A code is a subject arrangement of the laws of a jurisdiction. There are official and unofficial codes. A code may be annotated (containing editorial enhancements to help with research or interpretation) or unannotated. The advantages of using a code for research include:
In addition to the statutes, many codes contain constitutions and court rules.
Retrieving a statute by legal citation is the easiest and fastest way to get the specific case to which the citation refers.
Suppose our citation was for 42 U.S.C.§ 1983 and I wanted to find this statute in print.
To find this statute online:
The structure and organization of statutory codes will vary by jurisdiction.
The United States Code, the subject arrangement of federal statutes, is arranged by subject into 54 subject titles (title 53 is in reserve and does not yet have a subject assigned to it), with chapter and section subdivisions. Of the 54 titles, the following titles have been enacted into positive (statutory) law: 1, 3, 4, 5, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 17, 18, 23, 28, 31, 32, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 44, 46, 49, 51, and 54. When a title of the Code is enacted into positive law, the text of the title becomes legal evidence of the law. Titles that have not been enacted into positive law are only prima facie evidence of the law. In that case, the Statutes at Large still govern.
When looking at a code section, you will see the text of the section, then historical notes, the Statutes at Large citation, and references to related code sections.
In Ohio, the statutes are broadly organized by titles (there are 33) and then further broken down by articles, chapters, and sections. For more information on Ohio codes, see the Ohio Legal Research Guide.
Some states, such as California, Maryland, New York, and Texas, use subject words for their broader organization. If you look in Table 1 of the Bluebook or Appendix 1 of ALWD under one of those jurisdictions, they will give you the subject break downs. You actually include those subjects in your citation.
United States Code (U.S.C.)
United States Code in print
The United States Code is the official codification of the general and permanent laws of the United States. The Code was first published in 1926, and a new edition of the code has been published every six years since 1934. It is prepared by the Office of the Law Revision Counsel of the United States House of Representatives.The official code, titles 18 & 28 Appendix volumes contain unannotated rules.
United States Code (Govinfo - Government Printing Office)
Govinfo.gov contains virtual main editions of the U.S. Code. The information contained in the U.S. Code on Govinfo has been provided to GPO by the Office of the Law Revision Counsel of the U.S. House of Representatives. While every effort has been made to ensure that the U.S. Code on Govinfo is accurate, those using it for legal research should verify their results against the printed version of the U.S. Code available through the Government Printing Office.
United States Code (LII - Cornell)
LII (Legal Information Institute) is a small, non-profit, research, engineering, and editorial group housed at the Cornell Law School in Ithaca, NY. Its publishing efforts go into to producing and maintaining free legal information.
United States Code Annotated (USCA) on Westlaw
Law students & faculty only. United States Code Annotated has all 54 titles and includes the Constitution, court rules and appendixes. Annotated materials include notes of decisions, cross references, research references, and more.
United States Code Service (USCS) on Lexis
Law students & faculty only. Published by LexisNexis, the USCS provides an annotated version of the United States Code based on the Statutes at Large . Annotations provide access to historical notes, cross-references to other statutes/regulations, and references to relevant secondary sources. The USCS also includes general and title specific indexes.
Publication of state codes will vary. The Law Library's state codes are located on the 4th floor with the other state materials at call numbers KFA through KFZ. Note that most of the print codes are no longer being updated.
Ohio
Ohio does not publish an official version of the Ohio Revised Code, instead unofficial versions of the code are published.
Baldwin's Ohio Revised Code Annotated by
This set offers complete coverage of Ohio statutory law, supplemented by several editorial enhancements including extensive annotations to court and state agency decisions that construe or affect Ohio law. Annotations are drawn from reported Ohio court decisions, selected unreported Court of Appeals decisions, Ohio attorney general opinions, Ethics Commission decisions, federal cases, and decisions of state agencies. Also includes US and Ohio constitutions and court rules.
Baldwin's Ohio Revised Code Annotated on Westlaw by
Law students & faculty only. Ohio Statutes and Court Rules contains the Ohio statutes, Constitution, and court rules. A document is an annotated section of the statutes, section of an article of the Constitution, or a court rule. Related print publications include Baldwin's Ohio Revised Code Annotated and West's Ohio Rules of Court Pamphlet.
Page's Ohio Revised Code Annotated by
Page's Code is an authoritative and comprehensive resource for the Ohio Revised Code, Ohio court rules, and Ohio Constitution. It includes all the annotations, explanatory notes, and other research aids that are expected in a quality state code set. In addition to the General Index, each volume contains an index to the contents of that volume. For ease of use, court rules which are associated with a particular Code Title are included in that volume. For example, the Criminal Rules are in Title 29, and the Juvenile Rules are in Title 21.
Page's Ohio Revised Code Annotated on Lexis by
Law students & faculty only. Page's Code is an authoritative and comprehensive resource for the Ohio Revised Code, Ohio court rules, and Ohio Constitution. It includes all the annotations, explanatory notes, and other research aids that are expected in a quality state code set. For ease of use, court rules which are associated with a particular Code Title are included in that volume. For example, the Criminal Rules are in Title 29, and the Juvenile Rules are in Title 21.
Ohio Revised Code on Bloomberg Law by
The Ohio Statutes directory contains laws enacted by the Ohio Legislature and the Ohio Constitution. Unannotated.
A session law is the chronological publication of the laws passed by a jurisdiction. You may hear session laws referred to as acts as well. Session laws may include both public (laws of a general nature) and private (laws that apply to a specific person or group or that are temporary in nature) laws. Each session law is assigned a number.
In the Federal system, the first part of the number is the congress that passed the law.
Pub. L. No. 107-56
Here in the Federal example, the 107 refers to the 107th Congress. The second part of the number is the number of the law passed. So, here in the example, the 56 refers to it being the 56th law passed by the 107th Congress.
State session laws will vary in their numbering system. Some use chapters. Kentucky uses the year and chapter number. Indiana numbers its post-1982 public laws by first assigning the law a number and then the year of the law. So in the Indiana example, the numbering scheme refers to it being the 33rd law passed in the year 2008. Ohio uses the bill number.
KY: 1998 Ky. Acts ch. 21, § 1
IN: Pub. L. 33-2008
OH: Am. H.B. No. 268, 126 Ohio Laws 730.
Session laws usually have official and unofficial publications.
United States Statutes at Large in print
The United States Statutes at Large is the official publication of Federal session laws. It is abbreviated Stat. in legal citation.
United States Statutes at Large on Bloomberg Law
Law students and faculty only.
United States Code Congressional & Administrative News on Westlaw
Combination of the Congressional Session Highlights, Executive, legislative, and congressional committee membership, U.S. Public laws, House and Senate reports from LH, Presidential proclamations, Executive orders, Presidential messages and signing statements, Legislative history table listing Public law number, Stat page, Bill no., House and Senate report nos., and Dates of passage. Includes documents from U.S. Code Congressional and Administrative News. Coverage varies by document type.
USCS -- Public Laws on Lexis
Law students & faculty only
With most states, you will also find their session laws published in the legislative service pamphlets published by West or the Advance Service published by Lexis. Many states will also publish their session laws on the state website.
Westlaw - Proposed & Enacted Legislation
Law students & faculty only.
Public Laws / Advance Legislative Service
Browse Sources > Statutes and Legislation > Public Laws/ALS (law students & faculty only)
HeinOnline Session Laws Library
This library contains the session laws of all 50 U.S. states as well as Canada, Australia, Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands, and the D.C. Register. All states are current within 60 days of the printed publication, and all states are available back to inception!
If you need to research a particular issue as treated by multiple state statutes there are several useful tools that can save you a lot of work. Just be aware that these may only address selected narrow topics and that they may not be current. Be sure to locate the date of the survey or latest revisions.
Cheryl Rae Nyberg's Subject Compilation of State Laws provides citations to law review articles, books, and other sources in which state statutes are compared. It is not cumulative so you may need to check multiple "volumes."
