the state of Oregon has used copyright law to threaten people who...

Free Online Legal Databases (Some Even Searchable)
This article at law.com highlights several sites offering free access to databases of federal statutes and case law. Some are simply a repository of opinions, which can be handy if all you want to do is pull up a case...

Fastcase's Public Library of Law, the Web's Largest Free Law Library, Opens to the Public
The Public Library of Law (www.plol.org) is the world?s largest online database of free law. Our library brings free materials from across the Web together in one place, and adds hundreds of volumes of law that has previously only been available with a subscription...

Public Library of Law
FastCase, an online subscription database, has just launched the Public Library of Law, which they claim is the "largest free law library in the world." Through an interface that looks eerily like Google, you can search all US Supreme Court cases, Federal Circuit Court cases back to 1950, and state court cases back to 1997...

West Offers Free Access to PA's Statutes Online