Monday, February 04, 2013

How we find our law . . .

The Uniform Electronic Legal Material Act (UELMA) has been introduced in the Massachusetts Legislature as House Bill No. 38.  If enacted, this law will ensure that primary source law, including state statutes and agency regulations, will be preserved and permanently available to the public in an unaltered form.
The American Association of Law Libraries played a leading role in getting this Uniform Law drafted and approved by the Uniform Law Commission.
In a recent article in Legal Reference Services Quarterly, Anna L. Endter says “Pro se litigants, in particular, can benefit from UELMA’s framework because it will ensure that the laws they access online via free state-sponsored Web sites are as trustworthy and accurate as their print counterparts.”

UELMA will be working its way through the legislature this session. To access primary source Massachusetts law now, check the links under the heading 

Laws, Regulations, Cases and more...  

at the Massachusetts Trial Court Law Libraries' homepage .