LibGuides: Research Assistant Resources: Locating Primary Sources

Court Dockets

Bloomberg Law This link opens in a new window
You can access federal and state court dockets and documents on Bloomberg Law. Once you sign in, select Litigation at the top. Alternatively, select Dockets under the "Popular Links".

Lexis+ CourtLink docket coverage is generally limited to Federal District, Bankruptcy and Appeals Courts from 2008 forward.
Viewing Docket Entries;
- Once you are viewing your desired docket, if the filing you want to read is already in the CourtLink system, you can view it immediately by clicking "View" under "Proceeding Text."
- If the "Proceeding Text" for your entry is "Request", it means that this document has never been requested and viewed before, and therefore not stored in the system. All you need to do is to click "Request" and wait for the system to retrieve them, if possible. This may not always be possible.

Statutes and Regulations

Federal Register Library (via HeinOnline)
Contains the full text of the Federal Register from 1936 to the present and other material relating to administrative law
United States Code Library (via HeinOnline)
Contains the current and historical versions of the United States Code
United States Code (via Westlaw)
United States Code (via Lexis+)

Federal Legislative History

Legislative history can be extraordinarily useful for determining the intent behind a law, whether you're trying to determine why the law was changed or what Congress meant by a specific phrase. Legislative history is typically found in documents created during the legislative process, including reports, hearings, records of debates, and different versions of the bill.

Federal Legislative History Library (via HeinOnline)
Legislative histories from the Government Printing Office, private sources, and Nancy Johnson's Sources of Compiled Legislative Histories

ProQuest Legislative Insight This link opens in a new window
ProQuest Legislative Insight is a Federal legislative history service that makes available thoroughly researched compilations of digital full text publications created by Congress during the process leading up to the enactment of U.S. Public Laws.

ProQuest Congressional
CIS congressional index of publications (public laws, bills, hearing testimony, committee reports, etc)
Congress.gov
Maintained by the Library of Congress, Congress.gov contains legislation from the 103rd Congress (1993) to the present, member profiles from the 93rd Congress (1973) to the present, and some member profiles from the 80th through the 92nd Congresses (1947 to 1972). Also includes the Congressional Record, Treaties, and information about how Congress works.
United States Code Congressional & Administrative News (USCCAN) (via 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.

State Legislative History

Legislative History Directory (via Westlaw)
A collection of state legislative history databases
Legislative History Directory (via Lexis+)
A collection of state legislative history databases .
New Jersey Legislative Histories (via New Jersey Law Library)
The New Jerey State Library compiles histories on all New Jersey laws which are general and permanent. Appropriations, temporary and executed, and repealed acts are excluded. Each Legislative History begins with an extremely useful checklist you can use when compiling your own histories.
(Browse to the Legislative History page by going to the N.J. State Library's Website > Research Library > Law Library >New Jersey Legislative Histories).

State Research

If you need to find information on cases, statutes, or regulations from another state and are unsue where to start, check out one of these sources:

Research Guides by Jurisdiction (Georgetown Law Library)
Guides to Law Online (Library of Congress)
State Legislative History Research Guides (Indiana Law Library)
A compilation of links to guides about conducting legislative history research; every state in the country is included.

Financial and Transactional Documents

EDGAR: Maintained by the SEC, EDGAR (the Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis, and Retrieval system) contains publicly filed documents, including companies’ notices of material changes (8-Ks), annual reports (10-ks), prospectuses (S-1s), and many others.

Although EDGAR can be accessed from the SEC website and is free to use, Lexis+, and Westlaw offer a more user-friendly search interface. Follow the path below to access this database:

EDGAR on Westlaw Home > Practitioner Insights for Securities Enforcement & Litigation > EDGAR Filings & Disclosures
EDGAR on Lexis+ Home > Securities Law > SEC Filings