Depending on your issue, federal and state statutes may apply, a federal statute may preempt application of your state's statute or there may not be an applicable federal or state statute. In the latter situation, your research will be limited to common law rules and precedent. This column reviews the basic pattern of statutory publication and presents some statutory research tips. Chronological Publication . Federal slip laws have public law numbers, e.g., P.L. 105-15 is the fifteenth legislative enactment of the 105 th Congress.
Slip laws are the first form of statutory publication.
At the end of a legislative session, slip laws are published chronologically in bound volumes called session laws. United States Statutes at Large is the federal session law publication. Advance legislative service pamphlets published with federal and state codes contain the current year's slip laws. The individual states publish annual bound state session law volumes similar to the Statutes at Large . Statutory Codes .