Pennsylvania Specific Resources | Federal Resources | Virtual Law Libraries
Practice Areas | General Resources| Paralegal Associations

GENERAL
www.brbpub.com/pubrecsites.asp  Free public record sites, by state.
www.usa.com Phone book.
www.swithboard.com Phone book.
www.internetpeoplesearch.com Find people, public records.
www.theultimates.com Phone Book - search by name, address or phone number.  Reverse search capabilities.
www.ZabaSearch.com Search for names, and locate people and addresses.
www.guidestar.org Non-profit organization information.
www.mapquest.com Maps and driving directions.
www.newspaperlinks.com  Contains 2,000 daily and weekly newspapers in U.S. and Canada.
www.publist.com Database includes journals, magazines, newsletters, and other periodicals.
www.thomasregister.com  Companies and products manufactured in U.S. and Canada.
www.bbb.org Better Business Bureau - Search companies and charities.
www.timeanddate.com  Date and time calculator.
www.usps.com U.S. Post Office rates, look up zip codes, track packages.

GENERAL PARALEGAL
www.knowparalegal.com  Know:  A Magazine for paralegals.
www.legalassistanttoday.com Legal Assistant Today magazine.
www.paralegalgateway.com General interest site with news, articles, career advice.
www.paralegalmentor.com  Hosted by Vicki Voisin, ACP

GENERAL LEGAL
www.abanet.org American Bar Association
www.adr.org American Arbitration Association. Rules, protocols, ADR, arbitration, mediation, repository for ADR-related documents and materials.
www.justice.org  American Association for Justice, formerly named the Association of Trial Lawyers of America.  Trial news and trends, litigation packets, research, document libraries.  
www.ajs.org American Judicature Society. Composed of judges, lawyers, and the general public who are interested in the improvement of the justice system. Includes federal judicial ethics, judicial independence, and judicial selection.
www.depo.com/resources/legal_resources/map.html Popular index of links to rules of discovery for each state. Site maintained by Atkinson-Baker Nationwide Court Reporters.
www.findlaw.com High traffic web site owned by West Group. Most extensive list of legal resources anywhere on the Internet, provided for lawyers, law student, business people, and others. Includes legal information, full-text search, cases and codes, legal forms, technology, and more.
www.hg.org Hieros Gamos, called by many the #1 legal research center. Covers 70 practice areas. Also legal directories, U.S. law, international law.
www.lawcentral.com Very large, comprehensive portal.
www.lawreview.org University Law Review Project, a consortium of Cornell's Law Information Institute, Find Law and Stanford Law, among others. Abstract service, and full text search of hundreds of law journals in 18 practice areas, including business law, dispute resolution, forensics, and labor, plus list of journals by law schools.
www.lpig.org Law and Policy Institutions Guide is a free repository of law articles, legal resources, legal practice information, and U.S. legislative and judicial resources for all 50 states.
www.martindale.com Martindale-Hubbell directory; lawyer locator; professional resources.
www.nccusl.org National Conference of Commissioners for Uniform and Model Acts. Electronic archive of Uniform state laws maintained by University of Pennsylvania School of Law. 

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PENNSYLVANIA GOVERNMENT
www.state.pa.us PA PowerPort. Pennsylvania portal to state news and major state agencies.
www.pachamber.org PA Chamber of Business & Industry. Business fact sheets, laws and regulations.
www.publicdatacenter.com/states/pennsylvania.htm Free public records database.
www.vitalrec.com/pa.html Birth certificates, death records, marriage licenses, divorce degrees, and more.
sites.state.pa.us/govlocal.html  This is the Governor's Center for Local Government Services web site for Pennsylvania. Contains an Alpha list of cities, townships, boroughs, and villages in Pennsylvania that have active web sites. Provides links to all 67 counties in the Commonwealth, and from there you can access family courts, court administration, prothonotary, disability rights offices 
www.dos.state.pa.us Pennsylvania Department of State
www.pacounties.org County Commissioners Association of PA.
www.dos.state.pa.us/corps/ Pennsylvania Corporations Bureau. Searchable corporations database, filing information, resources, record search, service of process.
www.legis.state.pa.us Pennsylvania General Assembly
www.pasen.gov Pennsylvania Senate
www.dgs.state.pa.us/PAManual The Pennsylvania Manual. Site maintained by Department of General Services. State government offices and commissions, transportation, law enforcement, vital statistics for state, city, county, township, borough.

PENNSYLVANIA LEGAL
www.aopc.org Administrative office of Pennsylvania courts. Locate caseload statistics, departments, annual reports.
www.courts.state.pa.us Pennsylvania Unified Judicial System
www.corporations.state.pa.us/corp PA Corporation Bureau - forms, filing fees, procedures.
www.humanservices.state.pa.us/CSWS/index.aspx PA Child Support Program.
www.jenkinslaw.org Outstanding site for the nation's oldest law library. The research links are full of useful resources.
www.lawsource.com At home page, click on United States, then Pennsylvania. You now have links to Pennsylvania appellate court decisions (including U.S. 3rd Circuit) for the last five years; PA Constitution, PA Codified Laws; state and local court rules; and PA administrative law sources.
www.pabar.org Pennsylvania Bar Association
www.loc.gov/law/guide/us-pa.html Contained within the Library of Congress web site, this link goes straight to Pennsylvania-specific sources of law, historic documents, the Pennsylvania Constitution, Administrative Code, PA Bulletin, PA Supreme Court, 3d Circuit Court of Appeals, various legal documents and guides. A comprehensive source for Commonwealth-related materials
www.pbi.org Pennsylvania Bar Institute. The education and publishing arm of the Pennsylvania Bar
www.pacode.com Administrative agency rules/regulations are in the Pennsylvania Code web site
www.pabulletin.com The Pennsylvania Bulletin. Statewide and local county rules, Governor's proclamations and executive orders, rulemakings by state agencies, actions by General Assembly.
www.patla.org Pennsylvania Trial Lawyers Association. Includes legal news, and links to national, state, and local legal/government web sites.
www.pennsylvanialegalresearch.com Provides many links to research web sites, court cases, case law reporters, state legal news, and legal forms.  This is a comprehensive site, well maintained by Dittakavi Rao, of Duquesne University's Center for Legal Information.
www.law.com/jsp/pa/index.jsp PA Law Network. Legal news.

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FEDERAL GENERAL
www.aicpcu.org  American Institute for CPCU and Insurance Institute of America. Property and casualty insurance, risk management, general insurance, education component.
www.nlc.org National League of Cities. Promotes study of issues such as: economy, education, environment and energy, homeland security, transportation and infrastructure. Site includes: legislative updates, newsroom, publications, and research briefs.
www.nga.org National Governors Association site. Includes current governors' database, federal relations, news releases, publications.
www.ulib.iupui.edu/subjectareas/gov/docs_abbrev.html Access to U.S. Government abbreviations and acronyms. Be aware, this is a large file, with links to other equally large files. "The bigger our government gets, the more abbreviations and acronyms they create," chuckles attorney Tom Mighell, editor of Internet Legal Research Weekly. (http://www.inter-alia.net). Site is maintained by the government research librarian of Indiana University/Purdue University @ Indianapolis.
www.uschamber.com U.S. Chamber of Commerce. News and events, business resources.

FEDERAL GOVERNMENT
www.FirstGov.com U.S. Government's official web portal. Includes A-to-Z index of agency links for judicial, legislative, and executive departments. Also, links for state and local government, laws and regulations, access to federal forms.
www.uscourts.gov/courtlinks/ U.S. Courts.
www.gpoaccess.gov U.S. Government Printing Office, and beyond. Legislative, judicial, and executive resources and links. Massive site.
www.archives.gov National Archives and Records Administration site containing: immigration and military records, Presidential materials, location of 1,400 federal depository libraries . . . and a lot more.
www.atf.gov Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, division of U.S. Department of Justice.
www.census.gov U.S. Census Bureau. Statistics reports on people, income, economics, state facts, inter alia.
www.nhtsa.dot.gov National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
www.stats.bls.gov Bureau of Labor Statistics, Department of Labor. Statistics available on wages, earnings and benefits; productivity and costs; inflation and consumer spending. Regional and state data can be retrieved from this site. Occupational Outlook Handbook.

FEDERAL LEGAL
http://pacer.psc.uscourts.gov. This is the Pacer system for Federal courts' electronic docket access and filing.  When you reach the PACER home page, click on Web Links, and it brings you to the page of links to every federal court's e-filing page.
curiae.law.yale.edu  Search selected Supreme Court records.
www.fjc.gov Federal Judicial Center is education and research agency for federal courts. Extensive publications catalogue. Also includes: biography of every court judge, electronic discovery materials, courtroom technology, and state and federal judicial education programs.
www.firstgov.gov Portal to federal, state, and county jurisdictions.
www.lib.duke.edu Access to courts of U.S. Judiciary. Public document retrieval, etc.
www.lawguru.com/ilawlib House of Representatives internet law library.
www.loc.gov/law Access to the Law Library of Congress. Includes Thomas database for summaries of federal bills from 1973, and full texts of bills and laws from 1989.
www.supremecourtus.gov Office site of U.S. Supreme Court.
www.courts.net Favorable link to web sites maintained by Courts nationwide. Also online access to dockets, judicial opinions.
www.uscourts.gov The Federal Judiciary.
uscode.house.gov United States Code at U.S. House web site.

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VIRTUAL LAW LIBRARIES
www.law.cornell.edu Most comprehensive of 'virtual' sites. Legal Information Institute of Cornell University Law School. Contains court opinions, constitutions and codes. Click on "Law About" on the home page, and you will be connected to Wex and 128 subjects in 18 practice areas. Wex is a public-access law dictionary and encyclopedia.
www.law.emory.edu Emory University Law School Library.
www.lawguru.com/ilawlib Library of U.S. House of Representatives.
www.ll.georgetown.edu Georgetown University Law Library
www.lectlaw.com Similiar to FindLaw
www.law.indiana.edu/lawlibrary/index.shtml University of Indiana Law Library
www.washlaw.edu Washburn University School of Law.

PRACTICE AREAS

BANKRUPTCY LAW
www.bankruptcydata.com Research center, plus links to Bankruptcy Courts'web sites, and the PACER system.
www.bernsteinlaw.com Prominent Pittsburgh-based creditors' rights firm in bankruptcy proceedings. Good informational source on happenings, trends.
www.pennsylvania-bankruptcy.com Explanation of federal process, with Pennsylvania exemptions. FAQs, resources. Site privately maintained.
www.uscourts.gov/bnkrpctystats/statistics.htm  Statistics in bankruptcy filings for each quarter - available in PDF and Excel formats.

CONSTITUTIONAL LAW
www.lib.uchicago.edu Assists w/researching Constitutional Law on web.
www.firstamendmentcenter.org Non-profit web site that keys on research and education about first amendment issues of speech, press, religious liberty, assembly, petition. Library includes judicial/legislative/historical materials, such as all first amendment opinions of the U.S. Supreme Court. Site co-hosted by Vanderbilt University.

CORPORATE LAW
www.law.com On home page, chick on Business Law Practice Center. Compiled by American Lawyer Media.

EMPLOYMENT LAW
www.dol.gov/oasam/library  Internet research specialist Tom Mighell says  the Wirtz Labor Library "provides, in my opinion, some of the best content of all the federal government pages."  Sections include DOL's statistics, research and publications; Bureau of Labor Statistics bulletins and monthly reviews; and Office of Labor-Management Standards' compliance guide, and FMLA Act compliance assistance. 
www.jan.wvu.edu/links/adalinks.htm Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Document Center. Site is part of U.S. Department of Labor, and is housed at West Virginia University. Includes: ADA statutes, enforcement, technical Assistance, manuals, Supreme Court Rulings, FAQs.
www.eeoc.gov Site contains laws enforced by Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, including Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Age Discrimination Act of 1967, ADA Act of 1990, Civil Rights Act of 1991, inter alia.
www.paworkerscomp-info.com Review of Pennsylvania workers compensation statute, hearing process, time limits, FAQs, medical benefits. Site privately maintained by attorney.

ENVIRONMENTAL LAW
www.eli.org Site for Environmental Law Institute. Research and education.
www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/elr Harvard Environmental Law Review, published since 1976. Covers air, water, and noise regulation; toxic substances control, workplace pollution, and more. Has archives section, and additional resource links. "Good starting point," says attorney Tom Mighell, editor of Internet Legal Research Weekly (www.inter-alia.net)
www.library.law.pace.edu Click on Environmental Law to bring you to its virtual environmental law library. Law review articles, recent federal legislation.
www.mgkflaw.com Provides links to numerous environmental sites, including air quality, asbestos, climate protection, various federal agencies, statutory and case law, marine protection, oil pollution, technology, water quality. Site privately maintained by Bala Cynwyd, PA-based Manko, Gold, Katcher & Fox, LLP.

ESTATES AND TRUSTS
http://evans-legal.com/dan/paieta.html Pennsylvania Inheritance and Estate Tax Act, as amended up to and including Act of May 24, 2000, No. 23. Site maintained privately by attorney.
http://www.actec.org/public/ShowPublicLinks.asp This is a linkage to the Legal and Web Resources page of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel (ACTEC). Review ethics, state-by-state statutes, elder law resources, entity tax & family issues, inter alia.

ETHICS
www.LegalEthics.com Assists the law profession and establishes practical rules, regulations, and guidelines that will protect the public and lawyers.
www.law.cornell.edu/ethics/ American Legal Ethics Library.

EXPERTS / CONSULTANTS
www.expertpages.com Locates experts and consultants throughout the Internet. This site is fast-loading and user-friendly.
www.jurispro.com Formed by a group of practicing attorneys, JurisPro is a free online directory of expert witnesses. Categories number over 100, and include: accident reconstruction, hazardous materials, law enforcement/ police procedures, medical/health care, and weather/ meteorology. Expert listings include contact information and references. The site allows experts to advertise, so due diligence is strongly encouraged.
www.seak.com Provides professional directories for expert witnesses, physicians, independent medical examiners, and workers' compensation experts. The service, founded by attorneys in 1980, also sponsors a worker's compensation conference, and a expert witness conference, and is a publisher of numerous resources to assist professionals.
www.tasanet.com Headquartered in suburban Blue Bell, PA, the Tasa Group offers technical advise for legal professionals, has an expert/consultant referral service, refers independent medical experts, and consultants in business and technology.

FAMILY LAW
www.abanet.org/family/familylaw/tables.html Family Law Quarterly publishes charts that summarize basic laws in each state by topic, including custody, alimony and grounds for divorce.

HEALTH AND SAFETY
www.ASTM.org ASTM International, originally known as the American Society for Testing and Materials, is one of the world's largest voluntary standards development organizations.  Source for technical standards for materials, products, systems, and services.  Access to equipment directory, lab directory, and consultants directory; plus products updates.
www.osha.gov Occupational Safety & Health Administration of U.S. Department of Labor. Outreach programs, educational component.
www.cpsc.gov Consumer Product Safety Commission. Reports on product safety, recall notices, alerts, counterfeit products, issue areas, CPSC regulations.

IMMIGRATION LAW
www.uscis.gov U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services (formerly the INS - Immigration & Naturalization Service.
www.visalaw.com Immigration Law portal maintained by Memphis- based law firm of Siskind Susser.

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
www.copyright.gov U.S. Copyright Office.
www.copyright.iupui.edu/favlinks.htm Site of the Copyright Management Center, administered by Indiana/Purdue Universities @ Indianapolis. Provides links to government resources on copyright, organization links, and other copyright law and patent law links.
www.uspto.gov U.S. Patent and Trademark Office
www.aipla.org Site maintained by American Intellectual Property Law Association, a 14,000-member national bar association, focusing on patent, trademark, copyright and unfair competition law. Includes IP issues, legislation, professional development, and links to other resource sites.
www.intelproplaw.com World-wide IP links.
www.freepatentsonline.com Access to millions of patents and patent applications, in U.S. and Europe. Search by word stemming, proximity searching, relevancy ranking, and search term weighting. PDF downloads of patent information and maps.

CIVIL
www.verdictsearch.com VerdictSearch is leading database for verdicts, settlements, arbitration information. Particular focus on Pennsylvania and New Jersey. This is a subscription-based service.

CRIMINAL
www.pdaa.org Pennsylvania District Attorneys Association. Links to national legal sites and Pennsylvania legal sites, federal courts, video library, inter alia.
www.criminaldefenselawyer.com Criminal law overview, procedures, white collar crime, internet criminal resources, national and regional crime statistics.
www.criminology.fsu.edu/cjlinks/ Florida State University's School of Criminology and Criminal Justice. Links to Federal criminal justice agencies, searchable law databases, forensics, police agencies, other resources.
www.pacdl.org Pennsylvania Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. Current news, links Newsletter. Brief banks available to membership only.
www.sentencingproject.org Resource center for criminal justice policy analysis, data, programs. Includes brief sheets, issues, inter alia.
www.crimelynx.com/research.html Legal resource center for the criminal defense practitioner.

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MEDICAL INFORMATION
www.abms.org American Board of Medical Specialties, umbrella group for 24 member boards, 9 associate members (AHA, AMA, NBME), and 8 ancillary associations (JCAHO, IHT). AMBS provides information on issues involving specializations, and board certifications, complaints, and disciplinary actions against physicians. Comprehensive FAQs.
www.ama-assn.org American Medical Association, with abstracts and selected full texts from JAMA. The site's Litigation Center provides case resources for:  regulatory burden, ERISA preemption, and patient rights.  Also informative is:  Guidelines for Medical and Health Information Sites on the Internet.
www.cdc.gov Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Includes diseases and conditions, A-to-Z health topics, national and state health data, and health advisories.
www.drugs.com Comprehensive site for information on more than 21,000 approved medications. Search by medical condition, or by name of drug.  Also contains an illustrated health encyclopedia.
www.fda.gov U.S. Food and Drug Administration
www.emedicine.com Comprehensive site for articles on specialty practice areas, medications, disease treatments, procedures, tests, drugs, patient education. (Sister site is: http://www.emedicinehealth.com. With 5,500 pages of health information written by physicians for consumers and patients.)
www.guideline.gov National guidelines clearinghouse, partnered by AMA and AAHP - latest clinical practice guidelines.
jeffline.tju.edu/sml/index.html Thomas Jefferson University / Scott Library. Access to holdings thru ThomCat database (from home page).
www.jcaho.org Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations.
www.lib.uiowa.edu/hardin/md/  Comprehensive site for Hardin Medical Library at University of Iowa.  First constructed in 1996 as a source to find the best medical links (a directory of directories), it has since expanded dramatically.  Subject clusters include:  autoimmune disease, the digestive system, heart disease, the nervous system, and women's health, to name several. Links to over 200 medical/health sciences libraries on the Web.
www.llrx.com/features/medical2005.htm Excellent tutorial on researching of medical literature, prepared by Gloria Miccioli, a law librarian of 23 years standing.
www.medicine.ucsd.edu Digital library from Univ. of California @ San Diego School of Medicine.
www.medicinenet.org General dictionary of terms/diseases/treatments. User-friendly, in plain English, with a query box, and links to e-publications.
www.medlineplus.gov Co-op site of NIH and U.S. National Library of Medicine. Consumer health-driven. Ranked as the top informational federal government web site. There are 700+ health topics, a medical encyclopedia, interactive tutorials, videos of surgical procedures. This site is fully loaded.
www.medterms.com Sub-set of MedicineNet: classic and contemporary terms, more in encyclopedic than dictionary style.
www.medem.com MEDEM is an information partnership of medical societies, featuring library of health information.
www.medexplorer.com Searchable collection of links to health, medical and pharmaceutical resources online. Well organized.
www.medscape.com Peer reviewed articles, medical news stories. Part of Web.MD. Specialty pages from Allergy to Women's Health. The caveat here is: navigation is somewhat involved, so be patient.
www.medweb.emory.edu Catalogue of biomedical and health-related web sites maintained by Emory University's Health Sciences Center Library. Includes clinical practice guidelines, consumer health, diseases and conditions, publications database, health care management.
www.merckhomeedition.com Online version of Merck general medical textbook.
www.nejm.org New England Journal of Medicine
www.nih.gov National Institutes of Health
www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs National Library of Medicine @ NIH. NLM LocatorPlus is the search tool for publications held at NLM.
www.PDRhealth.com Physicians' Desk Reference - layman's version.
www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov PubMed - best archive of digitized full-text biomedical literature and life sciences journals. More than nine million citations.
www.rxlist.com Part of WebMD.  Lists Top 300 Drugs by Prescriptions, with dosage, drug interactions, side effects, warnings, precautions.
www.rxmed.com Extensive compilation of generic and brand drugs in today's marketplace. Exhaustive breakdown of history, usage, side effects, etc. of 3,000-plus drugs and medications.
www.usp.org United States Pharmacopeial Convention. Contains information on 11,000-plus drugs, and standards nearly 4,000 medicines, dietary supplements, and health care products.

PARALEGAL ASSOCIATIONS
www.nala.org - National Association of Legal Assistants, Inc.
www.nfpa.org - National Federation of Paralegals, Inc.
www.aapipara.org - American Alliance of Paralegals, Inc.

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Last Updated:  November 2009.

Disclaimers:
The Keystone Alliance of Paralegal Associations (Keystone Alliance) is not responsible for the content of external websites and does not produce them or maintain them. Links are provided as a convenience and the inclusion of a link to an external website is not an endorsement of that website or the site's owners (or their products/services).

As a statewide nonpartisan organization, the Keystone Alliance does not endorse or promote the policies of the National Federation of Paralegals, Inc. (NFPA) or the National Association of Legal Assistants, Inc. (NALA), or any other national paralegal or legal related organization. Certain member associations of the Keystone Alliance, however, may be separately affiliated with one of these national organizations.