Guides & overviews are often the easiest introduction to the original legal documents. Consider starting with a secondary source and use its bibliography to locate original sources.
The collected reports and documents of the United States Senate and House of Representatives, including annual reports of the Secretary of the Interior. Available in print and selected years online.
The government-published US Code (abbreviated U.S.C.) and commercially published US Code Annotated (USCA) incorporate all current federal law into topical "titles". Title 25 is entitled "Indians" and covers much of the law governing federal relations with Native America. The Congressional Record contains the transcript of floor activity for the US House and Senate.
The Code of Federal Regulations (abbreviated CFR) incorporates all current federal regulations into topical "titles". Title 25 is entitled "Indians." The Federal Register is the official daily publication for rules, proposed rules, and notices of Federal agencies and organizations, as well as executive orders and other presidential documents.
We no longer receive current issues in paper.
United States Reports (U.S.) - or - United States Supreme Court reports (U.S.) -or- United States Supreme Court Reports, Lawyer's Ed., 2nd series (L Ed 2d).
US Reports contains decisions of US Supreme Court cases.
Consider starting with law review articles for introduction to specific cases. Both the WestlawNext and Lexis-Nexis Academic databases (see links below) include both law reviews *and* court decisions.
Our two main legal databases, Lexis-Nexis Academic & WestLaw Campus, offer a citator service -- pointing to cases and law reviews that cite a particular case.
Westlaw also uses a set of symbols at the top left of each case to indicate citing sources
Westlaw Icon Legend
In cases and administrative decisions, a red flag warns that the case or administrative decision is no longer good law for at least one of the points of law it contains. In statutes and regulations, a red flag warns that the statute or regulation has been amended by a recent session law or rule, repealed, superseded, or held unconstitutional or preempted in whole or in part. |
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In cases and administrative decisions, a yellow flag warns that the case or administrative decision has some negative treatment, but has not been reversed or overruled. | |
In cases and administrative decisions, a blue H indicates that there is direct history but it is not known to be negative. | |
A green C indicates that the case/administrative decision has citing references but no direct history or negative citing references. It also indicates that a statute/regulation has citing references, but no updating documents. | |
Depth of treatment stars indicate how extensively a cited case or administrative decision has been discussed by the citing case. | |
Quotation marks indicate that the citing case or administrative decision directly quotes the cited case. |