Legal Resources

    Here you will find information on Laws, contracts, legal guides, search for court records, legal sources and information. You might need to know some of the information on these sites to understand the will or a marriage document you just found in the back of the hope chest . Understanding why and how things are from the legal standpoint will help you understand more about your ancestors legal affairs and what they were trying to do.

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    link button    American Bar Association [ABA]
    Public resources presented by the ABA include information on children and the law, immigration issues, estate planning, wills, probate, and family law.
    link button    Carmack's Guide to Copyright & Contracts
    Fair use, the public domain, seeking permissions, etc. ~~ NOTE: The full text of the book is not available at this site
    link button    Common Law Marriage Fact Sheet
    THE MYTH: There is a common misperception that if you live together for a certain length of time [seven years is what many people believe], you are common-law married. This is not true anywhere in the United States. This fact sheet outlines the laws in different states relating to 'common law' marriages.
    link button    Cornell University Law School ~ LII
    The Legal Information Institute [LII] is a research and electronic publishing activity of the Cornell Law School. Popular collections include: the U.S. Code, Supreme Court opinions, and a searchable database of various laws.
    link button    FOIA
    Information about the Freedom of Information Act [FOIA].
    link button    Fair Use Doctrine
    Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use [US Code,Title 17, § 107].
    link button    FindLaw
    FindLaw provides cases and codes, legal news, e-mail newsletters, and message boards.
    link button    Georgetown Law Library
    Research databases [e.g., CCH Health & Human Resources, and U.S. Supreme Court Records & Briefs, 1832-1978], and research assistance, using chat software to connect you to one of their librarians no matter where you are.
    link button    Hieros Gamos [HG].org
    Legal directories for locating US state law, government and commercial sites.
    link button    Internet Law Library
    The Internet Law Library (formerly the U.S. House of Representatives Internet Law Library) provides links to a large number of legal resources.
    link button    Law Crawler
    From FindLaw, a legal web and database search engine.
    link button    Nolo ~ Your Legal Companion
    Information on family law, immigration, wills, copyright laws, estate planning, and other legal matters.
    link button    Supreme Court of the United States
    Search recent decisions, read transcripts from arguments, opinions, orders, etc.
    link button    Texas ~ Tarlton Law Library, The University of Texas at Austin
    A keyword-searchable database of tables of contents from law reviews and other publications related to the law published in the United States and abroad.
    link button    U.S. Courts
    Search for U.S. courts [e.g., Court of Appeals, or Bankruptcy Court] by zip code, district, county and state, city and state, area code, or circuit.
    link button    United States Copyright Office
    Information on copyright laws from the Library of Congress' United States Copyright Office.
    link button    Wyoming ~ State Law Library
    Read online or download Wyoming Statutes, search the database of Wyoming Supreme Court Cases, read about the Wyoming court system, etc.
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