The Legal Information Institute (LII) is a

non-profit A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...

, public service of

Cornell Law School Cornell Law School is the law school of Cornell University, a private Ivy League university in Ithaca, New York. One of the five Ivy League law schools, it offers four law degree programs, JD, LLM, MSLS and JSD, along with several dual-deg ...

that provides no-cost access to current

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

and international

legal research Legal research is "the process of identifying and retrieving information necessary to support legal decision-making. In its broadest sense, legal research includes each step of a course of action that begins with an analysis of the facts of a prob ...

sources online a
law.cornell.edu
The organization is a pioneer in the delivery of legal information online. Founded in 1992 by Peter Martin and Tom Bruce, LII was the first law site developed on the internet. LII electronically publishes on the Web the

U.S. Code In the law of the United States, the Code of Laws of the United States of America (variously abbreviated to Code of Laws of the United States, United States Code, U.S. Code, U.S.C., or USC) is the official compilation and codification of th ...

, U.S. Supreme Court opinions, Uniform Commercial Code, the US Code of Federal Regulations, several Federal Rules, and a variety of other

primary law materials.. LII also provides access to other national and international sources, such as treaties and

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmoni ...

materials. According to its website, the LII serves over 40 million

unique visitor Website popularity is commonly determined using the number of unique users, and the metric is often quoted to potential advertisers or investors. A website's number of unique users is usually measured over a standard period of time, typically a m ...

s per year. Since its inception, the Legal Information Institute has inspired others around the world to develop namesake operations. These services are part of the Free Access to Law Movement.

History

LII was established in 1992 at Cornell Law School by Professor Peter Martin and Tom Bruce with a $250,000 multi-year startup grant from the National Center for Automated Information Research. The LII was originally based on Gopher and provided access to

United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

decisions and the

US Code In the law of the United States, the Code of Laws of the United States of America (variously abbreviated to Code of Laws of the United States, United States Code, U.S. Code, U.S.C., or USC) is the official compilation and codification of the ...

. Its original mission included the intent to "carry out applied research on the use of digital information technology in the distribution of legal information,... nd t make law more accessible." In the early years of LII, Bruce developed

Cello The cello ( ; plural ''celli'' or ''cellos'') or violoncello ( ; ) is a bowed (sometimes plucked and occasionally hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually tuned in perfect fifths: from low to high, C2, G2, ...

the first

web browser A web browser is application software for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's screen. Browsers are used o ...

for

Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for ...

. Cello was released on 8 June 1993. In 1994 LII moved from Gopher to the

Web Web most often refers to: * Spider web, a silken structure created by the animal * World Wide Web or the Web, an Internet-based hypertext system Web, WEB, or the Web may also refer to: Computing * WEB, a literate programming system created by ...

. Since 2007 the

IRS The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is the revenue service for the United States federal government, which is responsible for collecting U.S. federal taxes and administering the Internal Revenue Code, the main body of the federal statutory tax ...

has distributed its IRS Tax Products DVD with LII's version of 26 USC (Internal Revenue Code).

LII Supreme Court Collection and LII Bulletin

LII has an extensive collection of law from the

Supreme Court of the United States The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. Federal tribunals in the United States, federal court cases, and over Stat ...

. It hosts all Supreme Court decisions since 1990 and over 600 historic Supreme Court pre-1992 decisions in web form
by party name
an

. Th
LII Supreme Court Bulletin
is LII's free Supreme Court email-based subscriber and web-based publication service.. The Bulletin provides subscribers with two distinct services.. The first is a notification service. LII Bulletin emails subscribers with timely notification of when the US Supreme Court has handed down a decision. It also provides subscribers links to the full opinions of those cases on the LII site. The second service of LII Bulletin is a preview and analysis service for upcoming Supreme Court cases. Subscribers to the Bulletin receive legal analysis of upcoming Supreme Court cases with the intention of providing sophisticated yet accessible previews of the cases. LII selectively recruits second- and third-year students of the

to comprise the LII Bulletin editorial board. The Bulletin editorial board is responsible for every aspect of the journal's management, from selecting decisions for commentary to researching, writing, editing, and producing the journal content in HTML.

Wex Legal Dictionary and Encyclopedia

LII publishes a wiki called the ''Wex Legal Dictionary/Encyclopedia''. As a wiki, it is a collaboratively authored, freely available legal reference. Qualified legal experts are allowed to post and edit entries on legal topics within Wex.

Similar institutions

* Free Access to Law Movement unites many similar institutions, including ** AfricanLII ** AustLII ** BAILII ** CanLII ** HKLII ** NZLII ** PacLII ** SAFLII ** WorldLII

References

External links