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Federal Legal Resources

Organized by Branch

Executive Branch | Legislative Branch | Congress generally | Senate |
House of Representatives | Judicial Branch | Supreme Court | Circuit Courts

General Federal Information
  1. The Government Printing Office site provides access to various U.S. government agencies, including the Congressional Records Daily Digest.

  2. This Statutory site provides access to the U.S. Code, and the Code of Federal Regulations.

Information Organized by Branch

Executive Branch


  1. The White House is accessible at its own website. There you will find links to information about the President and the Vice-President, the interactive citizen's handbook, (which provides general information about the government) and access to various agencies, white house history, commonly requested federal services and links to Presidential proclamations, statements, and press releases.

  2. The Internal Revenue Service has a very well-designed web-site which provides IRS forms and publications (including links to state tax forms) and tax information for businesses.

Legislative Branch

Congress Generally

  1. This Government Printing Office site provides information regarding the U.S. Joint Committee on Printing, an annotated U.S. Constitution, a Congressional Directory, the Congressional Record for 1995-1997, legislative histories and treaty documents.

  2. The Thomas site through the Library of Congress allows searches of the 101rd and 108th Congresses, by topic, short title, keyword or phrase, and bill number. Thomas provides complete text of bills, detailed legislative history, and reference to related bills. Although it provides more information that the other search engine, LegiSlate, below, it can also take much longer to search -- particularly during prime internet hours.
Senate
The
Senate web-site provides information about Senate history, committees, legislative activities, procedures and answers to frequently asked questions. There is also a searchable index.

House of Representatives

  1. The U.S. House of Representative's Internet Law Library provides a searchable index to the U.S. Code.

  2. The Main House of Representatives Web Page allows access to information about the legislative process, member pages, committee pages, leadership pages, the schedule of bills and resolutions to be considered in a given week, House Committee hearing schedules and links to Thomas and the U.S. House of Representatives Internet Law Library.

Judicial Branch
Supreme Court Cases
  1. This database of Supreme Court Cases covers cases from 1937 on. These may be browsed by year and U.S. Reports number. They may also be searched by full text, case title and citation. This is a free service.  
  2. This site contains soundfiles of oral arguments before the Supreme Court, for selected cases from 1956 to date. It also provides summaries of the holdings in these cases.

Circuit Courts
All of the following sites provide at least some access to cases decided in a given circuit, plus some additonal information, such as court rules and judicial profiles.

  1. First Circuit
  2. Second Circuit
  3. Third Circuit
  4. Fourth Circuit
  5. Fifth Circuit
  6. Sixth Circuit
  7. Seventh Circuit
  8. Eighth Circuit
  9. Ninth Circuit
  10. Tenth Circuit
  11. Eleventh Circuit
  12. D.C. Circuit
  13. Federal Circuit

All links current as of May 14, 2008. 

 
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