MASSACHUSETTS STATUTES & CASES

STATUTES
Massachusetts law is comprised of the General Laws (i.e. statutes) enacted by the General Court (i.e. the legislature), regulations promulgated by various state agencies, and cases decided by Massachusetts courts.  The General Laws are available at the Massachusetts General Court web site (more recent Session Laws that have not yet been codified are also available at that site, as is the Massachusetts Constitution).

The General Laws are divided into four parts:

• Administration of Government, including Regulation of Trade, Labor and Corporations

• Property, Wills and Trusts, and Domestic Relations

• Courts and Civil Litigation

• Crimes and Punishments, and Criminal Cases

Massachusetts Regulations are also codified in the Code of Massachusetts Regulations, which can be found at the Trial Court Law Libraries site.  

CASES
Recent Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court cases, Appeals Court cases and some Superior Court cases are on-line at the following sites:

• Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly has decisions from 1997 to the present 

• LexisNexis has decisions from 1996 to the present (you have to register to use the site, but it's still free once you do that)

• The Social Law Library has slip opinions for the Supreme Judicial Court, the Appeals Court and the Superior Court from 1999 to the present

• The Reporter of Decisions also has current slip opinions

In addition to statutes and cases, there are also Executive Orders promulgated by the governor, which are available at the Trial Court Law Library site.  

Information on various Massachusetts law topics is also available at the web sites for the Massachusetts Bar Association and the Trial Court Law Library, as well as the Mass. Legal Help and Neighborhood Law sites.  And there are many law dictionaries on the internet, including databases provided by law.com, lawinfo.com and findlaw.com.  

At the federal level, there are sites containing the Constitution, the U.S. Code and the Code of Federal Regulations, as well as opinions from the Appeals Court and the District Court in Massachusetts, and the U.S. Supreme Court.