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EnglishWhat Original Content Does LII Publish?
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The Legal Information Institute (LII) at Cornell Law School publishes several categories of original and curated legal content, all available free of charge on law.cornell.edu. Its stated mission is to let everyone read and understand the laws that govern them "without cost." The original content falls into four main groups: the Wex Legal Dictionary and Encyclopedia, the Congressional Research Service's U.S. Constitution Annotated, the LII Supreme Court Bulletin, and citation and reference tools such as Introduction to Basic Legal Citation.
Wex Legal Dictionary and Encyclopedia
Wex is LII's own legal dictionary and encyclopedia. It is written and maintained by LII editors and covers legal concepts, doctrines, and topics in plain language.
Recent additions noted on the site include entries on:
- Birthright citizenship
- Disenfranchisement
- Prediction market
- Surveillance pricing
Wex entries are a starting point for understanding a legal term or concept. They are explanatory rather than authoritative — for binding law you still need the primary sources (Constitution, U.S. Code, C.F.R., court opinions) that LII also publishes.
Congressional Research Service's U.S. Constitution Annotated
LII hosts the U.S. Constitution Annotated, a Congressional Research Service resource that pairs each provision of the Constitution with commentary on how courts have interpreted it. The version on LII is updated to reflect recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions.
Examples of updates listed on the site:
| Topic | Annotation update |
|---|---|
| College admissions | Modern doctrine on appropriate scrutiny |
| Redistricting | States and Elections Clause |
| Social media | True threats |
| Firearms | Rahimi and applying the Second Amendment Bruen standard |
This is useful when you need to know not just what the Constitution says but how it has been applied.
LII Supreme Court Bulletin
The LII Supreme Court Bulletin publishes previews of cases before the Supreme Court. Recent previews listed on the site include Mullin v. Doe and Trump v. Barbara. The Bulletin is one of the few LII offerings with a subscription link (for the bulletin itself); the rest of LII's content is published free online.
Citation and Reference Tools
LII publishes several tools for working with legal citations and authorities:
- Introduction to Basic Legal Citation by Peter W. Martin — a guide to citing legal materials, kept up to date
- Parallel Table of Authorities — maps between related citation systems
- RiO Citation Resolver — resolves citations to their sources
- Table of Popular Names — finds statutes by their common names
The Gender Justice Collection
LII also maintains the Gender Justice Collection, which covers topics such as education rights and technology-facilitated gender-based violence (TFGBV), with resources for Colombia, the Philippines, and the United States.
How to Decide Which to Use
- Need a plain-language definition or overview? Start with Wex.
- Need to know how a constitutional provision has been interpreted? Use the U.S. Constitution Annotated.
- Tracking a pending Supreme Court case? Check the LII Supreme Court Bulletin.
- Formatting or resolving a citation? Use Introduction to Basic Legal Citation, the Parallel Table of Authorities, or the RiO Citation Resolver.
All of these are secondary or explanatory materials. For the controlling text of a law or regulation, use LII's primary source collections (Constitution, U.S. Code, C.F.R., Federal Rules, state law and regulations) alongside them.