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Westlaw Campus Research Guide

Learn how to use the database Westlaw Campus Research

Statutes & Court Rules

  • Statute: A statute typically refers to a law passed by a state legislature or the U.S. Congress. State and federal court cases often involve statutory interpretation, and enactment of a statute may well reverse established case law.
  • Federal Statutes: After the U.S. Congress passes a bill and the president signs it into law, it is codified, or published in the United States Code (USC), the official version of federal statutory law. Since 1927, West has published an annotated version of the USC, the United States Code Annotated (USCA). Each statute in the USCA is followed by summaries of published court decisions that interpret the statute. These summaries are also called annotations or notes of decisions. The complete USCA is available on Westlaw.
  • State Statutes: State laws are codified, or published in state legislative codes. Statutes from all 50 states and the District of Columbia are available on Westlaw.

  • Court Rules: These are the rules that govern the procedures of conduct of business in the courts. The rules include time limitations, allowable pleadings, and grounds for appeal. Each jurisdiction has its method for enacting court rules

Finding Statutes by Citation

To retrieve a statute by citation, type the citation in the search box at the top of the page and click Search.

For example, type 29 usca 2614 or cal civ code 56.21.

Searching for Statutes

To search for statutes, follow these steps:

  1. Type terms describing your issue in the search box at the top of the page. If you are familiar with Boolean searching, you can also type a Terms and Connectors query. Westlaw recognizes whichever search format you use.
  2. Leave the default jurisdiction or click the arrow to display the Jurisdiction selector. Select up to three jurisdictions and click Save.
  3.  Click Search to search all core legal content, including statutes
  4. Click on Statutes and Court rules from the menu on the left. Apply additional filters on the left panel to narrow down your results.

Browsing Statutes

It is possible to browse statutes within each jurisdiction. Clicking on the Statutes & Court Rules link from Westlaw's homepage directs you to the content page for federal and state statute and court rule resources.

United States Code Annotated-Table of Contents

The Table of Contents service lets you browse statutes, view a statute in the context of the sections surrounding it, and quickly retrieve related sections.

To access the Table of Contents service, click on Statutes and Court Rules from Westlaw's homepage. Click United States Code Annotated (USCA) to display the table of contents for the United State Code Annotated (USCA), or click a state name to display the table of contents for that state’s statutes and court rules.

To browse a table of contents, click the links. To retrieve a specific section, click its name.
To run a search, select Search all content, or select Specify content to search and select the check boxes next to the sections, titles, parts, or subparts you want to search. Then type your search in the tabbed search box at the top of the page and click Search.

table of contents for United State Code Annotated