Law

Constitutions, statutes, regulations and cases are all sources of law. At both the federal and state level lawmaking power is divided among the three branches of government: legislative, executive and judicial. 

• The legislative branch creates laws that are passed and published as statutes
• The executive branch creates administrative laws in the form of regulations, executive orders and directives
• The judicial branch creates laws in the form of decisions that are published as opinions and cases.

The Graduate Library collects works about law and how it relates to society. The collection contains the major sources of law for the U.S. and the state of Michigan. Researchers doing in-depth legal research may need to visit the Law Library. 

The Bluebook: a Uniform System of Citation is the most commonly used citation system for legal research. Other styles like APA and Chicago may direct users to follow Bluebook style. See Cornell's Introduction to Basic Legal Citation for more information.