Alumni Services Library Guide: Free Legal Research Sources on the Web

The Law Library's website contains a variety of information that may be useful for your research. Of particular note is our Research Guides collection, prepared by the Reference Department librarians. The collection includes helpful guides to starting research on topics such as intellectual property law, business law, and more.

Advanced Search

Legal research and law-related websites are prevalent on the Internet, but not all contain reliable and high-quality information.  Our reference librarians suggest the following federal and state government websites, university websites, and organizational websites as good sources for free, online legal research.

• Loyola University Chicago Law Library - Research Guides

  Subject guides to print and online resources available to Law Library users.
• Loyola University Libraries

  Access to the Main Campus Library's database list, electronic journals search box, subject guides, and more.
• Loyola's Online Catalog

  Loyola's online catalog includes holdings of both print and online resources.
• Cornell University's Legal Information Institute

  Links to federal and state legal information, including the U.S. Code, as well as Wex, the collaboratively-created online legal encyclopedia/dictionary.
• Law Library Resource Exchange

  Articles on legal technology topics.

• Congress.gov

  The legislative information Web site of the Library of Congress (replacing the Thomas Web site) provides access to Congressional bills, Public Laws, and legislative history documents.
• USA.gov

  The U.S. Government's official Web portal includes an A-Z listing of administrative agencies.
• GovInfo

  This Web site from the U.S. Government Publishing Office (GPO) includes links to official government publications such as the CFR, Federal Register, and the U.S. Code.
• United States Courts

  Provides links to the Web sites of all federal courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court.

• Illinois General Assembly

  Illinois legislation, legislative history, and administrative law.
• Circuit Court of Cook County

  General information, court calendars, and circuit court rules.
• Illinois Secretary of State

  Portal to Secretary of State services and forms (including corporate forms) and the Illinois Register (chronological Illinois administrative law publication).
• Clerk of Circuit Court of Cook County

  Website of Clerk of Circuit Court of Cook County with forms.

• Cornell University's Legal Information Institute

  Links to federal and state legal information, including the U.S. Code, as well as Wex, the collaboratively-created online legal encyclopedia/dictionary.
• FindLaw

  Links to various state and federal legal information resources and legal forms.
• American Society of International Law (ASIL)

  ASIL has electronic databases with primary law (E-ISIL) and discussions of international law topics (E-RG).
• Google Scholar

  Provides for searching for state and federal cases with links to cases.

Address

Loyola University Chicago
School of Law Library 
Philip H. Corboy Law Center
25 E. Pearson Street
Chicago, IL 60611

Email

Access and borrowing questions:
Law-Library@luc.edu
Research questions: LoyolaLawReference@luc.edu

Phone Numbers

Main:  312.915.7200
Circulation:  312.915.6986
Reference:  312.915.7205
Interlibrary Loan:  312.915.7202
Fax:  312.915.6797