This page introduces some federal and Illinois resources that provide access to cases and statutes, both in print and online.
Note that there are a variety of sources of law not discussed on this page, like city ordinances and regulations.
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Case law is bulk of what attorneys read when they are conducting research. These are opinions written by judges that either interpret statutory law (see below) or are common law.
Cases are organized into a variety of reporters. Reporters may cover a geographical region or be specific to a state, and there are both official and unofficial reporters. The United States Supreme Court has its own reporters. Additionally, reporters are organized by level of court: trial, appeals, and court of last resort. This is a simplification, so if you have questions about reporters or court hierarchy, contact a law librarian.
***An excellent free resource for case research online is Google Scholar using the case law search. You can limit to specific jurisdictions and key word search as you otherwise would in a search engine. What's missing from Scholar are many of the robust annotations and secondary material that is available in some paid resources and in print.
Federal
Illinois - Note that while Illinois continues to have its cases printed in unofficial reporters, official publication has been online since mid-2011
Statutes are laws written by legislatures, like the U.S. Congress or the Illinois General Assembly. They are generally collected in codes that are arranged by topic, though they are also published in the order of their enactment, i.e. chronologically. The below links are to the codified versions.
Federal - United States Code
Illinois - Illinois Compiled Statutes