When looking for a statute or regulation, many times you will be able to start with its citation. If you have this information, you can typically find the full text of the section by entering the citation into an appropriate resource. If you do not have a citation, but know the subject which you'd like to search, use a tool or database that supports full-text searching. The more detail you use, the more likely you will find a result on point (if one exists); less detail will provide more, but possibly irrelevant, results. Perform a number of searches using different combinations of terms, and synonyms for terms, to ensure the best results.
Statutes and regulation are often organized in titles and chapters by subject. Browsing or searching the tables of contents may allow you to quickly find areas of interest. Likewise, many compilations of statutes and regulations contain indexes which contain more detail than the tables of contents. When looking at a specific section, be sure to browse related sections around it to understand the context of the law, and identify and relevant exceptions and definitions.
When you have found a statute or regulation that seems relevant, always check to see if it is still good law. Many subscription resources, such as Nexis Uni, have an online tool to check for you. In print, you may need to use a service such as Shepard's citations to look for later cases. Laws and regulations are often amended or changed, and interpretations in case law may affect their effects.
Annotated statutes contain cross-references to related statutes, regulations, and court opinions. If you are using a tool that does not have annotations, using the case citation in a search engine will provide cases that have cited to the statute or regulation. Use different forms of the citation or Boolean connectors to account for differences in citation formatting.
Many times when searching for statutes or regulations, you will have the citation. Although there are several different styles of legal citations, most, if not all, follow similar conventions when citing a statute or regulation.
Example:
17 U.S.C. § 107 (2015).
U.S.C. is the abbreviation telling you what law is being cited. In this instance, it is the United States Code
17 tells you that it is Title 17 of the U.S. Code.
"§" is the symbol for "section."
107 after the section symbol lets you know it's section 107.
(2015) signifies the year of the code, since statutes may change over time.
Another example from Colorado:
Colo. Rev. Stat. § 24-90-119
State citations may appear differently depending on how the state codifies its laws. Here, Colo. Rev. Stat. tells you that it is from the Colorado Revised Statutes.
"§" is the symbol for "section."
24-90-119 signifies the citation is from Title 24, Chapter 90, Section 119 of the Colorado Revised Statutes.
C.F.R. - Code of Federal Regulations. Federal regulations.
Colo. Code Regs. - Code of Colorado Regulations. Colorado state regulations.
Colo. Rev. Stat. - Colorado Revised Statutes.
Cong. Rec. - Congressional Record. - The official record of the proceedings of the United States Congress.
Fed. Reg. - Federal Register. The official journal of the United States government, containing agency rules, proposed rules, and public notices.
U.S.C. - United States Code. Codified statutes of the United States.
U.S.C.A. - United States Code Annotated. Product of West Publishing. Annotated version of the U.S. Code.
U.S.C.S. - United States Code Service. Product of Lexis. Annotated version of the U.S. Code.