Law & Legislative Research

Statutory Law

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

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

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

Finding Court Decisions with Lexis-Nexis Academic:

Locate the drop-down menu near top, right of screen that says Search by Subject or Topic.  Many categories, including Federal and State Cases are included here. (Researchers who are not FSU students, faculty, or staff will need to access this database from a library computer.)