| RESEARCH GUIDE SERIES: RESEARCH GUIDE NO. 29 |
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Cleveland Law Library Association members and those entitled to privileges under O.R.C. Section 307.51 have access to the most currently available texts, periodicals, case law and online resources for use in researching Ohio law. This Research Guide will cover the major sources of Ohio Materials Available In The Law Library.
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Old Bills, not Enacted:
Enacted Laws:
A guide to legislative history in Ohio, prepared by Mike Franczak, Eric Vendel, Michael Griffaton. Columbus, Ohio : Legislative Service Commission, [1998].
Internet Access: www.lsc.state.oh.us/membersonly/history.pdf
Guide to State Legislative and Administrative Materials by William H. Manz. Buffalo, New York: William S. Hein & Co., Inc., [2002]. Contains legislative history research guides for all 50 states.
Testimony and Committee Reports:
Ohio Capitol Connection (118th GA forward); also includes reporters' notes of Committee activity.
Some testimony is filmed for inclusion with the LSC bill analyses prepared by the Legislative Service Commission.
Notes of hearings taken by Legislative Service Commission staff may include some testimony, and is available at the Legislative Service Commission library. Committee notebooks available at the House and Senate clerk's office for the past 2 sessions. Older committee notebooks at the Ohio Historical Society.
Baldwin's Ohio Revised Code Annotated, updated by the Ohio Legislative Service.
Page's Ohio Revised Code, updated by monthly Bulletins.
Page's Ohio Revised Code on Lexis in the Ohio Library as CODE. Codes from the past 10 years in the Legislative Archive file.
The Library has Anderson's, West's, Loislaw's and Casemaker's versions of the Ohio Revised Code. Loislaw is available remotely to library members.
Internet Sources: Ohio Revised Code (unannotated) is available on the LAWriter® website.
Regulations promulgated by state agencies are published in Baldwin's Ohio Administrative Code which is updated by the Ohio Monthly Record. For updates beyond the latest edition of Ohio Monthly Record, and for proposed rule changes, see Register of Ohio and Joint Commission on Agency Rule Review. The Register of Ohio has information about the administrative rule making process. Especially see the guide to Abbreviations and Definitions.
Note: Occasionally you will encounter regulations "adopted by reference." This means you will not find the full text of these regulations within the code. This is especially true in the building code, but the Ohio Basic Building Code sometimes contains the full text of these regulations. The Ohio Legislative Service Commission can provide the text of the regulations adopted by reference.
The Ohio Administrative Code is available on the LAWriter® website.
Proposed regulations can be tracked on the Ohio Legislative Service Commission's Register of Ohio They can also be tracked on either Lexis (OHIO Library, OHRGTR file) or Westlaw (OHREGTRK).
Baldwin's has separate volumes for court rules; Page's has a separate volume for the Civil Rules but includes the others in relevant titles, such as the Criminal Rules in Title 29.
The history of Ohio case reporting is complex, and the number of reporters that have appeared over time is great. However, this is the current situation:
Ohio State Reports 3d Series
Print: Beginning with V.61 in 1991, this series is published separately.
CD-ROM: Anderson and West.
Internet: Ohio Supreme Court website www.sconet.state.oh.us/rod/newpdf/
Services: Lexis, Loislaw, Westlaw, Casemaker
Ohio Appellate Reports 3d Series
Print: Beginning with V.61 in 1991, this series is published separately.
CD-ROM: Anderson and West.
Internet: Ohio Supreme Court website www.sconet.state.oh.us/rod/newpdf/ and various sites gathered at the Law Library's Internet Legal Sites/Ohio Courts
Services: Lexis, Loislaw, Westlaw, Casemaker
Ohio Miscellaneous Reports 2d Series
Print: Volumes 61-63 (1991-1993) were published separately. Beginning with V.64, this series is combined with Ohio Appellate Reports 3d Series.
CD-ROM: Anderson and West.
Services: Lexis, Loislaw, Westlaw, Casemaker
Unreported Decisions
With the creation of Web Citations, the difference in precedential value for reported and unreported cases has been eliminated for cases decided on and after May, 2002. See Supreme Court - Revisions to the Manual of Citations and Rules for Reporting Opinions
Internet: Many courts are now putting their decisions on their websites. See the Law Library's
Internet Legal Sites/Ohio Courts and Ohio Supreme Court website www.sconet.state.oh.us/rod/newpdf/
CD-ROM: Anderson's Ohio Law and West's Ohio Law on LawDesk contain specific databases for unreported cases.
Services: Lexis, Loislaw, Casemaker, Westlaw
Microfiche: The original series of unreported Ohio appellate cases, from 1981-1992. Most of these cases are now available in the other sources listed, but occasionally one will show up here and nowhere else!
Note: The Ohio Supreme Court Rules for Reporting Opinions(reprinted in both code sets) address issues of which cases will be reported.
West's Ohio Digest is part of the West Digest Topic and Keynumber System. It is a subject index to all reported Ohio case law, including cases decided by the U.S. Supreme Court and federal courts arising in or appealed in Ohio. It includes a Descriptive Word Index and Table of Cases. It is available on Westlaw in the library.
Ohio Jurisprudence 3d contains statutory and case law in a narrative topical arragement, with references and citations to leading primary and secondary sources. Includes Table of Statutes and Rules Cited, Table of Cases with Annotation References, Words and Phrases and a Desk Book. The latter contains various items useful to practitioners such as the Ohio Constitution, information about legislators and various statistical references. It is available remotely through the Members Only section of the Library website. Ohio Jurisprudence 3d is on Westlaw, which is available to members in the Library.
(also CD-ROM remotely and on Westlaw)
Transactional Formbooks:
Treatises:
Ask a librarian for suggestions on treatises in different subject areas. The Law Library also subscribes to the Baldwin's Practice Handbooks on CD-ROM and on Westlaw.
The Library also subscribes to all of the Ohio law reviews.
The Library has two current periodical indexes. One is LegalTrac, available online; material prior to 1980 is indexed in the Index to Legal Periodicals in print. The second is Index to Legal Periodicals, indexing publications from 1978 to current, available on Lexis filename ILP.
The former West's Legal Directory is now at Findlaw: lawyers.findlaw.com/.
| Created on: January 21, 2003 - |
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