Wisconsin State Law Library

Legal Research Guides

How & Where to Begin Your Research

• Law: An Introduction
  Wisconsin and Federal guides to the types of law, how laws are made, and how government works.
• Finding Legal Information (WI Court System Self-Help Center)
  Explanation of primary & secondary sources of law. Resources for finding law.
• Free & Low Cost Legal Research (Georgetown Law Library)
• Guide to Wisconsin Legal Information Sources (UW Law Library)
• State Online Legal Information (American Assoc. of Law Libraries)
• Where Can I Find? (WI State Law Library)
  A guide to common topical call numbers in the library.

Resources for Librarians

• WCCA (Wisconsin Circuit Court Access) presentation handout (WLA 2021)
• Legal Research Sources presentation handout (WLA 2021)
• Legal research and legal reference tips
• Access to justice and public libraries (WLA 2022)
• AALL toolkit for Wisconsin
• Public service desk handout, Black and white(1 mb)ß
• Public service desk handout, Full color(1 mb)
• Start Here topical research guides

Federal Law -- Overview

• Guide to the U.S. Federal Legal System Web-based Public Accessible Sources

Administrative Law

Federal

• Code of Federal Regulations / Federal Register
  • Federal Register:What It Is and How to Use It (U.S. National Archives and Records Administration)
    Historical background of the Register & the Code of Federal Regulations. Explanation of the regulatory process. Understand how the Register and CFR are organized. Learn how public laws, the Register & the CFR are related.
  • Research Guide to the Federal Register and the Code of Federal Regulations (Law Librarians' Society of Washington, D.C.)
    Historical development of the Federal Register and the Code of Federal Regulations. Explains the content and organization of the Register & CFR and indexing of both. Discusses electronic sources for each and how to locate older issues. Refers to the List of CFR Sections Affected and explains how to use the LSA.

Statutory Law

Wisconsin

• Legislative Drafting Records
  • Drafting records, 1999- (WI Legislature)
• Legislative History Research in Wisconsin(WI State Law Library)
  Get an overview of legislative history research in a clear diagram. Links and coverage for online and print resources are included.
• Researching Legislative History in Wisconsin (WI Legislative Reference Bureau)
  Offers suggestions for researching Wisconsin constitutional and statutory law and for determining legislative intent. Resources discussed include drafting records, session laws, history notes, bills, Assembly and Senate journals, Bulletin of Proceedings, and committee records. Also outlines the steps for tracing legislative histories.
• Extraordinary sessions of the Legislature (WI Legislative Council)
• Special sessions of the Legislature (WI Legislative Council)

States

• State Legislative History Research Guides on the Web (Indiana Univ. Law Library)
  Ongoing project compiling links to legislative research guides & information for each state.

Federal

• Acts & Code
  • Questions and Answers in Legislative and Regulatory Research (Law Librarians' Society of Washington, D.C.)
    Answers to common problems experienced during legal research.
  • United States Statutes and the United States Code: Historical Outlines, Notes, Lists, Tables, and Sources (Law Librarians' Society of Washington, D.C.)
    Includes links to Internet sites for the U.S. Statutes & U.S. Code.
    
    
• Congressional Publications
  • Bills & Resolutions (Law Librarians' Society of Washington, D.C.)
    Answers to common problems experienced during legal research
  • Congressional Record
    • Overview of the Congressional Record and Its Predecessor Publications (Law Librarians' Society of Washington, D.C.)
      Provides history & general contents of the Congressional Record. Explains flow of both Senate & House proceedings and publication into the Record. Summarizes publications that precede the Record's 1873 debut. Provides guide to citation & electronic sources.
    • Questions on Congressional Record (Law Librarians' Society of Washington, D.C.)
      Answers to common problems experienced during legal research
  • Hearings, Committee Reports & Treaties (Law Librarians' Society of Washington, D.C.)
    Answers to common problems experienced during legal research.
• Legislative History
  • Finding or Compiling Federal Legislative Histories (Law Librarians' Society of Washington, D.C.)
  • Federal Legislative History Research: A Practitioner's Guide to Compiling the Documents and Sifting for Legislative Intent (Law Librarians' Society of Washington, D.C.)
    Discusses the federal legislative process and notes possible document sources of legislative history which may be introduced during the process. Offers tips on locating legislative history materials in print and electronic formats and for determining legislative intent once a resource has been located.
  • Legislative Histories of Selected U.S. Laws on the Internet (Law Librarians' Society of Washington, D.C.)
  • Legislative History Research: a Basic Guide (Congressional Research Service)
  • Questions on Legislative Histories (Law Librarians' Society of Washington, D.C.)
    Answers to common problems experienced during legal research.
    
    
• Legislative Process
  • U.S. Government Information: Legislative Information (Yale University Library)
    Explains the legislative process and links to information sources including, full-text of bills introduced in the House or Senate, committee actions & reports, floor debates & votes, presidential signatures & vetoes, slip laws and the U.S. Code.

Administrative Law & Statutory Law

• Questions on Executive Orders & Federal Regulations (Law Librarians' Society of Washington, D.C.)
  Answers to common problems experienced during legal research.

Updating the Law

• Cases / Statutes / Regulations
  • Shepard's Citations Service $ (LexisNexis)
    
  • KeyCite $ (Westlaw)

International Law

• International Legal Research Tutorial
  Designed to teach strategies and methodology for researching both print and electronic sources of international legal materials. Discusses the difference between international, foreign and comparative law with the main focus of the tutorial being public international law.
• Nations of the World (Law Library of Congress)
  Links to governmental bodies & constitutions worldwide. Guides for researching a given country's legal system.
  

Treaties

• ASIL Guide...Treaties (American Society of International Law)
  Discusses the difficulties in locating full-text of treaties and in determining their status. Points to general full-text collections of treaties on the Internet including international and national government sources & non-governmental sources. Also discusses sources for determining status of a treaty and for possible reservations against the treaty.
• Treaties: Legal Guides (Law Library of Congress)
  Links to guides for researching treaties.

Research Tools

• Legal Research Tutorials (Georgetown Law Library)
  Tutorials cover: Statutory Research, Cases & Digests, Administrative Law, International Law, Legislative History, Internet Research, Lexis, Westlaw, and Secondary Sources.
• Restatements of the Law (Harvard Law School Library)
  Learn about Restatements and how they are created. Includes how to find cases citing the Restatements, how to find law reviews about Restatements, how to trace the history & development of Restatement sections, and more.
• Understand Legal Citations

CLE Classes

• Check out our latest library class offerings