Research Guides: Political Science at UCBA: Law Resources

Searching Law Resources

Legal research is a very complex process and the resources can be difficult to search without having a background in the law. This page lists some of the major databases that include U.S. and state laws, as well as articles on legal issues. If you need assistance, please ask a librarian to help you.

For more in-depth research, please use the following guides:

Law Databases

The following databases include laws, legal codes and regulations. See "Article Databases" on this page for resources that include journal articles on legal issues.

Congress.gov
Congress.gov is the official website for U.S. federal legislative information. The site provides access to accurate, timely, and complete legislative information for Members of Congress, legislative agencies, and the public. It is presented by the Library of Congress (LOC) using data from the Office of the Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives, the Office of the Secretary of the Senate, the Government Publishing Office, Congressional Budget Office, and the LOC's Congressional Research Service.
FDsys - Federal Digital System
The database provides access to important information products produced by the Federal Government. It includes numerous Congressional resources¸ the Code of Federal Regulations¸ the Federal Register¸ the U.S.Code¸ U.S. Supreme Court decisions¸ and more.
Hannah Capitol Connection
Ohio leglislative and governmental information service¸ including bill tracking¸ the full text of bills¸ the administrative code and revised code¸ committee rosters¸ and legislator information
Coverage: 1986-
Nexis Uni
Nexis Uni™ features more than 15,000 news, business and legal sources
from LexisNexis®—including U.S. Supreme Court decisions dating back to
1790—with an intuitive interface that offers quick discovery across all
content types, personalization features such as Alerts and saved
searches and a collaborative workspace with shared folders and
annotated documents.

Article Databases

Use these resources to find articles discussing major legal issues. To find the text of specific laws, legal codes and other legislation, refer to "Law Databases" on this page.

HeinOnline
HeinOnline is an ever expanding¸ comprehensive and image-based collection of over 350 legal periodicals¸ providing each journal from its inception and continuing to the most current volume allowed under contract between Hein and the journal. US titles dominate but an increasing number from the UK and other jurisdictions are included. In most cases coverage starts from the first issue of a journal. Pages appear as they would in the original hardcopy including all charts¸ graphs and photographs.
Legal Collection
This database contains full text for nearly 250 of the world's most respected¸ scholarly law journals. The Legal Collection is an authoritative source for information on current issues¸ studies¸ thoughts and trends of the legal world.
Coverage: 1965 - present