Government Documents & Information: Legal Websites

Prior to publication as a slip law, OFR also prepares marginal notes and citations for each law, and a legislative history for public laws only. Until the slip law is published, through the U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO), the text of the law can be found by accessing the enrolled version of the bill.

Decisions are available as ASCII text files that can be read on your browser's screen or saved to your hard drive and accessed using most word processor programs.
You may use the Full Text Search option, but beware that the size of the database and the number of words (14.5 million) may require more than one search to find what you need.

Contributors include publishers, legal scholars, computer scientists, government agencies, and other groups and individuals. The website is funded by corporate and individual donations.

Examples include the identity of the court whose decision the Supreme Court reviewed, the parties to the suit, the legal provisions considered in the case, and the votes of the Justices.

The project has been supported by numerous grants and is now located the Chicago-Kent College of Law which is part of the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT).

There are 94 federal judicial districts, including at least one district in each state, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. Three territories of the United States -- the Virgin Islands, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands -- have district courts that hear federal cases, including bankruptcy cases.

Bankruptcy Appellate Panels (BAPs) were established under the Bankruptcy Reform Acts of 1978 and 1994. 28 U.S.C. §158 sets forth jurisdiction for appeals of bankruptcy decisions and authorizes the establishment of BAPs upon the order of the circuit judicial councils. BAP judges continue to serve as active bankruptcy judges in addition to their duties on the appellate panel.

Cases on the Court’s docket address a broad range of legal issues, including constitutional law, criminal law, evidence, criminal procedure, ethics, administrative law, and national security law. Decisions by the Court are subject to direct review by the Supreme Court of the United States.

The general jurisdiction of the Court, described in 28 U.S.C. § 1491, is over claims for just compensation for the taking of private property, refund of federal taxes, military and civilian pay and allowances, and damages for
breaches of contracts with the government. Additionally, the Court has jurisdiction to hear both pre-award and post-award bid protest suits by disappointed bidders on government contracts.

The geographical jurisdiction of the United States Court of International Trade extends throughout the United States. The court can and does hear and decide cases which arise anywhere in the nation. The court also is authorized to hold hearings in foreign countries

The Tax Court is composed of 19 presidentially appointed members. Trial sessions are conducted and other work of the Court is performed by those judges, by senior judges serving on recall, and by special trial judges. All of the judges have expertise in the tax laws and apply that expertise in a manner to ensure that taxpayers are assessed only what they owe, and no more. Although the Court is physically located in Washington, D.C., the judges travel nationwide to conduct trials in various designated cities

The Court is authorized seven permanent, active Judges, and two additional Judges as part of a temporary expansion provision. Judges generally are appointed for 15-year terms, and each Judge has the option upon retirement to agree to be available for further service as a recall-eligible Senior Judge.

Located in the National Archives Building on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, DC, the Center for Legislative Archives maintains a Research Room to provide on-site reference assistance to researchers ranging from Congressional scholars and historians to attorneys looking for legislative intent and genealogists searching for individual petitions and claims.

In the research room, the Center maintains published source material on Congress including the Journals of the House and Senate, the Congressional Record (and its predecessors the Globe and the Annals of Congress), Guide to the U.S. Serial Set, CIS Indexes, as well as other works on the history of Congress.

Published by the Office of the Federal Register, National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). Updated daily by 6 a.m. and is published Monday through Friday, except Federal holidays. FDsys contains Federal Register volumes from 59 (1994) to the present.

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