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A Guide To...Legal Research

A starting point for legal research and resources at the federal level.

The Legislative Branch (Congress) creates law in the form of legislation.
This legislation is then published in the form of statutes and codes. 

Legislative Research

The Legislative Process

In order to research legislation, it is important to understand the legislative process. 

  1. Every law begins as a bill. In a given session of Congress, tens of thousands of bills may be introduced in the House and Senate.
     
  2. A limited number of bills are sent to committee for further review. Most bills die here. 
    Out of 20,253 bills introduced by the 116th Congress, only 1,962 went to committee. Of these, 1,893 made it past the committee stage. 
     
  3. If a bill makes it past committee, the committee issues a report including an overview of the bill and its recommendations.
     
  4. The bill then goes for floor consideration in the chamber where it was introduced (House or Senate). 
     
  5. Once a bill passes in the chamber where it was introduced, an identical version must pass in the other chamber. This can happen in a few different ways. The same bill may be sent from one chamber to another. Or, a similar bill may independently pass in the other chamber; in this case, a committee made up of members of both House and Senate must meet to reconcile the differences.
     
  6. If differences are successfully reconciled, the bill goes to the President. He can then either sign the bill, or veto it. If he signs the bill, it becomes law. If he vetoes the bill, Congress can override the veto with a 2/3 vote in both chambers, amend the bill, or let the bill die. 
    Out of 20,253 bills introduced by the 116th Congress, only 344 successfully became law. 
     
  7. If a bill has not been passed by the end of the Congressional session in which it was introduced, it is permanently dead and no further action can be taken on it. 

Primary Sources for Legislation

In legal research, primary sources consist of "the official pronouncements of the governmental lawmakers."  Primary sources may include positive law, the law itself, as well as compilations which provide prima facie evidence of the law but are not the "actual" law. 

You can find positive law in 3 different formats: 

Slip Law. This is the first version of a law that is published. A bill becomes slip law as soon as it has either passed both chambers of Congress and been signed by the President, or once a Presidential veto has been overriden. Slip versions are valuable because they become available fairly immediately. These are technically 'unofficial,' versions but are virtually indistinguishable from the official versions.

Slip versions of laws are usually named/cited by their bill number, the number of the Congress which produced them, and the date (ex - H.R. 5376, 117th Cong. (2022)).  Access Slip Law via...

Session Law. This is the most official version of a given law ("positive law").  At the federal level, session law is published in Statutes at Large. Statutes at Large is published in annual print volumes, and is also available in online sources. Each state has its own publication series for Session Laws. 

It's important to note that Session Law is organized chronologically and is not updated. A Session Law publication can only tell you what law has been passed in the course of a given Congressional session. It does not (necessarily) represent the laws currently in force, nor does it give you any way to locate law on a specific topic! 

Session laws are cited by Public Law (Pub L.) number, consisting of [Number of Congress] - [Law number passed by that Congress] (ex - Pub L. 117-169, the 169th law passed by the 117th Congress). Access Session Law via...

Code Law. Legally-speaking, Code Law provides prima facie evidence of the laws currently in force in a particular jurisdiction, but is not itself "positive law."  Code Law differs from Session Law in that it is updated and organized by subject.

At the federal level, Code Law is found in the United States Code, which is compiled in print typically every 6 years, by Office of the Law Revision Counsel in the House of Representatives. It is also available on the web through the federal government, and in research databases like HeinOnline and WestLaw. Online versions are updated more frequently, so when accessing the U.S. Code online it is important to note the ‘last updated’/ ‘current as of’ date on that version. 

The United States Code is organized into Titles and then various levels of subsections, and its citations reflect that organization (ex - 5 U.S.C. § 552(a), subsection (a) of section 552 in Title 5). Access Code Law via...

If you want to find out where a particular Session Law appears or appeared in the United States Code, you can use the Table III Tool at the United States Code online to look it up: 

To cross-reference between the United States Code and related sections of the Code of Federal Regulations (or vice versa) use the Parallel Table of Authorities & Rules, published in...

Bill Histories

A bill history covers the various stages of a bill becoming law – from when the bill is first introduced, through committee, debates, etc. and up to the point where the bill is signed into public law. Note that this is not the same thing as a legislative history, which includes, but is not limited to, the history of the relevant bill (see the next tab). 

The best source for the history of a specific bill is: 

Find the bill you are interested in, then look at the Actions tab. Make sure to use the left-hand navigation to expand the list to All Actions, since the Actions Overview for a given bill can be abbreviated. 

A bill history might include... 

  • The text of the bill itself (and amended versions); 
  • Committee report(s);
  • Floor discussions, motions, etc. as reported in the Congressional Record;
  • Vote rolls;
  • The final Public Law;

...and other information. Note, though, that a bill history is only the history of that specific bill.  Ex - a bill history of S.337, 114th Cong., (2016), would only give you information about S.337; it will not tell you, for example, about H.R. 653, a similar bill passed in the House of Representatives in January 2016 which never made it to consideration in the Senate! 
 

Legislative Histories (Session Law)

A legislative history is the history of a piece of legislation (a public law), which may include portions of, but is not limited to, the bill history. A legislative history may sometimes address the history of multiple bills which were introduced over the course of the law’s creation -- basically, everything that went into the creation of that particular law is part of its history. 

For some laws, you can find texts called compiled legislative histories. These are published histories of a piece of legislation put out by legal publishers. There is no single "official" legislative history, so which documents are included (and how many) is up to the person who compiled that history. In general, though, the most important documents will appear in any compiled history. 

Key Documents for Legislative Histories:

  • Committee reports are produced by the House or Senate committee reviewing a bill before it proceeds to floor discussion. These reports will usually include background for the bill (and may include mention of previous, failed bills), detailed discussion of the contents of the bill, and the committee's recommendations. These are extremely valuable sources! (but, make sure the version being reported on is as close to the final text of the bill as possible). Committee reports are the best way to understand Congress' intent in passing a particular piece of legislation. These reports will generally be found with the bill history on Congress.gov. 
     
  • Conference committee reports are produced when members of the House and Senate must meet to align their different versions of a particular bill. These reports are not available for every piece of legislation, but are also a valuable source to understand the intent and opinions of both chambers. These reports will also generally be found with the bill history on Congress.gov. 
     
  • You can find the text of floor debates on a given piece of legislation in the Congressional Record. There is both a daily edition and an official version (published with a ~6 year delay). You can use the Daily to Bound Locator in HeinOnline to match the daily edition with their final, official version.  
    From the late 1980s forward, you may also be able to find recordings of debates in C-SPAN's Video Library (though note, this does not constitute an official record!). 
     
  • Different versions of the bill text (comparing early versions to the final slip law can help analyze intent). 
     
  • Transcripts of hearings (as well as, in more recent years, C-SPAN recordings!) do not provide evidence of Congressional intent; however, they are useful for understanding the evidence and expertise that may have influenced the shaping of a particular piece of legislation. 

Compiling a Legislative History:

If a compiled legislative history does not exist for the law that you are researching, there are ways that you can compile your own history. 

  1. Look for the bill number (if you know it) or the law number/name on Congress.gov. Check the Actions tab to see an overview of actions and documents relating to the passing of the bill (see previous tab, Bill Histories). 
     
  2. Check the PDF version of the final Public Law. An abbreviated legislative history is often included in the footer on the final page. 
     
  3. Committee reports will usually include background on the bill being considered; check these for references to earlier, failed bills that may form part of this legislative history. 
     
  4. The Related Bills tab on Congress.gov can help you identify similar, previous bills that might form part of the history (then, check those bill histories). 
     
  5. You may also find additional information by: keyword searching Congress.gov (or other sources) for legislation on the same topic as your bill; searching law journals for articles on the topic that may cite relevant legislation; and reading press reports. 

Legislative Histories (Code Law) 

Generally speaking, it is not possible to compile a legislative history for a section of the United States Code. The “history” of a section of the U.S.C. is really many legislative histories – the history of each of its component laws. However, you do need to know how to find out which laws form the basis for a section of the United States Code. 

  1. Open the section of the United States Code that you would like to determine the "history" of.
     
  2. Go to the very end of the text of the code section itself (in the online version of the code, you can use the option to Jump To > Source Credits to get here more efficiently).
  • You will see a list of citations to public laws in Statutes at Large; these are the laws which have formed the basis for this section of the Code, in order of their passage. 
    For example, 5 U.S.C. § 552 lists the following: Pub. L. 89–554, Sept. 6, 1966, 80 Stat. 383 ; Pub. L. 90–23, §1, June 5, 1967, 81 Stat. 54 ; Pub. L. 93–502, §§1–3, Nov. 21, 1974, 88 Stat. 1561–1564 ; Pub. L. 94–409, §5(b), Sept. 13, 1976, 90 Stat. 1247 ; Pub. L. 95–454, title IX, §906(a)(10), Oct. 13, 1978, 92 Stat. 1225 ; Pub. L. 98–620, title IV, §402(2), Nov. 8, 1984, 98 Stat. 3357 ; Pub. L. 99–570, title I, §§1802, 1803, Oct. 27, 1986, 100 Stat. 3207–48 , 3207-49; Pub. L. 104–231, §§3–11, Oct. 2, 1996, 110 Stat. 3049–3054 ; Pub. L. 107–306, title III, §312, Nov. 27, 2002, 116 Stat. 2390 ; Pub. L. 110–175, §§3, 4(a), 5, 6(a)(1), (b)(1), 7(a), 8–10(a), 12, Dec. 31, 2007, 121 Stat. 2525–2530 ; Pub. L. 111–83, title V, §564(b), Oct. 28, 2009, 123 Stat. 2184 ; Pub. L. 114–185, §2, June 30, 2016, 130 Stat. 538. 
     
  • If this section previously existed elsewhere in the U.S. Code, that will be listed under Historical and Revision Notes immediately following these citations. 
    For example, 5 U.S.C. § 552 was previously at 5 U.S.C. § 1002, and that original section was created by 60 Stat. 238. 

  • Further down, the Amendments section will tell you which sections were added by which public laws. For example, 5 U.S.C. § 552(m) was added by Pub. L. 114-185, §2(7). 

Annotated Codes

Annotated codes are a secondary legal source  -- they provide the text of the relevant code, accompanied by supplemental material designed to help you understand the code and connect it to the underlying law. For federal law, the main annotated codes are the United States Code Annotated (U.S.C.A), published by WestLaw, and United States Code Service published by LexisNexis, and they are published both online and in-print. 

In addition to the historical and editorial notes already included in the United States Code, these annotated codes include...

  • References to other secondary sources (see the Secondary Source page) such as law review articles and jurisprudence; 
  • Notes of Decisions, excerpts from case law pertaining to a given section of the code (in the online version, these can be keyword searched); 
  • In WestLaw, the excerpts in Notes of Decisions are matched to the KeyNumber system (see the Judicial Branch page), helping identify important legal subject areas that connect to this part of the code. 
  • Citing References, case law using this part of the code as a legal basis (this is distinct from the Notes of Decisions!). 

Access the United States Code Annotated via...