FindLaw and Google Scholar offer free California state and Ninth Circuit federal case law databases (in addition to free case law databases to all other states, circuits, and the U.S. Supreme Court).

For California-only free case law databases, you can use FindLaw’s ACCESSLAW database and the Lexis-provided database at the California Official Reports Public Access Web site.

To search select federal Ninth Circuit court (and other federal courts) dockets for free, there are two sites: Justia and RECAP.

Each of the sites noted above differ in the courts they cover, the degree of user friendliness, date coverage, and currency.

Free court forms are provided at the California Court’s official site.

FindLaw’s “Powered By ACCESSLAW” California Case Law Database

FindLaw.com (owned by Westlaw) offers a free California case-law database, powered by ACCESSLAW (http://www.findlaw.com/cacases/index.html#dirsearch2), with coverage back to 1934. California Appellate and the California Supreme cases can only be searched together. To use the FindLaw.com California case law database (http://www.findlaw.com/cacases/index.html#dirsearch2), scroll down the page to the search boxes below “Powered By ACCESSLAW.”

You can search by:

(1) Citation by clicking on the Citation tab or

(2) Advanced Search by clicking on its tab.

Cases can be searched by the following criteria:

(1) Keywords and Phrases (full text)

(2) Docket Number

(3) Party Name

(4) Judge Name

(5) Attorney Name

(6) Cite Check (for an explanation of Cite Check, see the later section with the heading “Is it “Good Law”?).

Cases can also be browsed by date or volume if you scroll down the Advanced Search page. Some other helpful navigational features on FindLaw are the hyper-links that link to any of the California cases that are cited in the case being viewed. This assists a researcher to expand his or her research to related cases. FindLaw’s ACCESSLAW database uses the Boolean connectors “and”, “or” and “not.” If you leave a space between words, it will not understand your request—you must use one of the Boolean connectors. To search for an exact phrase, enclose it in quotation marks.

Other FindLaw Case Law Databases

FindLaw also offers U.S. Supreme Court cases back to 1893 (http://www.findlaw.com/casecode/supreme.html, U.S. Courts of Appeals cases back to 1995 or 1996 (but the First Circuit goes back to 1984), and all fifty state courts’ cases dating back to 1997 (for most states). NOTE: FindLaw has two separate databases for California cases: one that is part of the fifty-state court case law database (which only goes back to 1997) and the ACCESSLAW one discussed in the prior paragraph. You will want to use ACCESSLAW, not only because it goes back further in time (1934), but because it offers more search capabilities.

To find FindLaw’s U.S. Supreme Court and Circuit Courts of Appeals case law databases and all fifty states’ case law databases select the “Cases & Codes” tab on the upper-left side of FindLaw’s home page at http://lp.findlaw.com and then:

• Scroll down to “Browse Cases and Codes”
• For the U.S. Supreme Court or any of the Circuit Courts of Appeals, scroll down to “US Courts of Appeals - Opinions & Resources” and select one of the courts.
• For one of the state’s courts, scroll down to “State Resources” and select a state. Then, scroll down to “State Court Opinions” and choose the database labeled “From FindLaw.”

FindLaw’s U.S. Supreme Court cases (http://www.findlaw.com/casecode/supreme.html) are searchable by Citation, Full-text, or Party name. For an explanation of how to cite check U.S. Supreme Court cases, see the later section with the heading “Is it “Good Law”?

FindLaw’s Circuit court cases and state cases are searchable by Free Text Search—also known as a full-text search (keywords and phrases), Party Name Search (although the  Party Name Search states it includes Counsel and Judge Names, only a party name search worked for us), and Docket Number (instead of the Citation search found at the U.S. Supreme Court database). A Date Range can also be added to the preceding searches (the U.S. Supreme Court database does not offer this option). The Circuit and state courts case law search menu also contains a Browse by Court tab, which displays opinions in reverse date order by year/month.

FindLaw uses the Boolean connectors “and”, “or” and “not” and offers only one proximity connector, “near” (which means “one word within 50 words of another word”). To search for an exact phrase, enclose it in quotation marks. The single asterisk ( * ) wildcard is used to expand the root of a word. For example, fly* would bring back results with the word fly or flying. The double asterisk ( ** ) wildcard is used to include variations of a word. For example, fly** would bring back results with the word fly or flying, but also flown or flew.

After you run your search, there will be a results list displaying the summary of the case. Click the case name and then click the Read link to view the full text of the case. Note that you must be logged into your free FindLaw account to view the full text. (To register for a free account, see http://linkon.in/csv4n0.)

FindLaw adds cases to its database on a daily basis and FindLaw highlights your search terms.

Google Scholar Case Law Database

Late in the evening of November 17, 2009 a Google employee tweeted that something was new at Google Scholar and challenged readers to figure out what it was ... One of the authors of this article, a well-known late-night type, visited Google Scholar that evening and learned that Google had launched a free case law database Legal Opinions and Journals. You can reach Google Scholar with this direct URL: http://scholar.google.com/.

Google Scholar contains opinions from: all U.S. state appellate and state supreme courts back to 1950, the U.S. federal district, appellate, tax, and bankruptcy courts back to 1923, and the U.S. Supreme Court back to 1791. Also included in this database are legal (and non-legal) journal articles. Google Scholar has no documentation about its currency. 

Google Scholar can be searched with the same Boolean connectors that you use to search at Google.com. You can enter your search into the large search box on the Scholar home page. A space between words indicates "and," the minus sign indicates you are excluding a word, and "OR," which must be in upper case, indicates you want one or the other or both words. Google's proximity connector "AROUND(n)" is similar to Lexis' "w/" connector. AROUND must be in upper case and you replace the "n" with the number of words you want one word to be within another word.  Thus, a search can be constructed to find cases with the keywords “negligence” within 4 words of “automobile” by typing: negligence AROUND(4) automobile.  You will be searching all cases and articles together but you will be able to narrow down once you receive your results by using the left-hand side bar. This is where you can narrow your search to Articles or Case Law. If you choose Case law, then you can further narrow your search to specific courts (click the Select Courts link).

Keywords are highlighted (in light yellow), but highlighting can be removed. Cases seem to be displayed in random date order in Google Scholar results.

If you want to begin your search with a specific court (or courts), you would click into the “Case law” radio button. Then, you are given a choice of “Federal Courts” or “Select Courts” (or the last court you searched). After selecting your court(s), click “Done” and then you are offered a search box. Enter your search here, using the same Boolean connectors noted above.

You can also use the Advanced Search, which gets shifted around from time to time. Currently, it is located at the top of the page, above the large search box. If you choose the Advanced Search, you will be searching all cases and articles together but you will be able to narrow down once you receive your results.

You can enter words into one or more of the following Advanced search boxes:

• with all of the words
•  with at least one of the words
•  without the words

You can enter one or more phrases into the following Advanced search box:

• with the exact phrase (note that if you enter one phrase, do not use quotation marks but if you enter more than one phrase enclose each phrase in its own quotation marks)

You can restrict your words/phrases to appear:

• Anywhere in the article* or
• In the title of the article*

You can also restrict your search to:

• Return articles* authored by
• Return articles* published in
• Return articles* dated between

There are no separate search boxes to search by citation, party name, counsel, or judge, so use the "all of the words" search box or the "exact phrase" search box OR *you could enter a judge’s name into the authored by search box or a reporter name into the published in search box. In other words, “articles” could also include “cases” even though it’s not labeled as such. Entering dates into the Return articles* dated between search box will also work for cases.

Once you have entered your search into the search boxes, notice the left-hand side bar. This is where you can narrow your search to Articles or Case Law. If you choose Case law, then you can further narrow your search to specific courts (click the Select Courts link).

Google Scholar offers a “Create alert” feature (at the bottom of the left-hand column on the results page), which allows researchers to receive alerts about cases, on any chosen topic emanating from any chosen court (or alerts for articles on any chosen topic). The alert defaults to your current search and current court choices, but you can revise the alert by typing in other keywords/phrases.

California Court’s Official Site: Lexis California State Case Law Database

A free California case law database is provided by Lexis at the court's official site (http://www.lexisnexis.com/clients/CACourts), with coverage back to 1850. The search default is “Search for Opinions by Natural Language Word or Phrase” which means you would not be using Boolean or proximity connectors. To search your keywords and phrases with Boolean and proximity connectors, notice the left-hand column where you are offered an Advanced Search. In addition to the Advanced Search you can also search by field searches: By Citation, By Party Name, and By Judge.

Lexis uses the Boolean connectors “and”, “or” and “not.” Lexis also offers proximity connectors (e.g. “one word within x words of another). Thus, a search can be constructed to find cases with the keywords “negligence” within 4 words of “automobile” by typing: negligence w/4 automobile.   Lexis updates its California database once a month at the court's web site.

Lexis displays the list of case results in reverse chronological order and includes both the case name and the date of the case. Most researchers prefer to look at recent cases first rather than older cases first, thus the reverse chronological order display makes navigating through the list easy.

Is it “Good Law”?

 Note that the cases found at these free sites (and even at a court's own official site) are “slip opinions" and may not yet be final. They are subject to clerical corrections, modifications and rehearing. California Court of Appeal slip opinions are subject to a grant of review or to a depublication order by the California Supreme Court. And, of course, opinions can be overruled or reversed. Thus, before relying on a case, attorneys need to verify that the case is still “good law.” To verify a California ACCESSLAW case at FindLaw, use the Advanced Search menu (http://www.findlaw.com/cacases/index.html#dirsearch2) and enter a citation into the search box labeled “Cite check: Find Cases which cite another case." In the alternative, while reading a California ACCESSLAW case at FindLaw, you can click the link labeled "Cases citing this case." While reading a U.S. Supreme Court case at FindLaw, you can click the link labeled "Cases citing this case: Supreme Court" or "Cases citing this case: Circuit Courts" to learn how your case has been treated by other cases. There is no citator service for the U. S. Courts of Appeals or states other than California.

The "How cited tab" displayed to the right of the "View this case" tab in a Google Scholar case will help you conduct a citation check to ascertain whether your case is still good law.

None of these free citator services provide editorial treatment. Instead, you will need to read the case to learn how your case has been treated by other cases and whether it's still good law.

 Registration and Log-On

Google Scholar and the Lexis California databases do not require registration, but FindLaw requires registration (free). 

Number of Cases Displayed

FindLaw results are limited to the first 100 cases while Lexis' California case results are limited to the first 25 cases. Google Scholar does not seem to have a limit.

California State Court Dockets

Case information (dockets) for California Supreme and Appellate Courts can be searched at http://appellatecases.courtinfo.ca.gov/. To locate information about specific cases, click into the "Appellate District" or “Supreme Court” radio button in the "Please Select" section on the right-hand side. If you select "Appellate District," you will then need to select an individual district (or county if you don’t know its district number). You can search by docket number, attorney name, law firm, case name, or case caption. From the case summary screen, you can link to docket entries, future scheduled actions, briefs, trial court information (including the name of the trial court judge), request automatic e-mail notification of case actions, etc. You may select which case actions to be notified of including “record on appeal filed, brief filed, calendar notice, disposition, and remittitur issued.”

California State Court Judicial Biographies

The Court’s site also has biographical information for many of California's justices at http://www.courts.ca.gov/. To find Court of Appeals biographies, use the link bar (on the top of the home page of the California Court’s official site) and click on the button labeled "Courts." Then choose a district and then click “Justices” and then browse the Division list for the judge’s name. To find biographical information about Supreme Court justices, use the link bar (on the top of the home page of the California Court’s official site) and then click “Justices.”

California Court Forms

Court forms can be viewed by number, name, or category (http://www.courts.ca.gov/forms.htm). Also, you can view a list of recently changed forms only. If a form is interactive, it will be labeled “fillable.”

Free Federal Docket Web Site-Justia

Justia’s U.S. District Court’s civil case filings and dockets database (http://dockets.justia.com) provides free searching of the federal district court’s civil filings and dockets and the U.S. Courts of Appeals’ dockets from 2004 to present. You can limit your search to a Circuit (e.g., Ninth) or to a District Court (e.g., all California Federal District courts or just the C.D. of California). This database is updated multiple times per day. This Justia database can’t be searched by keywords and phrases. Instead, it is searched by one or more of the following “field” options: party name, court, date, or lawsuit type. “Lawsuit type” refers to the Nature of the Suit (“NOS”), which is assigned by the court. For example, in the Lawsuit Type search box, you could search by the NOS Airplane Product Liability to search all cases relating to that one topic. You would leave the party name search box empty, but you could narrow down the search with dates or specific federal district courts (e.g. all California Federal District Courts or only the California Federal Central District Court).

The database can also be browsed by state, NOS, or case name.

While the opinions and orders noted on the docket sheet are available from Justia, only select underlying pleadings (complaints, answers, etc.) are. Researchers are directed to the government’s pay database, PACER. At PACER, one can also search the dockets of the Bankruptcy Court—something that Justia does not offer.

The post Free California Internet Legal Research: Cases, Dockets, and Forms appeared first on Continuing Legal Education (MCLE) in California, MCLE Los Angeles, CLE Orange County, Irvine & San Francisco.

USA.gov (http://www.usa.gov) is the federal government’s document search portal. USA.gov searches millions of Web pages from all levels of the United States government: federal, state, local, tribal, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. territories. (Although results occasionally bring back court opinions, this is not the right site to search for them. There are better, free options, such as Google Scholar and if your bar subscribes to them, Casemaker and Fastcase.)

In addition to offering keyword searching, USA.gov offers the ability to browse by selecting one of the five tabs listed below the search box on USA.gov’s home page: Services, Blog, Topics, Government Agencies, and Contact Government. Once you select one of these tabs, such as the Government Agencies tab, for example, a drop-down menu appears where more links are revealed.

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When you don't know an agency's URL, click A-Z List of Agencies beneath POPULAR TOPICS on the right-hand side of USA.gov's home page (http://www.usa.gov/). USA.gov’s internal search engine (the search box on USA.gov’s home page) is powered by Bing. You can use the search box to keyword or phrase search government documents. To learn how to search USA.gov with Boolean connectors, use this URL: http://onlinehelp.microsoft.com/en-us/bing/ff808438.aspx. We will provide a brief Bing/USA.gov tutorial.

Just like Google, Bing/USA.gov uses Boolean connectors to link keywords and phrases and their default Boolean connector is AND. Leaving a space between words automatically connects your keywords/phrases with the AND Boolean connector so there is no need to type the word AND. And, just like Google, Bing/USA.gov offers phrase searching if you surround your phrase within quotation marks.

Bing/USA.gov treats the Boolean connector OR differently than Google in one instance only: when you are combining your OR search with other Boolean connectors in a search. For example, to search for the phrase "homeland security" and the keywords nevada OR oregon, Bing requires you to enclose your OR terms in parentheses (Google does not). Your search would look like this:

"homeland security" (nevada OR oregon)

If you are only searching the keywords nevada OR Oregon, your Bing/USA.gov search would be the same as a Google search and would look like this:

nevada OR oregon

The OR Boolean connector must be upper case at Bing/USA.gov and Google. If you are excluding a word at Bing/USA.gov, you would place a minus sign before the word without any space, just as you would at Google. One difference is that Bing/USA.gov also recognizes the Boolean connector NOT, but it must be in upper case. Google does not recognize NOT. So to search at Bing/USA.gov for the phrase "homeland security" and the keywords nevada NOT oregon, your search would look like either one of these examples:

"homeland security" nevada -oregon

"homeland security" nevada NOT oregon

The link to the Advanced Search was taken off the home page a number of years ago, much to our disappointment, and it is now only visible after you run your search and receive results or it can be reached directly at http://search.usa.gov/search/advanced. Once you reach the Advanced Search at Search.USA.gov, you will then be able to construct your search in the following ways:

• Enter keywords into the following search boxes:
  • All of these words
  • This exact phrase
  • Any of these words
  • None of these words
• Select the File Type drop-down menu to limit search results to the following formats:
  • PDF
  • Excel
  • PowerPoint
  • Word
  • Text

USA.gov's advanced search menu used to allow you to limit your search results to documents from a particular site (or sites) or exclude results from a particular site (or sites) but they removed that feature from the menu. However, you can still create that search by entering the site "instruction" into the simple search box along with your keywords. For instance, if you know that you are looking for a document from the National Highway Transportation & Safety Administration, you can limit your results to that particular government agency by entering site:nhtsa.dot.gov into the search box. You can add more than one URL by separating them by a space. Conversely, you can exclude a site or sites by entering -site:nhtsa.dot.gov into the search box.

Using Google to Search for Government Documents

You can also use Google to search for government documents by entering keywords and phrases into the search box on the home page or into Google’s advanced search menu to create a more sophisticated/targeted search (http://www.google.com/advanced_search). On the Advanced Search page, you can limit a search to a specific site by entering the URL into the "Search within a Site or Domain" and limit to a specific file type, just as you can at USA.gov described above.

Justia's Legal Web Search

To limit search results to law related websites, try Justia's Legal Web Search at http://www.justia.com. They offer an excellent search of law-related Web sites but it is not that easy to find from Justia’s home page. You can access it directly by visiting http://www.justia.com/search.py and click the "Legal Web" button at the top of the page before entering your keywords into the search box.

This article was adapted from the book, “Internet Legal Research on a Budget” by Carole Levitt and Judy Davis (ABA LPD 2014). Reprinted with permission of the American Bar Association. All rights reserved.

The post Finding Government Documents on the Internet appeared first on Continuing Legal Education (MCLE) in California, MCLE Los Angeles, CLE Orange County, Irvine & San Francisco.

This article is about Congress.gov (http://beta.congress.gov/), which is the government’s most recent searchable database of federal legislative/congressional materials (other than the U.S. Code). Congress.gov includes public laws, bills, resolutions, hearings, congressional reports, and committee reports:

Legislative/congressional materials are valuable to researchers for the following reasons:

• To track a current bill as it is proceeding through the legislative process • To discern the legislative intent of a bill
• To conduct research about the history of a bill that was never passed (and, thus, would not be contained in a Public Law database or the U.S.C.)
• To read a public law in its entirety (instead of trying to piece it together once it has been scattered throughout various sections of the U.S.C.)

By the end of 2014, Congress.gov will completely replace Thomas.gov, the site that had provided the federal government’s legislative information since 1995. While most of the URLs for THOMAS.gov and THOMAS.loc.gov automatically redirect to http://beta.congress.gov/ some do not because not all information has been transferred to Congress.gov. For instance, as of January 2014, nominations, treaties, House and Senate Executive communications, Legislation from the 101st and 102nd Congresses (1989-92), and the Congressional Record from the 101st -103rd Congresses (1989-1994) still hadn’t been transferred from Thomas to Congress.gov. Users can compare the information available on the two sites by visiting the Coverage Dates for Legislative Information page at http://beta.congress.gov/help/coverage-dates. Until all the information at Thomas gets transferred to Congress.gov, use http://thomas.loc.gov/home/thomas.php. During the transition period, the URL for is http://beta.congress.gov/ but it will eventually be switched to Congress.gov (and will automatically redirect to it). Congress.gov contains the sections listed below (most will be discussed in greater detail in this article):

1. Legislation (http://beta.congress.gov/legislation) is available from the 103rd Congress (1994) to the present.
2. The Congressional Record (http://beta.congress.gov/congressional-record) is available from the 104th Congress (1995) to the present.
3. Members (http://beta.congress.gov/members) Congress member profiles are provided for all members since 1973 and selected members from 1947-1972.
4. Committees (http://beta.congress.gov/committees) Information is available for all House and Senate committees for the current Congress, with links to specific Committee pages.
5. The Legislative Process (http://beta.congress.gov/legislative-process) provides basic information on the legislative process and is a good resource for the general public.
6. Committee Reports (http://beta.congress.gov/congressional-reports) are available from 1995 to the present.

Links to the first five sections outlined above are available from tabs across the top of any page on the Congress.gov site. You can keyword search all but the 4th and 5th sections outlined above directly from the Congress.gov home page.

Searching Congress.gov for Legislative Information

All the legislative materials in Congress.gov use the same search method, which we will now describe. From the home page, choose which source to search from a drop-down menu to the left of the search box. Sources include Current Legislation, All Legislation, All Sources, Members of Congress, the Congressional Record, and Committee Reports. After you have selected a source, enter your search terms into the box and click Go.

In addition to searching with keywords and phrases (enclosed in quotation marks), you can also link them together with the Boolean connectors AND and OR. Researchers can run more sophisticated searches, such as field and prefix searches, as described below. Prefix searching can used to search by bill, resolution and amendment numbers, each of which includes an alphabetical prefix and a number, such as hr for House Bills or sjres for Senate Joint Resolutions. To search for one of these documents by number, enter the prefix and number with no spaces. For example, to search for House Resolution 1060 your prefix search would look like this: hr1060. (To search for a Public Law, however, you would use the number only, without a prefix—112-139, for Public Law 112-139.)

Congress.gov also allows field searching (http://beta.congress.gov/help/refine-search/). To accomplish a field search, type the field qualifier, followed by a colon, followed by the search term, into the search box. Put phrases in quotation marks. For example, to find legislation with “homeland security” in the most recent title field, enter

latestTitle:“homeland security

Note that the “T” in latestTitle must be capitalized; otherwise you will be sent to an error page. The How to Refine a Search page on the website itself (http://beta.congress.gov/help/refine-search) provides a list of searchable fields and their abbreviations, the sources in which you can search them, and a search example for each field. If you try to use a field not found in the list, such as “Title”, you will get an error page. See the Search Tips page (http://beta.congress.gov/help/search-tips-overview/) for more details.

Once you have run a search (e.g., a Current Legislation search for “endangered species”), you can Refine by in two ways. The first refinement option is to use “facets,” which represent particular data fields, such as Legislation or Congresses shown in the Refine By sidebar on the left side of the results page. Use them to filter the search results to retrieve only items that contain that facet and specific value. The original search for “endangered species” can be refined so that the results include only the facet Legislation (selected from the sidebar’s Limit Your Search section) and only the Congress facet and specifically the value 113 (materials from the 113th Congress selected from the sidebar’s Congress section). A number appears beside each facet that indicates how many results match that facet value.

Although the help page says that you cannot select multiple values in your search results, our test searches indicate that it is possible. A list of the main facets on Congress.gov is available on the How to Refine a Search page at http://beta.congress.gov/help/refine-search/.

The second search refinement available on Congress.gov is Search within Results. From any search page, you can check the Search within Results box next to the search box, clear your original search terms, and type in additional search terms. All search terms, including the new ones, will appear at the top of the new list of search results.

To remove a term or refinement, click the gray or blue shaded link for it that appears underneath the search box. If you added a refinement by clicking it in the left sidebar, clicking it again will remove it.

Navigating Search Results on Congress.gov

The search results list gives brief information about each item. You can sort the list by Relevancy, Date of Introduction, Latest Action, Number, and Title (alphabetically). Use the drop-down menu just above the search results, and click Go once you have made your sorting selection. You can use another drop-down menu near the right side of the page to display 25, 50, 100, 250 or 500 results per page.

The item type (e.g., Bill, Resolution, and Congressional Record Article) appears in a pink box with red letters just above the blue link for the specific item (e.g., H.Res.220). Different information appears below the item link, depending on the type of document it is. The names of bills and resolutions are in boldface type. Below that is a link to the sponsor of the legislation (Rep. Hastings), along with a link for information on any co-sponsors. Underneath that is the Latest Action taken (Introduced). Finally, a graphic Tracker indicates where the item is in the legislative process (6/14/12 Referred to…).

Resolutions have similar features to bills, including the Tracker timeline. Congressional Record Articles have a link (for HTML and PDF) to the page in the Congressional Record where the article appears.

Viewing Legislation Pages on Congress.gov

Click an item link to view the full content for each item. Pages for other legislation types have features similar to the ones described here.

The top part of the item information page repeats the brief information that appeared in the item results list. The bottom of the page is arranged into tabs to help researchers quickly find key information about the document. The tabs for a law include a Summary of the law, the full Text, Actions taken, Titles, Amendments, Cosponsors, Committees, and Related Bills. Each tab shows the number of items available for that category, such as Text(3) would refer to three various versions of a bill. You will most likely be interested in the Enrolled Bill because it is the “Final official copy of a measure as passed in identical form by both chambers and then printed on parchment for presentation to the President.” This definition (and many others) can be found in Congress.gov’s Glossary.

Another useful feature on the page includes subject information, as assigned by legislative analysts. The researcher can click the View all subjects link to see all subjects assigned to the legislation. From there, you can click a link for the primary subject to retrieve other legislation in the same subject category.

Certain legislative terms used on Congress.gov include links to definitions in a Glossary. However, when there is no link for a word that you need defined, visit Congress.gov's Glossary (http://beta.congress.gov/help/legislative-glossary).

The Congressional Record on Congress.gov

Congress.gov has several additional features that are worth mentioning here. For example, in addition to keyword searching the Congressional Record from the home page as described earlier, you can also keyword search it at its own landing page, found at http://beta.congress.gov/congressional-record. The default display for the Congressional Record page is the most recent issue available, but you can retrieve any other issue back to 1995 by date (a drop-down menu next to the Date search box allows you to select a date from the calendar without typing it) or by a combination of year and page number. Information about the Congressional Record App (for the iPhone and the iPad) is available on this page. When you retrieve older issues of the Congressional Record on this page, they appear in the same format as the most current issue, along with the same links and tabs. You can also view the complete issue in PDF by clicking the Entire Issue link under the date (in red).

Committee Information on Congress.gov

The Committees of the U.S. Congress page (http://beta.congress.gov/committees) provides information about Committees in general, as well as links to individual pages for all current congressional committees. The individual committee pages include an Overview section that lists legislation the committee has considered recently, as well as links to meeting schedules, live video for House committees, and the official committee website. Below the Overview is a results list of legislation and reports associated with the committee. The researcher can sort and refine these items similarly to a regular search on Congress.gov.

Committee Reports on Congress.gov

Committee reports are keyword searchable from the home page of Congress.gov and from their separate landing page at http://beta.congress.gov/congressional-reports. Alternatively, you can retrieve a report by a combined Report Type (House or Senate) and Number (citation) search using the Find a Report lookup tool.

This article was adapted from the book, “Internet Legal Research on a Budget” by Carole Levitt and Judy Davis (ABA LPD 2014). Reprinted with permission of the American Bar Association. All rights reserved.

The post Congress.gov: How to Search for Federal Bills, Laws, the Congressional Record, and Committee Reports appeared first on Continuing Legal Education (MCLE) in California, MCLE Los Angeles, CLE Orange County, Irvine & San Francisco.