MEDIA LAW GUIDE

Don't be intimidated: anyone can become familiar enough with the law to make a difference.

We've assembled an array of links on a wide variety of legal subjects.

We will continue to update this information and appreciate any ideas you have in regard to additional content.

Please contact us at foi@missouri.edu with any recommendations.

Topics include:

• Burning issues
• Supreme Court rules
• Making a federal case out of it
• Making a state case out of it
• Legal research and writing
• Help for sale

Burning issues

• Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press -- The Reporters Committee site has several excellent resources about press issues including: 
• Open Government Guide -- about open records laws nationwide
• Can We Tape? -- on legalities of tape recording phone calls
• Reporter's Privilege Compendium -- on shield laws and reporter's privilege
• Media Center at New York Law School has a voluminous online library of statutes, cases and news, with a focus on telecommunications and FCC regulation.
• Society for Professional Journalists
• First Amendment Center
• American Civil Liberties Union
• Student Press Law Center
• Media Law Resource Center
• Electronic Frontier Foundation
• Center for Democracy & Technology

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  Supreme Court rules

  • Legal Information Institute at Cornell Law School -- full-text cases since May 1990; 610 most important historical cases. 
  • Findlaw Supreme Court Database -- FindLaw's searchable database of the Supreme Court decisions since 1893 
  • The Oyez Project -- U.S. Supreme Court case summaries, oral arguments, and multimedia. Full-text of the cases are viewable at the Findlaw site.

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  Making a federal case out of it

  • Georgetown Law Library -- FOIA Resources
  • Findlaw: U.S. Circuit Court Opinions
  • LII at Cornell Law School: U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeals Search
  • More resources available at:
    • Findlaw
    • The Federal Judiciary home page

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  Making a state case out of it

  • Findlaw's State Cases & Codes
  • Internet Legal Research Group - State Supreme and Appellate Courts
  • Lexis-Nexis's State Resource Center
  • National Center for State Courts

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  Legal research and writing

  • Media Law Reporter -- the only weekly reporting service focusing exclusively on federal and state media law, easily searchable on the Web or in print.
  • FindLaw -- finding lawyers and legal information
  • Legal Information Institute at Cornell University Law School -- links not only to court cases, but also to laws and regulations 
  • American Law Sources Online (ALSO!) -- easy-to-use meta-law site, containing federal and states cases, other links to federal and state laws. 
  • Georgia State Univ. Meta-Index for U.S. Legal Research
  • Internet Legal Research Group
  • Nolo.com -- help with legal research
  • LII-Cornell -- introduction to basic legal citation

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  Help for sale

  • PACER (Public Access to Court Electronic Records) -- the Federal Judiciary's centralized registration, billing, and technical support center for electronic access to U.S. District, Bankruptcy, and Appellate court records.
  • LexisNexis® Matthew Bender® -- a leading provider of analytical legal information in print and CD-ROM formats, and via the Internet
  • Lexis-Nexis XChange -- Lexis-Nexis also offers individual cite and Shepardized searches. 
  • Versus Law -- offers three different online legal research plans
  • Westlaw

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