Law students, legal practitioners, law clerks, and historians! Assemble here at once as I present to you a curated list of free online law libraries that you can easily go to with a click of a button and get access to unlimited legal research from different parts of the world.
If there is one similarity between lawyers and doctors, it is they never stop reading and learning new things even years after they have graduated from law school and med school. They have become licensed to practice in their various fields but the learning never stops and you won’t blame them, both fields are extremely important and just as broad so they have to keep reading and learning new things as new situations arise and to stay updated in their respective fields.
Law is one of the most important and toughest fields in the world today so if you are going to become a lawyer, prepare yourself for unending reading because if you don’t read then you won’t stay abreast with recent happenings and this could lead to you losing several cases, you don’t want that, do you?
As a law student, lawyer, judge, historian, law clerk, or law professor you must always do research whether it is to teach your students, present in a court case, for assignments and reports, write a book, or just to satisfy your curiosity. My guess is you either go to use the school’s library, a local library or use a paid online law library for your research. These are good options or ways to research but there is a better option.
I am talking about using a free online law library to do all of your legal research and homework. This free online law library contains as much information, which is regularly updated, as the ones in your school or local library or subscribed online law library. When you use this public law library online it saves you the stress and time of going to use a physical library for your law research and you save money from using a subscribed online law library.
The free online law library features free law resources from different countries and because they are online you could stay anywhere and do your legal research. Amazing, isn’t it?
But there’s more…
Some of the free online law libraries are owned by some of the top universities and legal organizations in the world like Harvard, UCLA, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Georgia State University, the University of Colorado Boulder, and many more. Seeing the providers of free online law libraries should put you at ease in using them, am I right?
In addition to the free online law libraries curated in this blog, we have a separate blog on free online history courses that could assist you in your legal research and sourcing information that could be useful in your legal journey.
What is a Law Library?
A law library is a special library designed to be used by and assist law students, lawyers, judges, historians, law professors, and law clerks to conduct legal research and seek legal information necessary to correctly determine the state of the law.
Top Free Online Law Library
- Legal Information Institute (LII)
- Nigerian Legal Research
- LegalMatch
- Law Library of Congress
- GovInfo
- U.S. Code
- Congress.gov
- Loyola University Chicago Library School of Law
- Google Scholar
- Oyez Project
- U.S. Supreme Court Web Citations
- Caselaw Access Project (CAP)
- Justia
1. Legal Information Institute (LII)
Legal Information Institute is a project founded in 1992 by Cornell Law School using the latest technology to gather, process, and publish public legal information that is accurate and objective. LII currently has more than 40 million users and continues to grow.
On this free online law library, you will find a wide range of legal collections on federal law, US code, Supreme Court, uniform laws, state law resources, UCC, CFR, constitution, world law, state statutes by topic, and federal rules.
2. Nigerian Legal Research
If you are a Nigerian lawyer or law student, this website will help you out in your legal research. If you are not a Nigerian, you can also make use of the library to research Nigeria and other countries, it is open to everyone. The library features Nigerian federal laws, and free access to law books, law articles, court decisions, regulations, international legal instruments, and law statutes (legislation).
However, you will have to sign up for an account to get access to all the free legal resources and there is a strong copyright law on this online library that forbids users from copying the contents.
3. LegalMatch
LegalMatch is one of the best free online law libraries offering a wide range of updated information you need on any legal topic. The online law library covers 220 legal categories and contains thousands of online articles. LegalMatch is ideal for law students and those who want to gain some knowledge of a specific legal category.
The categories of legal materials on LegalMatch are family law, criminal law, bankruptcy law, personal injury & health law, jobs & employment law, financial law, immigration law, real estate & property law, civil law, government law, insurance law, will, trust and estates law, intellectual property law, and products and services law.
4. Law Library of Congress
The Law Library of Congress is the world’s largest collection of law books with over 2.9 million volumes spanning all systems and periods of law and covering nations all over the world. The library contains research guides that range from animal and landlord-tenant law to instructions for compiling a federal legislative history.
You don’t need to sign up for an account to get access to all the legal resources in the Law Library of Congress. If you have a particular thing in mind to research, you can search alphabetically by subject or by guides. Also, the library is updated regularly.
5. GovInfo
If you are doing any historical congressional research, GovInfo is the best tool. This online library features a wide range of free online official federal government publications, public laws, congressional reports, the US Code, congressional records and hearings, and the Code of Federal Regulations.
You can search documents by alphabetical order, category, within a timeframe or date range, issuing committee, or government authors.
6. U.S. Code
This is your number one stop for free resources on US Code research. The contents of this library are prepared by the Office of the Law Revision Counsel of the United States House of Representatives. The library features 54 titles spanning a wide range of legal contexts from shipping and patents to labor and education.
7. Congress.gov
If you are a historian or a law student working on the history of Congress, this library – Congress.gov – will assist you better. The library contains bill texts and summaries as well as congressional records since 1998, member profiles since 1973, nominations since 1981, and appropriations tables since 1998. When you sign in to the website, you will be able to download documents.
8. Loyola University Chicago Library School of Law
Loyola University Chicago has an online law library that features a wide range of legal resources. You will find materials on education law, art & cultural property, Illinois law, tax law, business organizations law, elder law, environmental law, constitutional law, health law, and many others. You can also search by guides, subject, type, and author.
Only students of Loyola University can have access to the online law library because you will need to log in with your UVID and password to access the law materials so it is only restricted to their students. Some materials are restricted to only the law students of Loyola University Chicago.
9. Google Scholar
Google Scholar is a search engine designed by Google to only find legal articles and case law. You can use Google Scholar wherever you are, it works just like the typical Google search engine but in this case only for things related to law. You can search for any legal material in your country or other countries and get hundreds of results instantly which are mostly in PDF formats or as published journals.
10. Oyez Project
Oyez Project is a fantastic platform and when you get to use it, you will understand why it is. Oyez Project is a library of cases, advocates, and justices in the US. The cases are my best part, whereby you get to see a list of cases held in US courts across the nation. You could either read the cases or play them to listen. Practicing lawyers will find this very useful.
You don’t even need to sign up for an account to use Oyez. Just head to the library through the link provided below select cases, advocates, or justices, and begin your journey. No sign-up is required to get access to this information.
11. U.S. Supreme Court Web Citations
The U.S. Supreme Court Web Citations is an online law library of citations, opinions, and justices compiled and maintained by the University of California Berkeley Law Library. The library gives free access to court decisions and case materials. Whether you are a law student, historian, law professor, or legal practitioner you will find this library useful to your career.
12. Caselaw Access Project (CAP)
Caselaw Access Project is digitized from the collection of the Harvard Law School Library. CAP provides official US court decisions freely to the public online. The scope includes all state courts, federal courts, and territorial courts for American Samoa, Dakota Territory, Guam, Native American Courts, Navajo Nation, and the Northern Mariana Islands. No sign-in is required to use the Caselaw Access Project.
13. Justia
This list cannot be complete without Justia. Justia is a popular free online law library that provides legal guides on injury law, family law, estate planning, business law, home ownership, intellectual property, employment & labor, criminal law, immigration, and bankruptcy.
These legal guides are ideal for law students, aspiring law students, law interns, and individuals who want to get general knowledge of a particular legal field. Justia also features legal research & law practice where you will find law cases and codes across the US and materials on US federal governments, US courts, and US states. This is ideal for law researchers.
Conclusion
We have come to the end of the free online law library and remember, legal knowledge is not limited to those in the field, you should also know the law as a citizen and teach others too if the need arises. That is why legal information is, oftentimes, free to the public so that there will be no excuse for breaking the law.
The online law libraries I have shared here will satisfy your thirst for legal knowledge and you can always go to them any time any day to get the information you want.
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