If you get nothing else out of this, know you can reach out to me at douglas.cox@law.cuny.edu for help as you are working through an issue and please do. You can also reach out to the library more generally for legal research help at legal.research@law.cuny.edu.
Other External Research Guides
NYU Law, NY State and City Laws
Brooklyn Law, NY Legislative History: Bill Tracking
Tracking NY State and NYC Legislation (NY Bar Assoc.)
NY State Legislation
NY Statutes (Current and Historical) (What is the current law? What did the law used to be?)
Existing/Current Legislation - Annotated Code (McKinney's (West) & CLS (Lexis))
Historical NY Annotated Code back to 1987 (Westlaw)
NY Sessions Laws (going way way back) (HeinOnline)
Legislative History (What was the intent of the legislature in passing a law?)
NY Legislative History & Bill Jackets (Doug's page)
How a Bill Becomes a Law (NY Senate)
New York Legislative History Tutorial (NY State Library)
Bill Tracking (What is the text of any proposed amendments or new laws? What is the current status of those proposed amendments/new laws?)
NY Bill Status Alerts (NY Senate)
NY Bill Tracking (Westlaw) (run search and create repeating alert)
NY Full-Text Bills (Lexis)
NY Bill Tracking Reports (Lexis)
NYC Legislation
NYC Resources & Links (CUNY Law Library)
NYC Legislation Page (surprisingly good coverage back to around 1994, but prior to that may require Municipal Archives research)
A few quick tips on NYC legal research:
1. The division between what is covered by the City and the State is not always clear. Something you think might be covered by City laws might be covered by the State and vice versa.
2. Recognize (and build into your expectations about how labor-intensive the research might be) that NYC contains all the complexity of another jurisdiction, with the equivalent of its own constitution, statutes, and regulations:
- The New York City Administrative Code (Westlaw, Lexis & Free (click Laws then scroll all the way down to Miscellaneous)) are the Statutes (despite using the word Administrative). And New York City local laws are like Session Laws.
3. When double checking the currency of a provision in the Charter, Code or Rules, I would honestly check both the free government versions and Westlaw and/or Lexis. None of them are good about being clear about when they were last updated. More often I will find the more updated version on Westlaw or Lexis rather than the government site, but I have also seen the opposite situation as well.