Sites for Online Legal Information –Emphasis on NY
(with highlights that point to popular and sometimes unique information)
1. New York State Unified Court System
http://www.courts.state.ny.us • Search for Broome County civil and criminal cases decided in the N.Y Supreme Court dating from 2001. Click ‘Courts’ then ‘Decisions’ then ‘Trial Courts’. It can help to include the name of the county in your search.
2. NY State Law Reporting Bureau’s Slip Opinion Service
http://www.courts.state.ny.us/reporter/Decisions.htm • • Provides access to recently released State court decisions prior to publication Browse landmark Court of Appeals decisions prior to 1997 from the New York Official Reports Service, also at this site
3. New York State Court of Claims Decisions
http://vertumnus.courts.state.ny.us/claims/maclaw.html Civil actions seeking damages against the State of New York and certain governmental agencies. Full decisions from March 2000 to present.
4. New York State Assembly
http://assembly.state.ny.us/leg • • Search for a bill (Assembly or Senate) Find Consolidated State Laws and the State constitution (click ‘New York State Laws’)
Note: Consolidated Laws are equal to our CLS blue books
5. Legal Information Institute:
http://www.law.cornell.edu • • A well-organized portal site with many resources. Try starting in ‘Law About’ Need help with legal citations? Click “Introduction to Basic Legal Citation.”
6. Find online legal dictionary:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/index.php/Main_Page
•
Posted at Cornell Legal Information Institute site under a tool called, Wex. Click the ‘legal dictionary’ link found under ‘Welcome.’
7. Law Library of Congress – New York
http://www.loc.gov/law/guide/us-ny.html • This portal arranges sites by Constitution, Executive, Judiciary, Legislature, Legal Guides, and General Sources. Under ‘Legislature’ you will see another option for searching NY Consolidated Laws through FindLaw.
8. “The Courts of New York: A Guide to Court Procedures, With a Glossary of Legal Terms” (an online publication)
http://www.nysba.org • From the New York State Bar Association, click ‘public resources,’ then “The Courts of New York.” Click the link for the Pdf file.
More information on the structure of the courts is available at http://www.courts.state.ny.us/
9. Library Magazine Databases
http://www.sunybroome.edu/~library • Click ‘Search: Articles’ to reach a listing of databases. InfoTrac OneFile seems to have the best selection of articles from legal publications.
Beverly Long, Rev. 11/06