Westlaw Campus: Accessing State Statutes

Statutes are laws. Specifically, statutes are laws that have been passed by a legislative body such as the United States Congress or a state legislature. A compliation of statutes, such as the collection of a particular state's statutes, is referred to as a "code". Statutes are different from "rules" or "regulations" which are laws promulgated by administrative agencies.

State statutes are available from a variety of sources such as State Capital , Lexis Nexis Academic , and Westlaw Campus. This guides describes Westlaw Campus which offers a variety of quick and simple methods of accessing state statutes.

Searching by issue

Before searching for state statues by issue, brainstrom key concepts or terms that could describe the issue.

For example, when researching whether a victim impact statement is allowed at a sentencing hearing, choose keywords such as victim, impact, statement, sentencing, and hearings. Victim impact statement might also be searched as a phrase.

Then, to begin your search:

1. Open Westlaw Campus on the University Libraries' web site, under "Database Finder".
2. Click on "I agree" and "GO" at the bottom of the licensing agreement screen.
3. In the "Quick Search" search box #1, enter keywords relating to your research topic.
   Note: The default "Natural Language" is appropriate.
   Note: You can enter a list of keywords, a question, a sentence, or a phrase. You can use double quotation marks to indicate phrases in the description.
4. In the "Quick Search" #2 area, select "All State Statutes". Select "Specific State Jurisdictions" or "All State Statutes" from the pull down menu in the "Select a State" box.
5. Next to "Quick Search" #3, click on "GO".

A successful search will retreive twenty documents and the first page of the first document will appear on the screen. To view the rest of the retreived statutes, click on "cite list" in the lower right hand corner of the screen. Then, click on the number next to that document title that you want to view. Consult Help(FAQs) for assistance in constructing Westlaw Campus search strategies.

Searching by citation

To find a state statute when the citation is known, follow these steps:
 

1. Open Westlaw Campus on the University Libraries' web site, under "Databases and Online Journals".
2. Click on "I agree" and "GO" at the bottom of the licensing agreement screen.
3. On the main search screen, scroll down to the "Find a Document" section.
4. Enter the known citation into the first search box in the "Find a Document" section.
   Note: Use the table below to verfiy the proper citation format for the statute's state.
5. Click on "GO" next to the search box.
   

If searching by citation is unsuccessful, try a keyword search as described above .

Abbreviations and formats for locating state statutes on Westlaw

Efficient state statute searching on Westlaw Campus can be enhanced through the use of database abbreviations and statute formats.

Westlaw has assigned each state a unique "Find a Document" format for locating statutes. This format expresses a model for entering successful citation searches using the "Find a Document" tool as described above in the Searching by citation section.

Westlaw also separates each state's statutes into unique databases.

The table below identifies the database abbreviation for each state's annotated and unannotated code as well as the "Find a Document" format.