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Law & Legislative Research

Statutory Law

US Capitol Building

"US Capitol" by keithreifsnyder is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Statutory laws are those passed by the federal or state Congress (or other legislative body) and signed by the President or Governor.  These resources pertain to all steps of the legislative process, allowing one to track a bill during all steps of its process through the legislature in question.

Administrative Law

PHoto of the white house

"White House" by jschauma is licensed under CC BY 2.0

The two major categories of administrative law are:

  1. Laws made by Congress giving power to federal agencies (FCC, FDA, EPA, etc.) and/or establishing rules and procedures these agencies must follow.
  2. The regulations passed by federal agencies. An example of a regulation is a limit on how many newspapers can be owned by a particular company (this would be passed by the FCC). Often, regulations must be made to execute statutory law.

Case Law

Photo of the US Supreme Court building

Case law is comprised of decisions made by federal or state judges, or by the Supreme Court.

Finding Court Decisions

The Lexis-Nexis Academic database, then the "Legal" tab leads to searches for state, Federal, and Supreme Court decisions; links to Shepard's Citations for further information. (Researchers who are not FSU students, faculty, or staff will need to access this database from a library computer.)

Federal Case Law

United States Supreme Court
United States Courts of Appeals
United States District Courts

Publication of Federal Laws