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Guide to New Jersey Law Online

New Jersey Law Online

last revised April 8, 2023

Contents

N.J. Constitution

  • New Jersey Constitution (on the Legislature's web site)
  • Leaming & Spicer's Grants & Concessions (at Rutgers-Newark Law Library) - Includes constitutional documents from the period 1664 to 1702. (unavailable)
  • New Jersey Colonial Charters, Grants and Related Documents from 1664 through 1776 (Avalon Project at Yale)
  • New Jersey Historical Laws, Constitutions, and Charters (at New Jersey State Library). Includes colonial charters and Constitutions of 1776, 1844, and 1947.
  • General Statutes of 1895 (unavailable) includes
    • Constitution of 1776 (unavailable)
    • Constitution of 1844 (unavailable)
    • Constitution of 1844, as amended through 1875 (unavailable)
  • New Jersey Constitutional Convention Proceedings 1947 (at the State Library) Searchable and browsable, but to browse you must first get a search result, then follow link to table of contents or to prior or next page.
  • "Traces of Its Labors": The Constitutional Commission, The Legislature, and Their Influence on the New Jersey Constitution, 1873-1875, by Peter J. Mazzei and Robert F. Williams (N.J. Office of Legislative Services, 2012). Includes the proceedings and reports of the Constitutional Commission of 1873, newspaper accounts of its deliberations, and other documentation of the 1875 amendments. (unavailable)
  • New Jersey Constitutional Documents Online (at Rutgers-Camden Law Library). Includes proceedings of constitutional conventions of 1776 and 1844; proceedings and report of 1942 joint legislative committee, and other documents. Images from microfilm; browsable but not searchable.

N.J. Statutes, Bills, & Legislative History

  • New Jersey Legislature   Includes: the New Jersey Permanent Statutes Database (a very current, searchable, but not easily browsable, version of the statutes); the Chapter Laws from 1996 forward; Legislative Bills from 1996 forward; Public Hearings from 1996 forward; and, beginning in 2001, audio and video recordings of some floor and committee proceedings.   For enactment information on this site more recent than that in the "Chapter Laws" section, check the recent issues of the "Legislative Digest," looking at the end of each issue under "Bills Signed Into Law Since Last Session." Caution: the Permanent Statutes Database currently includes some expired sections; see the disclaimer on the site.
  • New Jersey Statutes (at Rutgers-Newark Law Library). This version of the statutes offers full-text searching, easier browsing than the version on the Legislature's site, and automated retrieval of cases citing the statutes (to the extent they are available in the Rutgers case archive).
  • New Jersey Law Revision Commission Includes Commission reports.
  • Historical Compilations of New Jersey Law (at New Jersey State Library): links to old statutory compilations, available through Google and the Internet Archive.
  • New Jersey Legislative Counsel Opinions (at Rutgers-Newark Law Library) (unavailable)
  • New Jersey Legislative Histories (at the State Library): Legislative history references for Laws of 1970 forward; the 1970 to 1997 histories (still being scanned and uploaded) include texts of bills, committee statements, and governor's messages; the histories from 1998 forward have links to bill texts, committee statements, and public hearing texts. (For 1998 to 2000, the links to public hearings are dead, but can be made live by inserting ⁄legislativepub before ⁄Pubhear.)
  • New Jersey Session Laws Online (at Rutgers-Camden Law Library). This is a browsable but not searchable collection of legislative acts, digitized from microform. Coverage is 1776-1999. In order to retrieve a particular law efficiently, you need to know the year and page number (retrieval by chapter number is not possible). Page images can be printed or downloaded: position cursor near top left of image to make ikons for printing or downloading appear. (Note for Rutgers-Newark Law School community: the New Jersey session laws from 1776 to 2008 are available in fully searchable PDF format in HeinOnline.)
  • New Jersey Statute Compilations (at Rutgers-Newark Law Library): Includes Leaming & Spicer's Grants & Concessions (laws from 1664 to 1702), the Revised Statutes of 1846, the Revision of 1877 the General Statutes of 1895, and Luce's Tables. (unavailable)
  • Report of the Attorney General's Task Force on Sovereign Immunity (1972) (at the State Library). This is part of the legislative history of Title 59 of the N.J. Statutes.
  • Report to the Governor on the Subject of Tort Reform (1994) (at the State Library)
  • Other sites, some of which include New Jersey legislation.

N.J. Case Law & Court Proceedings

CASE REPORTS

  • Google Scholar includes New Jersey case law from 1950 forward. On the Advanced Search page, scroll down to select just New Jersey cases for searching.
  • NEW JERSEY COURTS SEARCH PAGE (Rutgers-Newark Law Library): Supreme Court from March 1994 forward, Appellate Division and Tax Court from Sept. 1995 forward. Includes unpublished Appellate Division opinions from Sept. 20, 2005 forward.
  • Opinions on the Judiciary web site:
    • SUPREME AND APPELLATE COURT OPINIONS Opinions of just the most recent ten business days. Includes unpublished opinions of the most recent ten business days.
    • Business Opinions: Selected opinions on business disputes, contract disputes, business governance, and other business-related topics - includes both published and unpublished, Supreme Court, Appellate Division and trial court opinions - only from the most recent six months.
    • Trial Court Opinions Approved for Publication: Gives opinions of the trial divisions of the Superior Court approved for publication during the current week and previous week. NOTE: Since relatively few trial court opinions are approved for publication, there will sometimes be no actual opinions at this site. However, the site includes a cumulating PDF of squibs of these opinions from 2008 forward.
    • Trial Court Decisions (These are decisions of the Law Division and Chancery Division of the Superior Court of New Jersey, on civil matters, not approved for publication, which are posted at the judge's discretion, for the convenience of attorneys and litigants, for a six-week period only.)
  • New Jersey FindACase™: a free version of the VersusLaw searchable database of New Jersey case law from 1932 forward, with results displayed in full text, lacking only the volume-and-page citations and docket numbers. (unavailable)
  • Reporters (at New Jersey State Library): links to volumes of N.J. Law Reports, N.J. Equity Reports, and Atlantic Reporter available through Google Books.
  • New Jersey Law Journal, volumes 1 to 45 (1878 to 1922) (Google Books links compiled at N.J. State Library) Early years of the N.J.L.J. include numerous cases not elsewhere published.
  • Cases adjudged in the Supreme Court of New-Jersey relative to the manumission of Negroes and others holden in bondage ("Bloomfield's Manumission Cases") (1794) (at the Univ. of Virginia Electronic Text Center)
  • Federal district court: For links to opinions of the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey, see our U.S. Federal Law page.
  • Other sites which include New Jersey caselaw.

ORAL ARGUMENTS

  • Supreme Court Arguments. Live webcast and archive of arguments before the Supreme Court, in streaming video. Also includes the opinions under appeal. Additional webcasts are available, along with appeal summaries and other case-related information, on the Supreme Court Appeals page.
  • Supreme Court of N.J. Oral Arguments Archive (at Rutgers-Newark Law Library). Archive of arguments older than thirty days, starting January 2005. (unavailable)

DOCKETS & OTHER INFORMATION ON CASES

  • Civil Case Jacket Public Access: docket and judgment information on civil cases; coverage starting dates vary from county to county, between Nov.1987 and Feb.1992 (Special Civil Part starting dates vary between June 1988 and Dec.1994).
  • Calendars and Schedules(Judiciary site); includes:
    • Supreme Court Agendas which give the legal questions presented by the cases argued in the current court year.
    • Appellate Division Calendar (current three weeks)
    • Civil Motion Calendar Search, covers motion calendars for the Law Division Civil Part and Special Civil Part and the Chancery Division General Equity Part, for a six-week period from two weeks before the current date to four weeks after the current date.
  • Supreme and Appellate Court Opinions Expected for Release This page, also at the Judiciary site, lists Supreme Court and Appellate Division opinions scheduled for release the next day--including Appellate Division opinions not approved for publication. At the bottom of the page are links to monthly cumulations of these lists, from January 2004 forward.
  • Supreme Court Case Files, 1704-1844 (N.J. Div. of Archives & Records Management): an index to the case files by names, county, case type, and year.
  • Track Supreme Court Appeals. List of cases pending decision, with brief statements of questions presented. Indicates date certification granted and date argued.

N.J. Court Rules & other Judiciary Material

N.J. Ethics Codes & Ethics Opinions

Attorneys | Judiciary | Executive Branch | Legislative Branch

Attorneys

Judges & Judiciary Employees

Executive Branch

Legislative Branch

N.J. Executive Orders & Circular Letters

N.J. Regulations

N.J. Administrative Decisions

N.J. Attorney General's Guidelines, Directives, & Opinions

N.J. Municipal & County Ordinances

  • Electronic Ordinance Library (N.J. State League of Municipalities): sample ordinances arranged by topic.
  • Local Right-to-Farm Ordinances (collected by State Agriculture Development Committee)
  • Pay-to-Play Ordinances (collected by N.J. Secretary of State).
  • General Code Publishers (codes of about 270 New Jersey municipalities). Note: General Code also publishes a collection of N.J. municipal codes on CD-ROM, that includes some codes not found on the web; Rutgers-Newark Law School faculty and students can access those codes here.
  • Coded Systems LLC (codes of about 130 New Jersey municipalities, including Newark) (Note: most require Internet Explorer.)
  • Municode Library (codes of 15 New Jersey municipalities, including Elizabeth, Jersey City and New Brunswick)
  • Other municipal codes or ordinance compilations:

Interstate Agencies of which New Jersey is a member

N.J. Legal Newspapers & Blogs

  • New Jersey Law Journal : searchable database of articles, 2000 to date (anyone can search and view citations; NJLJ subscribers can view most full text; access to feature articles and some other content older than six months is limited to LexisNexis subscribers). Rutgers Law School students and faculty, use this link for full access (courtesy of Rutgers Law School Alumni Association).
  • New Jersey Law Journal, volumes 1 to 45 (1878 to 1922) (Google Books links compiled at N.J. State Library)
  • Blawg Search: New Jersey Blogs (on Justia.com)
  • NJLLA Lib-Log: News of Interest to New Jersey Law Librarians

N.J. Law-Related Organizations

N.J. Topical Legal Sites

See our Topical Legal Sites page under these topics:

Other N.J. Legal Sites

Free sites

Fee-based services

  • Gann Law Books: GannPrime includes: the complete New Jersey statutes (unannotated); the New Jersey Reports and New Jersey Superior Court Reports; Gann treatises on New Jersey legal topics; annotated versions of the court rules and Titles 2C, 14A, & 59 of the statutes. (Rutgers Law School students & faculty: use this link for access)
  • Lexis-Nexis   Includes current annotated N.J. statutes, court rules, and regulations, and N.J. caselaw from 1789 forward.
  • Westlaw Campus Research (Rutgers University access only)
  • (This service is available to all Rutgers users through a subscription by the Rutgers Univ. Libraries.) Includes current N.J. statutes annotated, court rules, and regulations, and N.J. caselaw from 1789 forward..
  • LoisLaw   Includes N.J. statutes, court rules, regulations, caselaw from 1924 forward.
  • National Law Library   Includes N.J. statutes, court rules, caselaw from 1950 forward.
  • VersusLaw   Includes N.J. caselaw from 1930 forward.
  • Westlaw  Includes N.J. statutes, court rules, regulations, caselaw from 1789 forward, administrative decisions, law journals and legal newspapers.

Publications for the Layperson on New Jersey Law and Court Procedure