Introduction
This page contains a brief selection of resources to help you get started with legal research. Sources include research guides, non-profit legal organizations, and databases containing articles, cases, laws, and other documents. The guides for legal research should be especially useful for learning how to approach particular topics.
Guides for Legal Research
Following are a few research guides from other libraries to help you find information on legal topics.
Links to subscription databases at other libraries won't work for GC researchers (except the NYPL links), so look for recommended databases, journals, or books at the GC. If we don't have an item you would like to consult, request it via Interlibrary Loan.
Also see the Government Info tab in this guide for additional resources.
- Alternate Legal Research ToolsA guide from Harvard Law Library that provides information on and links to free and low cost alternatives for legal research.
- Legal Research - United States: Primary Sources: Cases, Trials, and Case LawThis extremely helpful research guide from the Princeton University Library will help you find cases, trials, case law, statutes, and treatises.
- Legislative History Guide from Baruch CollegeA very helpful guide on finding the legislative history of a law.
- Law and Legal Resources at NYPLAn overview of the NYPL's electronic and print, current and historical law and legal holdings with links to resources.
- Federal Legislative History Research Guide from CUNY School of LawFollow the steps in this guide to find the legislative history of enacted federal statutes.
- Environmental Law Research Guide from GeorgetownnLawA great place to start research on Federal and New York environmental law.
- Legal Research for BeginnersA research guide from the New York Law Institute "detailing where to find the law including primary sources such as constitutions, statutes, court opinions and case law, regulations, and administrative decisions as well as important secondary and scholarly sources which may be cited as persuasive authority such as treatises, law reviews, specialized periodicals, annotations, and restatements, as well as legal encyclopedias. Both free and commercial sources are included."
Helpful Books
The Yale Law School Guide to Research in American Legal History by ISBN: 0300235682Publication Date: 2018-06-19"The study of legal history has a broad application that extends well beyond the interests of legal historians. An attorney arguing a case today may need to cite cases that are decades or even centuries old, and historians studying political or cultural history often encounter legal issues that affect their main subjects. Both groups need to understand the laws and legal practices of past eras. This essential reference is intended for the many nonspecialists who need to enter this arcane and often tricky area of research."
Legal Research by ISBN: 9780873378352Publication Date: 2002-08-01"For those determined to conquer a real or virtual law library, here's the book to check out. Comprehensive and user-friendly, it explains how to: -- understand and use all the basic tools of legal research and practice: legal encyclopedias, case digests, Shepard's Citations and treatises-- decode statutes, regulations and cases-- organize research results into a memorandum of law-- practice with review questions, library exercises and hypothetical research problemsIncludes step-by-step, illustrated procedural guides for finding legal resources on the Web, as well as an update of law library resources and exercises."
CUNY School of Law Library
CUNY-affiliated individuals are welcome to visit the CUNY School of Law Library Mondays through Thursdays during staffed hours by showing a current CUNY ID.
CUNY visitors can get help from reference librarians and use IP-authenticated databases such as Heinonline, Proquest Legislative insight, and Law360. But they cannot check out materials from the law school library or use password-driven databases such as Westlaw, Lexis or Bloomberg. There are no printing facilities are available for visitors at the library.
Directions to the CUNY School of Law Library can be found here.
Legal Research Libraries in NYC
- Public Access Law LibrariiesA list of law libraries in New York State that are open to the public.
Organizations - Selections
- American Civil Liberties Union"For almost 100 years, the ACLU has worked to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed by the Constitution and laws of the United States."
- Brennan Center for Justice"[A] nonpartisan law and policy institute that works to reform, revitalize – and when necessary, defend – our country's systems of democracy and justice."
- Center for Constitutional Rights"[A] non-profit legal and educational organization committed to the creative use of law as a positive force for social change."
- EarthJusticeThe original and largest nonprofit environmental law organization in the U.S.
- Southern Poverty Law Center"Dedicated to fighting hate and bigotry and to seeking justice for the most vulnerable members of our society. Using litigation, education, and other forms of advocacy, the SPLC works toward the day when the ideals of equal justice and equal opportunity will be a reality."
U.S. Legislation
- Congress.govThe official website for U.S. federal legislative information from the Library of Congress.
- U.S. Supreme CourtFind opinions, argument transcripts, case documents, historical information, the Court's calendar, and more on the Court's official site.
- OyezA free multimedia archive from Cornell’s Legal Information Institute, Justia, and Chicago-Kent College of Law containing all of the Supreme Court’s audio since the installation of a recording system in October 1955. Oyez offers transcript-synchronized and searchable audio, plain-English case summaries, illustrated decision information, full-text Supreme Court opinions, and detailed information on every justice throughout the Court’s history.
Online Legal Sources from the GC and Beyond
- CourtListenerA non-profit free legal search engine and alert system from Free Law Project that includes a fully searchable database that can be used to find research opinions, federal court filings, judges, or oral argument recordings.
- Criminal Justice DatabaseIndexes over 620 international criminal justice publications from 1981 to the present, with full text for more than half of the titles. Supports research on crime, corrections administration, criminal law, criminal justice, law enforcement, addiction, family law, industrial security, and rehabilitation. Includes correctional and law enforcement trade publications, dissertations, crime reports, and crime blogs.
- Criminal Trial Transcripts of NY County Collection (1883-1927)"Selected transcripts from the Lloyd Sealy Library's Trial Transcripts of the County of New York (1883-1927) collection. ... Consists of the verbatim typewritten proceedings of 3,326 court cases, held in various courts of New York County, which included Manhattan and the Bronx until 1914. Not all trial transcripts have been digitized."
- Foreign Law GuideForeign Law Guide (FLG) offers information on sources of foreign law, including complete bibliographic citations to legislation, the existence of English translations and selected references to secondary sources in one virtual destination. Broad in content and global in scope, the FLG systemically covers approximately 190 jurisdictions which are updated by a global team of experts.
- Free Law Project"Free Law Project provides free access to court documents, opinions, judges, and more via CourtListener and RECAP. It also advocates for legal reform, builds tools and datasets, and offers data services."
- HeinOnlineAn online research platform containing millions of pages of periodicals, government documents, international resources, case law, and more. CUNY’s subscription includes the following databases:
- Civil Rights and Social Justice
- Gun Regulation and Legislation in America
- Labor and Employment: The American Worker
- LGBTQ+ Rights
- Open Society Justice Initiative
- Slavery in America and the World: History, Culture & Law
- The International Center for Not-for-Profit Law"ICNL provides up-to-date, freely accessible information about issues shaping the legal environment for civil society, philanthropy, and public participation. ... [They] maintain a large and diverse collection of resources ... [and] curate collections of the best resources available on issues affecting civic space worldwide. We publish reports and data on topics relevant to civil society."
- Law Library Microfilm ConsortiumLLMC Digital includes thousands of digitized historical legal and government documents, including federal, state, and territorial governments of the U.S., and government publications from Canada, the U.K., Germany, and other countries. It also includes collections of Indigenous law, international law, and multi-jurisdictional special focus collections, such as Roman law, Islamic law, and Canon law. These materials should be of particular interest to researchers in history, political science, and sociology.
- Law Resources from the Center for Research LibrariesAccess includes LLMCdigital, a database of primary legal and government-related documents, as well as print and microform collections, secondary legal sources, and dissertations.
- Legal SourceInformation on current issues, studies and trends in the legal world, with over 1,200 full-text scholarly law journals and over 2.5 million records, including book reviews and case citations. Topic coverage includes criminal justice, international law, federal law, organized crime, medical law, labor and human resource law, ethics, the environment, and more. Coverage dates back to 1908.
- LegalTracLegalTrac provides indexing for more than 1,200 major law reviews, legal newspapers, specialty publications, Bar Association journals, and international legal journals, including more than 200 titles in full text. The American Association of Law Libraries endorses LegalTrac and its special advisory committee selects, reviews, and enhances the content of this resource. The database offers coverage of federal and state cases, laws and regulations, legal practice and taxation, as well as British Commonwealth, European Union, and international law.
- National Criminal Justice Reference Service (NCJRS) Abstracts DatabaseThe NCJRS: National Criminal Justice Reference Service Abstracts Database is published by the Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice's National Criminal Justice Reference Service, an information clearinghouse for people around the U.S. and the world involved with research, policy, and practice related to criminal and juvenile justice, and drug control. The NCJRS Abstracts Database contains summaries of over 200,000 U.S. and international publications, including federal, state, and local government reports, books, research reports, journal articles, audiovisual presentations, and unpublished research.
- NCJRS Virtual LibraryThe National Criminal Justice Reference Service (NCJRS) Virtual Library hosts a collection of over 235,000 information resources on criminal justice subjects, including corrections, courts, drugs, law enforcement, juvenile justice, victims of crime, and related topics. The Virtual Library provides access to all known OJP works and sponsored research, as well as to thousands of government products, research reports, journal articles, and published and unpublished literature produced through 2014.
- Nexis Uni (previously LexisNexis)
Nexis Uni is a full-text news, business, and legal database with sources from around the world, including local, regional, national, and international newspapers, scholarly journals, trade journals, and popular magazines, television and radio broadcasts, and newswires and blogs. Legal sources include federal and state cases and statutes, including U.S. Supreme Court decisions since 1790. Also contains business information on U.S. and international companies (see Dossier section) and patent data (see TotalPatent One section).
- Slavery in America and the World: History, Culture & LawThis collection includes every U.S. federal, state and colony statute passed on slavery, all reported state and federal judicial cases on slavery, Congressional debates from the Continental Congress to 1880, more than a thousand books and pamphlets from the 19th century, including essays and articles in obscure journals. The growing collection also includes modern histories of slavery, modern law review articles on the subject, and an extensive bibliography. Much of the secondary source material in the collection is based on the holdings of the Buffalo Public Library's rare book collection. See the Comprehensive Users Guide for full search details.
- Trials - Famous Trials"The Web's most visited and most comprehensive collection of essays, images, maps, primary documents, links, and other materials pertaining to sixty-six of the most famous trials of all time, from Socrates to Simpson."