Legal Sources

Electronic Resources Accessible from DOI Locations Only

Employees who are teleworking may access these databases through the Department's VPN.
 

EBSCO Online

• Legal Collection
   

Gale Directory Library

• Law and Legal Information Directory
   

Gale Virtual Reference Library

• Gale Encyclopedia of U.S. History: Government and Politics
• West's Encyclopedia of American Law
   

HeinOnline

• U.S. Federal Agency Documents, Decisions, and Appeals
• American Indian Law Collection
   

Indian Claims Insights

ProQuest Congressional Collections

ProQuest Legislative Insight, Part B (1789-1960)

Rocky Mountain Mineral Law Foundation Digital Library

U.S. Congressional Serial Set

Web Sites: Table of Contents

• U.S. Department of the Interior
• Indian Law
• Presidential Documents
• Constitutional Law and Case Law
• Bills, Hearings, Statutes and Regulations
• General Current Information and Research Tools
   

Law at the U.S. Department of the Interior
 

HeinOnline -- Accessible from DOI Locations Only

• U.S. Department of the Interior Collection
   

Laws, Regulations, Policies and Decisions

• ELIPS: Electronic Library of Interior Policies
  This source contains links to Secretary's Orders, Departmental Manual chapters, Bulletins and Memoranda

• Memo: Solicitor's Opinions Paper (Undated)
• Memo: "M" Opinions, June 30, 1969 (on indexing of these opinions)
   

Bureau of Indian Affairs

• Indian Affairs Directives System
• Assistant Secretaries' Orders
• Indian Affairs Handbooks
• Indian Affairs Manual
• Memoranda
• Regulations Overview
• Title 25, Chapters I and V of the U.S. Code
   

Bureau of Land Management

• Laws and Regulations
• Federal Register Notices
  Recent notices, on the BLM's website
• Federal Register
  Listings of Significant Documents and Recently Published Documents, since 1994. Produced by the Office of the Federal Register
• Title 43, Chapter II of the U.S. Code
   

Bureau of Ocean Energy Management

• BOEM Governing Statutes
• Regulation and Guidance
• Federal Register Notices
• Regulatory Reforms
• Title 30, Chapter V of the U.S. Code
   

Bureau of Reclamation

• Reclamation Manual
• Title 43, Chapter I of the U.S. Code
   

Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement

• Guidance and Regulations
• Regulations in Development
• Title 30, Chapter II of the U.S. Code
   

Fish and Wildlife Service

• Digest of Federal Resource Laws
• Directives
  Includes Servicewide policies, Directors' Orders, Handbooks, and the FWS Manual
• Centralized Library of Servicewide Policies
• Federal Register Notices
• Title 50, Chapters I and IV of the U.S. Code
   

Geological Survey

• U.S. Geological Survey Manual
• Title 30, Chapter IV of the U.S. Code
   

National Park Service

• Antiquities Act of 1906
• Laws and Legislative Information
• Management Policies 2006
• Office of Policy
  With links to Executive Orders, Laws, Regulations, and Directors' Orders
• National NAGPRA Notices and NAGPRA laws and regulations
• Title 36, Chapter I of the U.S. Code
   

Office of Hearings and Appeals

• Search the Database of Cases Decided by the Office of Hearings and Appeals
• Finding IBIA (Interior Board of Indian Appeals) Decisions (1970 to the present)
• Cumulative Chronological Index of IBIA Cases
• Finding Pre-IBIA Decisions (prior to 1970)
• Finding IBLA (Interior Board of Land Appeals) Decisions (1970 to the present)
• Cumulative Chronological Index of IBLA Cases
   

The office provides access to these decisions:

• A and M Decisions (1920-1970)
• Copps Mineral and Public Land Laws (1881, 1890)
• Digest of Grazing Decisions (1993-2001)
• Director's Decisions (1996 to the present)
• Hearings Division (Selected, 2000 to the present)
• IBIA Decisions (1970 to the present)
• IBLA Decisions (1970 to the present)
• Land Decisions (1881-1929) and Interior Decisions (1930-1994)
• Solicitor's Opinions (1993 to the present)
   

Office of Natural Resources Revenue

• Rules and Regulations
• Title 30, Chapter XII of the U.S. Code
   

Office of Surface Mining, Reclamation and Enforcement

• Laws, Regulations, and Guidance
• Title 30, Chapter VII of the U.S. Code
   

Office of the Solicitor

• Solicitor's Opinions ("M" Decisions, 1993 to the present)
• Decisions of the U.S. Department of the Interior (1881 to 1994)
• Memo: Solicitor's Opinions Paper (Undated)
• Memo: "M" Opinions, June 30, 1969 (on indexing of these opinions)

Indian Law

See the Library's guide on Native Americans, Legal Sources

Presidential Documents

• The American Presidency Project
  The archives contain over one hundred thousand documents related to the study of the Presidency, from 1789 to the present

• Papers of President Woodrow Wilson digitized by the Library of Congress

• Codification of Presidential Proclamations and Executive Orders from April 13, 1945 through January 20, 1989

• Executive Orders
  Disposition Tables, January 8, 1937 to the present (Office of Federal Register)

• Office of Management and Budget
  with links to Bulletins, Circulars, and Memoranda

• Statements of Administration Policy on Non-Appropriations and Appropriations Bills
  Published by the Office of Management and Budget

• Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States
  From the Reagan administration to the present

• Compilation of Presidential Documents
  1992 to the present

Constitutional Law and Case Law

• America's Founding Documents
  National Archives and Records Administration

• Constitution Annotated

• Federal Court Locator, Find a Federal Case (PACER), and About the Federal Courts

• Federal Law Collection
  Provided by the Legal Information Institute, Cornell University Law School

• Findlaw's Cases and Codes
  Contains resources and links for both state and federal laws.

• National Center for State Courts: Court Web Sites

• The Oyez Project
  Multimedia, devoted to the Supreme Court

• Supreme Court Official Web Site, the Bound Volumes (United States Reports, 1991 to the present), and Where to Obtain Supreme Court Opinions

• SCOTUSBlog

• Supreme Court Decisions, 1990 to the present, and a Historic Case collection
  Provided by the Legal Information Institute, Cornell University Law School
   

Bills, Hearings, Statutes and Regulations
 

Federal Laws and Regulations

Current:

• Active Legislation
  Provided weekly by the U.S. Senate Library while Congress is in session

• Congress.gov
  Congress.gov, the successor to THOMAS.gov, is a collaborative effort by the Library of Congress, Senate, House of Representatives, and the Government Publishing Office. Researchers can now search across all of the content in the system, refine their results, quickly see the status of a bill on a timeline, and view the new Member pages with sponsored and cosponsored legislation. Additionally, the system is designed to dynamically fit any size screen used: mobile, notebook, and/or computer.

• eCFR
  The Code of Federal Regulations (Government Publishing Office)

• gov.info (Government Publishing Office)

• Regulations.gov
  An electronic rulemaking repository, enabling Departments and Agencies to post all rulemaking documents for public access and comment

• House Practice for the 115th Congress
  And other House Parliamentarian publications

• Senate Rules and Procedure

• The Budget Process
  Links to CRS reports on the budget process. Some have been updated.

Retrospective:

• Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation
  A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates, 1774-1873, contains records and acts of Congress from the Continental Congress through the Forty-second Congress. The records of the Continental Congress, the Constitutional Convention, and the United States Congress comprise a rich documentary history of the construction of the nation, the development of the federal government, and its role in the national life. The collection is maintained by the Library of Congress.
   
• Journal of the House of Representatives of the United States (1st Congress (1789)-14th Congress (1816/1817))
   
• The Journal of the Senate, including the Journal of the Executive proceedings of the Senate  (1st Congress (1789)-14th Congress (1816/1817))

• Legislative Histories
  Compiled and provided by the U.S. Department of Justice Library

• Legislative Histories of Selected U.S. Laws on the Internet: Free Sources
  Compiled by the Law Librarians' Society of Washington, D.C.

State Laws and Regulations

• Findlaw's Cases and Codes
  US State Laws - Cases, Codes, Statutes and Regulations

• State and Local Government on the Net

• State Law, Government and Legislative Information
  WashLaw WEB, produced by Washburn University School of Law

• Full-text State Statutes and Legislation on the Internet

• BillTrack50
  A free service on federal and state bills and legislators

• State Government Websites

Local Laws and Regulations

• Municipal Code Online Library
  Produced by the Municipal Code Corporation
   

General Current Information and Research Tools

Blawgs and News

• Jurist

• Law.com
  Legal news and information

• Legal Blawgs: Archived Web Sites
  The Law Library of Congress began harvesting blawgs in 2007. The collection has grown to more than one hundred items covering a broad cross section of legal topics.

• LexisNexis Legal Newsroom

• National Law Journal
   

Resources, Guides and Directories

• Congressional Budget Office

• Congressional Research Service Reports
  Congressional Research Service reports can be the best way to quickly get up to speed on major political issues. CRS is Congress’ think tank, and its reports are relied upon by policymakers and others for accurate, timely and nonpartisan analysis of important policy issues.

• • Congressional Research Service Reports
    Collected and made available by the University of North Texas Libraries.

  • CRSReports.com
    The site claims to have more than thirty-three thousand current and historical CRS reports. 

  • EveryCRSReport.com
    In partnership with a Republican and Democratic member of Congress, EveryCRSReport.com includes reports available on Congress's internal website, more than eight thousand in all. 

  • Library of Congress
    The Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2018 directs the Library of Congress to make CRS reports publicly available online.

    The result is a new public website for CRS reports based on the same search functionality that Congress uses – designed to be as user friendly as possible – that allows reports to be found by common keywords.

    Moving forward, all new or updated reports will be added as they are made available to Congress. The Library is also working to make available the back catalog of previously published reports as expeditiously as possible.

  • Selected Congressional Research Service Reports on Congress and Its Procedures
    Maintained by the Law Librarians' Society of Washington, D.C.

• Ecolex
  ECOLEX is a database providing the most comprehensive, global source of information on environmental law. ECOLEX is operated jointly by FAO, IUCN and UNEP.

• EnviroLink

• Findlaw.com
  Cases, codes, law schools, journals, CLE, etc.

• Guide to Law Online
  Provided by the Law Library of Congress

• Justia
  Provides free case law, codes, regulations, legal articles and legal blog databases, as well as community resources.

• Law Library of Congress

• Legal Information Institute
  Constitutions, codes, court opinions, from the Cornell Law School

• Legislative Explorer: Data Driven Discovery
  An aid to observing large scale patterns and trends in Congressional lawmaking, produced by the University of Washington's Center for American Politics and Public Policy and the design firm Schema

• Legislative Sourcebook
  Produced by the Law Librarians' Society of Washington, D.C., it includes a section of Selected Congressional Research Service Reports on Congress and Its Procedures, with links to all major sources of CRS reports.

• Martindale.com

• Public Library of Law
  Created by Fastcase, PLoL includes cases from the U.S. Supreme Court and Courts of Appeals, cases from all fifty states back to 1997, Federal statutory law and codes from all fifty states, Regulations, court rules, constitutions, and more. PLoL also includes free links to paid content on Fastcase.

• State Legislative History Research Guides on the Web
  Provided by the Law Library at the Indiana University School of Law Library—Bloomington

• World Treaty Index
  Originally developed at the University of Washington, the electronic index is now maintained at the University of Michigan.
   

Updated October 2021