Libguides Free Low Cost Legal Research Regulatory And

Bonisiwe Shabane

-Dec 28, 2025, 5:00 PM

libguides free low cost legal research regulatory and

Major legal research databases can be prohibitively expensive. Fortunately, many free and low-cost resources for conducting legal research are available. This guide will help you locate them. We will mainly focus on resources for researching federal law and Washington State law. Some resources for researching the law in other states and countries are mentioned as well. Remember to evaluate every source that you consult to determine whether it is current, accurate, and authoritative.

This is particularly important when relying on free and low-cost resources. Fastcase is a low-cost legal research database. It was recently acquired by vLex. If you are a member of the Washington State Bar Association (WSBA), then you can access the vLex Fastcase database for free through your WSBA membership. For more information, see WSBA: vLex Fastcase. If you are an SU Law student, staff, or faculty member, you can access Fastcase and vLex for free using the links below.

You can access additional legal research databases, including Westlaw and CoCounsel, for free through the King County Law Library (see link below). myAU | AU Library | myWCL | Library Home | myLEAGLE Library Account Library Home | Research Guides | LEAGLE Catalog | E-Journals & Articles | Library Databases | Frequently Used Resources | Ask a Librarian Welcome to the research guide for free and low-cost legal research. Our goal is to help you find accurate and useful legal information when you don't have access to the expensive "big three" legal databases: Westlaw, Lexis, or Bloomberg Law. We've divided the guide by type of legal document (legislative, judicial, administrative) with additional sections on secondary sources and materials for our local jurisdictions (the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia).

This guide was last updated 28 January 2025. This guide discusses both free and low-cost options for legal research. The free resources are listed first, with the low-cost resources following. If a resource charges a fee, it will be noted in the description. These low-cost options are usually available through a subscription and are not pay-as-you-go or pay-per-use. Here are the major free resources we cover in this guide:

Primary sources of law are statutes/laws, orders, cases, decisions, and regulations. They are issued by one of the three branches of government (legislative, judicial, or executive) at either the state or federal level. Judicial sources are issued by the judiciary, and consist of opinions or case law; dockets (the filings in a case); and court rules. Legislative sources are issued at the federal level by Congress; and at the state level by the representative bodies. The names vary by state, but are most frequently referred to as Houses, Assemblies, or Delegates (for the lower bodies); and as Senates (for the upper bodies). Every state, with the exception of Nebraska, is bicameral.

Legislative sources consist of statutes/laws/codes, session laws, and legislative history (which includes hearings, amendments, prints, etc.). Executive sources are issued by the executive; most of these sources are referred to as administrative sources, since they are issued by administrative agencies. Administrative sources includes regulations/rules, proposed rules, and administrative decisions and guidance. Additionally, the President (or the Governor, at the state level) often issues statements, orders, and other papers. Fortunately, almost every source issued by the federal government is not subject to copyright, and thus is freely available to the public. If you are researching state and local governments, be aware that they vary in how much and whether they protect the documents that they issue.

Unfortunately, the sheer amount of government documents issued can make it difficult to find a relevant primary source. The resources collected in the tables below are just a few of the sources that provide easier access to statutes, regulations, cases, and orders. Major legal research databases can be prohibitively expensive for some researchers. There are, however, a number of online alternatives that are either free or less expensive than Lexis and Westlaw. This guide provides an overview to different types of free materials, under the section Free Sources of Legal Materials, and also summarizes the features and costs of less expensive databases within the section of... There are several databases which provide access to primary source materials on their own sites, without any charge to the user.

These sites vary in terms of the types of materials collected, the scope of their coverage, and their search options. We have created a table for each type of material which includes the major online sources and their coverage. Because the availability of state legal materials varies so widely, we have only included descriptions of the federal materials available for free online. To find free state legal information, please consult our state law research guides. The free sources we provide contain a great deal of primary source legal material. They are, however, much more limited in terms of search options and finding aids than fee and subscription based sources.

In particular, free sources rely almost exclusively on keyword searching and browsing to find cases, rather than headnotes and digests, which are used in Lexis and Westlaw. For this reason, the free sources may not be the best or most efficient sources of information. Most law libraries provide online access to their research guides. Although they may contain information specific to the library's collections, these guides provide references to treatises, Web sources, major case law, legislation, and other relevant sources that can aid in one's research. If your legal research is state-specific, you may want to browse the list of online research guides of a handful of major law libraries in that state (see examples below). Another strategy for locating relevant legal research guides is to conduct a keyword search in your internet browser, using the terms "research," "guide" as well as the subject matter you are researching.

For example: © The Regents of the University of California. UCLA School of Law. All Rights Reserved. The following are important considerations to keep in mind when conducting research online. Primary Sources Primary materials are more likely to be available online than secondary materials.

The U.S. federal government has especially made a point of trying to make official documents available online. It is also less expensive to publish electronically, so many governments are moving toward online-only government publication policy. Secondary Sources Secondary sources are less likely to be online (for copyright, use, and cost issues). However, many law journals are now published in both print and electronic formats. Coverage Dates With the exception of archival projects, most legal information on the internet is available beginning in the mid-1990s.

Citators There are no free citators for ensuring that a law is still good. There are countless free (or low-cost) legal research resources available online. The trick is narrowing down the available information to find reliable and up-to-date information. This guide provides links and suggestions for free and low-cost legal research resources, including: free federal, California, and secondary resources; low-cost legal databases; and other resources and guides. While you are a student at Berkeley Law, you have access to a wealth of commercial legal research databases including Lexis and Westlaw. These are terrific resources, but there are reasons why you should understand how to also use free and low-cost legal research options, including:

When using free and low-cost resources, it is important to keep the following limitations in mind: A thorough guide to Illinois legal research for non-lawyers prepared by the Chicago Association of Law Libraries. Includes initial basic legal research information for federal research as well. Legal research is usually accomplished by using a major commercial database (Westlaw, Lexis, & Bloomberg being the big three). Subscriptions to these databases are very costly and would not usually be considered a feasible expense for an individual. However, there are both free and low-cost options to help you accomplish your legal research needs.

This guide will inform on major sources of primary law, secondary sources, and other relevant legal materials that are found online and are freely accessible or overall more affordable. *Remember to assess the validity of your research by reviewing the cited sources and the reputation of the publisher* The United States Constitution created the three branches of government (Art. I: Legislative | Art. II: Executive | Art. III: Judiciary).

The typical way of thinking about the law through the branches is that the legislature creates the laws, the executive enforces the laws, and the judiciary interprets the laws. This is fundamentally correct, but in reality, every branch makes law. This guide covers all four types of law in both the federal and state schemes: constitutions, statutory, administrative, and case law. When researching regulations, it is always a good idea to check the agency's official website for agency decisions, orders, guidance documents, and other helpful materials. Seattle University Law Library 901 12th Avenue | Seattle, WA 98122 | 206-398-4220 Law Library | Research Guides | About Us

Libguides Free Low Cost Legal Research Regulatory And

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