Business Paralegal/Legal Studies Program (Resource Guide)

Search more than 10,000 legal words and phrases for clear definitions written in plain language. An easy-to-understand guide to the language of law from the dictionary experts at Merriam-Webster.

Your Free Online Legal Dictionary • Featuring Black’s Law Dictionary, 2nd Ed.

Get definitions of terms, or find definitions that include specific terms.

FindLaw, a part of Thomson Reuters, is a pioneer and innovator in marketing solutions for law firms, online legal information and services for lawyers, businesses, and individuals. Today, FindLaw.com remains the most popular site for free legal information on the Internet with more than eight million visitors each month and the largest online lawyer directory available.

From Cornell University Legal Information Institute
-- What to Cite and Why -- How to Cite -- Citation Examples -- Abbreviations and Omissions Used in Citations -- Underlining and Italics -- Placing Citations in Context -- Cross Reference Tables

Justia provides free case law, codes, regulations and legal information for lawyers, business, students and consumers world wide.

Congress established its Law Library in 1832, recognizing its need for ready access to reliable legal materials. With a collection of over 2.65 million volumes spanning the ages and covering virtually every jurisdiction in the world, the Law Library has become the world’s largest law library.

Basic explanations and links to state laws for primarily everyday laws, such as property, wages, divorce, etc.

The Legal Information Institute (LII) was founded in 1992 by co-directors Thomas R. Bruce and Peter W. Martin (now Director and Director Emeritus, respectively). Its work is supported by the National Center for Automated Information Research, a growing number of corporate sponsors, and the Keck Foundation through grants and funded joint studies. The LII publishes electronic versions of core materials in numerous areas of the law, both on the web and in other electronic products. They range from the Constitution to the U.S. Code, from Supreme Court decisions to the Code of Federal Regulations.

NIJ is the research, development and evaluation agency of the U.S. Department of Justice. We are dedicated to improving knowledge and understanding of crime and justice issues through science. We provide objective and independent knowledge and tools to inform the decision-making of the criminal and juvenile justice communities to reduce crime and advance justice, particularly at the state and local levels.

Public and private laws are also known as slip laws. A slip law is an official publication of the law and is competent evidence admissible in all state and Federal courts and tribunals of the United States. After the President signs a bill into law, it is delivered to the Office of the Federal Register (OFR), National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) where it is assigned a law number, legal statutory citation (public laws only), and prepared for publication as a slip law. Private laws receive their legal statutory citations when they are published in the United States Statutes at Large. Prior to publication as a slip law, OFR also prepares marginal notes and citations for each law, and a legislative history for public laws only. Until the slip law is published, through the U.S. Government Publishing Office (GPO), the text of the law can be found by accessing the enrolled version of the bill

The mission of the Department of Justice is to uphold the rule of law, to keep our country safe, and to protect civil rights. Under the leadership of the Attorney General of the United States, the Justice Department is composed of more than 40 separate component organizations and more than 115,000 employees. Headquartered at the Robert F. Kennedy Building in Washington, D.C., the Department maintains field offices in all states and territories across the United States and in more than 50 countries around the world.