Finding Statutes

This lesson is intended to teach you the basic approaches to finding statutes. It is assumed that you are already familiar with the forms of statutory publication when you run this lesson. See the lessons "Introduction to State and Federal Statutes" or "Forms of Federal Statutory Publication" or "Codification" if you need to review these matters first.

While this lesson is intended for first year students, the Finding Statutes by Citation, Name, and Topic sections and the Determining the Statute's Jurisdiction section may be used independently to "refresh your recollection," so if you haven't had to deal with statute research for awhile and now have to do it, you can brush up your skills.

Learning Outcomes

On completion of the lesson, the student will be able to:

1. Identify information that will be useful in locating a statute.
2. Find a statute by citation.
3. Determine a statute's jurisdiction.
4. Find a statute by name.
5. Find a statute by topic.