United States Law

Core Resources

WestlawNext Campus Research

Comprehensive database of legal materials, including cases, statutes, and regulations of the U.S. government and the various state governments; includes the legal encyclopedia American Jurisprudence 2nd and American Law Reports; case law from 1789 to present; current statutes and regulations. Documents can also be accessed through broad subject categories such as Civil Rights, International Law and Environmental Law.

Nexis UNI (former Lexis-Nexis Academic)

Comprehensive database of legal materials, including cases, statutes, and regulations of the U.S. government and the various state governments; case law from 1789 to present; current and historical statutes and regulations from 1980 forward. Provides full text of many major global, national, and regional newspapers. 

Proquest Congressional 1789+

Indexes publications of the U.S. Congress such as hearings 1824+ (including previously unpublished hearings:  Senate 1824-1992 and House 1833-1982), committee reports, documents and prints. Material is available in microfiche and/or electronic. Essential tool for doing legislative history research. Includes Congressional Research Reports from 1916+, Bills & Laws 1789+, U.S. Serial Set from 1789+, Annals of Congress from 1789-1824, Register of Debates from 1824-1837, Congressional Globe from 1833-1873, and Congressional Record from 1873+.  Also includes Executive Branch Documents 1789-1948 and Executive Orders and Presidential Proclamations 1789+.

Legal Source 1908+

Index of articles from approximately 1,200 law journals and selected books with some full-text

Hein Online Law Journal Library

Full text access to over 2500  journals, most back to the first volume and up to the current volume.

Legaltrac 1980+

Index of articles from approximately 800 law journals (and selected non-law journals) with some full-text

Ravel Law

Legal research tool that provides data-driven, interactive visualizations and analytics not found in traditional legal research tools.  Coverage includes mainly U.S. case law and judge analytics.  Registration for login required to access full site (free for Princeton students and faculty). 

Docket Alarm

Provides searchable access to over 100 million court records. Coverage includes Federal District Courts, Appellate Courts, the Supreme Court, Bankruptcy Courts, the ITC, the TTAB,  the PTAB, and some state courts.  

Supplementary Resources

ACLU American Civil Liberties Union Papers 1912-1990

Provides access to the more than 2 million documents contained in the records of the American Civil Liberties Union at the Mudd Manuscript library at Princeton University.

American Bench

Searchable database containing biographical information of over 20,000 federal and state Judges. Also contains information on over 2600 federal and state courts, 3,000 detailed court profiles, and over 100 detailed judicial jurisdictional maps. Updated daily.

CALI Library of Computer-Based Lessons

Provides over 100 interactive lessons written by law faculty and law librarians. The lessons cover a great variety of legal topics in both substantive law and legal research, including Constitutional Law, Federal Courts, Treaty Research, and many more. Please note that although this database is specifically intended for use by law students, it will still be helpful to members of the Princeton University community seeking legal information.

Code of Federal Regulations (Hein Online)

PDF versions of the Code of Federal Regulations covering 1938-1983. Browse by title or year or search the full text.

CQ LawTrack

Shows how legislation, both past and pending, affect existing U.S. laws. Links the text of a bill to the section of the code or public law it did/would modify, making it easier to track changes in the law. You can browse by U.S. Code section, by Public Law number, or Act name to view a list of modifying legislation with links to the exact changes made/proposed.

Criminal Justice Abstracts

Comprehensive coverage of the major journals, books, and reports from government and nongovernmental agencies in criminology and related disciplines. Topics include crime trends, prevention projects, corrections, juvenile delinquency, police, courts, offenders, victims, and sentencing.

Eighteenth Century Collections Online

Partially searchable digital images of books, primarily British, printed in the eighteenth century. Based on the Eighteenth-Century Short-Title Catalogue.  Also see the alternative interface Artemis Primary Sources that allows users to analyze content using frequency and term-relationship tools. 

Encyclopedia of Law and Religion

Covers the relation between law and religion, the relations between religion and state institutions, freedom of religion, legal aspects of religious traditions, the interaction between law and religion, and other issues at the junction of law, religion, and state.

Fastcase

Searchable database providing access to cases, statutes, regulations, court rules, and constitutions, both federal and state.

Federal Register Collection (Hein Online)

Search full text or browse by issue. Includes indexes and covers the full run of the Federal Register from 1937 to the present.

Legal Classics (Hein Online)

Searchable PDF versions of classic legal treatises on a wide variety of subjects.

Legal Treatises 1800-1926 (Making of Modern Law Digital Archive)

Digital library of works from the 19th and early 20th centuries on British Commonwealth and American law. Includes treatises, casebooks, local practice manuals, books on legal form, works for lay readers, pamphlets, letters, and speeches.

Lexis-Nexis Commercial

Comprehensive database of legal materials, both primary and secondary sources, from the United States and selected foreign countries and international organizations.

LLMC Digital

Electronic database of historical legal materials is a work in progress. Over the next 5-7 years, this database will contain over 200,000 volumes of U.S. government documents, case reporters, statutes of the U.S. and selected foreign nations, the Congressional Record, the Congressional Globe and many other law materials. A rich source for legal history researchers.

Making of Modern Law (Trials 1600-1926)

Searchable digital archive of trial transcripts, and popular and scholarly accounts of both famous and non-famous historic trials.

Making of Modern Law: Primary Sources, 1620-1970

Contains digitized and searchable copies of over 300 years of legal primary sources, such as early U.S. state codes, city charters, constitutional conventions and compilations, and other documents.

Marcive Web DOCS

Online catalog of U.S. government publications dating back to mid-1976. Direct links to documents on the web are provided. Many of the documents are available in the U.S. Documents Collection in Firestone

National Survey of State Laws

Quick, state-by-state comparison of current state laws -- how they differ and how they're similar -- for a range of relevant subjects from abortion to employment discrimination, child custody to interest rates.

Nineteenth Century Masterfile

Combines various general, scientific, religious, psychological, and legal indexes covering the nineteenth century.

Oxford Constitutional Law

English translations of the constitutions of most countries of the world, territories, and dependencies.  The constitutions are accompanied by individual commentaries and supplementary materials, including foundation documents, historical constitutions, and amendment Acts/laws, and a collection of scholarly monographs.   Includes the states and territories of the United States.

PLI Plus

Provides access to the Practising Law Institute (PLI) library of Treatises, Course Handbooks, Answer Books and Journals and other PLI Press publications. 

Policy Commons: Global Think Tanks

Policy Commons preserves and provides access to more than 30 million pages of curated policy reports and briefs, analyses, working papers, books, case studies, tables, charts, media, and statistical publications created by 25,000 policy organizations (NGOs, IGOs, foundations, think tanks, government agencies, etc.) from around the world. Platform provides multiple filters and advanced searching operators. Also includes a related collection of North American City Reports (https://library.princeton.edu/resource/45398). 

Proquest Congressional U.S. Serial Set Digital Collection

Collection of U.S. Government publications compiled under the directive of Congress. Includes Congressional reports and documents as well as executive agency and departmental reports ordered to be printed by Congress.

ProQuest Regulatory Insight

Provides U.S. federal administrative law histories for the period 1936-2017 organized by federal statute and Executive Order.  Regulatory histories are compilations of Federal Register notices, proposed rules, and rules covering the complete rule making process.

ProQuest Supreme Court Insight

Collection of full opinions from Supreme Court argued cases, including per decision, dockets, oral arguments, joint appendices and amicus briefs.

State Statutes: A Historical Archive (Hein Online)

This collection includes more than 1,600 volumes and nearly 2,000,000 pages of historical superseded state statutes.

Subject Compilations of State Laws (Hein Online)

Bibliography providing citations to resources comparing state law by subject.

Supreme Court Database

The Supreme Court Database is the definitive source for data about the U.S. Supreme Court. The Database contains over two hundred pieces of information about each case decided by the Court between the 1791 and 2018 terms.

U. S. Supreme Court Records and Briefs 1832-1978 (Making of Modern Law Digital Archive)

A fully searchable digital archive containing 150 years of U.S. SupremeCourt records and briefs. The record for a case may contain the following types of documents: motions, petitions, oral transcripts, transcripts of the trial record, applications for writ, appendices, letter briefs and jurisdictional statements.

U.S. Attorney General Opinions (Hein Online)

Contains several publications of attorney general opinions including Official Opinions of the Attorney General (1791-1982) and Opinions of the Office of Legal Counsel (1977-1996).

U.S. Congressional Documents (Hein Online)

Digital access to Congressional Record (Bound and Daily), Annals of Congress, Register of Debates, Congressional Globe, American State Papers, Journals of the Continental Congress, and Territorial Papers of the United States. "Daily-to-Bound Locator" provides citation to Bound version from the Daily Congressional Record. Also includes smaller works including Journal of William Maclay, Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, James Madison's Notes of Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787, Administrative Conferences of the United States, Legislation of Congress for the Government of the Organized Territories of the United States, B.F. Steven's Facsimiles of Manuscripts in European Archives Relating to America, 1773-1783.

U.S. Federal Legislative History Library (Hein Online)

Full text of Sources of Compiled Legislative Histories: A Bibliography of Government Documents, Periodical Articles, and Books and full text legislative histories of important legislation.

U.S. International Trade Library

Provides documents and publications related to the exchange of goods and services between the United States and other nations, as well as the history of Section 337 of the Tariff Act of 1930. Includes legislative histories, official texts of trade agreements, reports from the US International Trade Commission, and Section 337 investigations.

U.S. Presidential Library (Hein Online)

Full text of several important works related to the U.S. presidency including, among many others, the Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents (1965-2006) and Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States (1929-2001).

U.S. Supreme Court Library (Hein Online)

Full text of the U.S. Reports and several classic treaties on Supreme Court jurisprudence.

U.S. Treaties Library (Hein Online)

Full-text searchable versions of almost all official and unofficial publications of U.S. treaties and treaty indexes, including U.S.T., T.I.A.S., KAV, Treaties in Force, Bevans Miller, Malloy and International Legal Materials.

Westlaw (commercial version)

Comprehensive database of legal materials, both primary and secondary sources, from the United States and selected foreign countries and international organizations. Password required.  Please try searching WestlawNext Campus Research which contains similar coverage and features.  Contact dholland@princeton.edu for Westlaw commercial log-on if still necessary.

Subject Librarian(s)

Librarian for Law and Legal Studies and Librarian for Judaic Studies and Hebrew
(609) 258-5316
A-14J-2
Firestone Library

Research Help