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Massachusetts Legal Research

Massachusetts Constitution

The full text of the Massachusetts Constitution is available on the website of the General Court (the state legislature):

Versions of the Constitution are available on Lexis and Westlaw. These include helpful links to relevant case law and secondary sources:

General Laws of Massachusetts

The General Laws are a codification of Massachusetts laws that are permanent in nature and of general application. Laws of a more limited scope or duration are known as Special Acts. Special Acts can be found in the Session Laws below.

The General Laws can be found on the website of the General Court:

Versions of the General Laws are available on Lexis and Westlaw. These include helpful links to relevant case law and secondary sources:

Massachusetts Session Laws

Session laws are chronological compilations of the laws passed by a particular legislature within each session. All Massachusetts acts passed by the legislature are published in the Acts & Resolves of Massachusetts. 

You may want to cite to a session law rather than a code when:

  1. The act is very new and hasn't yet been codified;
  2. The act has been repealed and is no longer in the code;
  3. The act was never codified (for example, a Special Act, as only laws of a general and permanent nature are put into the code);
  4. The act was broken up and placed in different parts of the subject-based code and you need to refer to the whole, intact law as originally passed rather than the scattered code provisions. 
  5. The discussion is about the law as originally passed by the legislature (without subsequent amendments).

Session laws from 2011 to the present can be found on the website of the General Court:

Older session laws can be found in the digital collections of the State Library:

Massachusetts Municipal Codes

Links to codes and ordinances of Massachusetts municipalities can be found on the website of the Trial Court Law Libraries:

Select codes are available on Lexis as well: