After nearly a decade of dedicated effort, HeinOnline has achieved a remarkable milestone: the completion of its comprehensive Session Laws indexing project. This significant update enhances the collection’s functionality and makes historical state law research more accessible. Researchers, legal professionals, and history enthusiasts can now search for any chapter or act from any year and state, all with the simplicity of a click.

About the Project

The Session Laws project was an ambitious undertaking that aimed to make content more discoverable by meticulously indexing every state and territory’s legislative materials. Now, HeinOnline’s Session Laws Library subscribers can easily locate specific laws without combing through millions of pages. Here’s a breakdown of what this massive achievement involved:

• Over 2.4 million tags added: HeinOnline’s team added over 2.4 million searchable tags, allowing users to pinpoint the exact chapter or act they need more efficiently than ever.
• 50 states and 3 territories indexed: No state or territory was left behind. The indexing project covered all 50 U.S. states and three additional territories, ensuring that legal scholars have access to the complete body of session laws.
• 6.6 million pages reviewed: A massive collection of more than six million pages was carefully analyzed to ensure accurate tagging and indexing.
• A team effort: This project was truly a collaborative endeavor. A total of 22 different employees contributed to the success of this project, collectively putting in 7,313 hours of labor. This reflects the dedication and precision of the HeinOnline team, who diligently combed through records to ensure the highest quality of indexing.

Session Laws Quick Locator Tool

With this update, HeinOnline has significantly reduced the complexity of searching through historical state laws. To quickly retrieve a chapter, act, or page, use the Session Laws Quick Locator tool that can be found either on the Session Laws Library homepage or within a particular state. Select the state and plug in the year and chapter/act information to retrieve the document. 

Instantly, the correct document appears with matching details in the PDF and table of contents.

Not Subscribed?

HeinOnline’s Session Laws Library contains exact replications of the bound session laws of all 50 states, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. Updated monthly, this is an ever-expanding database. It is the only complete online source of laws from all 50 states, beginning with territorial, colonial, and early statehood laws and continuing today. As new session laws are printed, they are added to the databases within 60 days of publication.

The database also includes the D.C. Register and the session laws of the U.S. federal government. It features the entire backfile of the Acts of the Parliament of Canada and Acts of the Parliament of Australia. A subscription to the Session Laws Library also unlocks access to HeinOnline’s State Statutes: A Historical Archive, which provides users access to superseded state statutes for all 50 states. Offering a valuable source of information for researchers and scholars, this database provides an avenue to understanding the creation of historical state statutes.

Upgrade to the U.S. State Package

Already subscribed? The Session Laws Library is included in all U.S. State Package subscriptions, which streamlines and simplifies legal research at the state level. Eight databases have been brought together to provide nearly millions of pages of content related to the state history of all 50 states, as well as Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. Subscribers have access to the following collections:

• State Constitutions Illustrated
• Session Laws Library
• State Statutes: A Historical Archive
• Bar Journals Library
• State Attorney General Reports & Opinions
• State Reports: A Historical Archive
• Prestatehood Legal Materials 
• U.S. Political and Legal History – NEW!