New Jersey Legal Resources

Bills, Laws, & Statutes:  What's the Difference?

The New Jersey Legislature’s primary function is to pass laws.  This process begins with an idea and the introduction of a bill.   

• A bill is a proposal to establish a new law, or to change or repeal an existing law.
• If the bill passes through both the Senate and Assembly, and is signed by the Governor, it becomes a Law. 
• Laws are the official rules and codes that govern citizens’ actions, including the Constitution, statutory laws enacted by the Legislature, case laws established by court decisions, and administrative law as set forth by executive branch agencies.  
• Statutes are the laws created by acts of the Legislature. (see Laws above)

For additional definitions, check out the complete Glossary of Terms of the NJ Legislature. 

NJ State Library Has the Laws!

Here at the NJ State Library, Law Library we have a variety of resources to help you find NJ Laws.  See below for information on how to find NJ bills, laws, and statutes both current and historic.

The New Jersey Legislature website provides access to all the bills back to the 2000/2001 legislative session, and the Session Laws/Chapter Laws to 2000.  You can also access the current statutes via the NJ Legislature Website. 

The New Jersey State Library provides a variety of tools for finding historic bills and statutes including:

• Senate Bills by year, in print back to 1839, bound in numeric order by bill number.  
• Assembly Bills by year in print back to 1838, bound in numeric order by bill number.
• Session/Chapter Laws by year in print back to 1800.

If you know the year and bill number, the New Jersey State Library Law Library can generally create a digital copy of the bill and send it to you via email.  Contact us to request Senate or Assembly bills or Session Laws. 

Need help finding the bill number? We have the NJ Legislative Index back to 1915, which allows us to look for bills based on subject or legislative sponsor.  Contact the Law Library for assistance. 

Have you ever wondered if there is a specific law? 

When visiting the library, we offer you a variety of choices to research the NJ Statutes.  Databases such as Lexis and Westlaw allow you to search for laws using citations or keywords.  Once found, you can easily email the information to yourself. In addition, we have the WestLaw NJ Statutes Annotated book in print, which provide the full-text of the statutes, as well as editorial materials which provide history and context information, along with case law information.

If you are not at the NJSL Law Library, you can easily search the complete New Jersey Statutes from the NJ Legislature's website using keywords.  This database contains the full-text of all the NJ Statutes.  If you find a law you are interested in, but would like additional information, send us an email with the citation, and we will send you the information and annotations from Lexis or Westlaw.  

To Search the Public Database of New Jersey Statutes:

1. Go to the New Jersey Legislature Webpage:  https://www.njleg.state.nj.us/
2. Using the navigation tools in the gold band at the top of the page, find the Bill tab, click on it to see the pull down menu.  Select the Statutes link from the pull down menu.
3. This takes you into a searchable database of the current NJ Statutes.  Find the search box located in the black band at the top of the page.
4. Within the search box place you keyword, phrase, or citation and hit enter.  When searching for phrases or citations, be sure to enclose your search items in quotes.  For example, if you want to search for real estate, you should enter “real estate”.  To look for a law that you have a citation for, for example, if NJSA 4:22-26 is your citation, enter “4:22-26” and hit enter.
5. This will return a list of statutes that contain your keyword, phrase, or statute number.  To see the full-text of any result, click on the large blue link at the beginning of the entry. 
6. Once in the full-text of any law, you can easily move through the statutes by using the Next Doc/Prev Doc buttons located directly above the text.  To return to your result list, click on the Results button located on the left side of the large blue band at the top of the page.

Where to find NJ Statutes (NJS)? 

The NJ Legislature has a searchable database of the New Jersey Statutes (unannotated). 

Rutgers School of Law provides a searchable database of the New Jersey Statutes (unannotated).

For New Jersey Statutes Annotated (NJSA), the New Jersey State Library, Law Library has a number of resources that provide annotations for all or part of the NJ Statutes.

• West’s New Jersey Statutes Annotated print series are available.  In addition to the current series, NJSL Law Library has a collection of older volumes of the series and the pocket parts.
• Databases, including Lexis Plus and Westlaw, which provide access to the statutes, annotations, and easily links to related cases and materials to help researches find relevant materials quickly.
• Subject specific titles such as the New Jersey Drunk Driving Law by Robert Ramsey which provides detailed coverage and discussion all current NJ Laws and Regulations related to Drunk Driving.  We have a number of print materials of this type covering a wide variety of legal topics.

Beyond Statutes:  Finding other types of NJ Laws

• The New Jersey  Administrative Code (NJAC) and the New Jersey Register (NJR) can be found online.  The NJSL Law Library maintains collection of superseded pages of the NJAC to assist in researching a regulation back through time.
• Executive Orders from 1956 to the present have been digitized.  If you need something older, contact us for assistance.
• Chapter/Session Laws:  The New Jersey State Library (NJSL) has the bound volumes of New Jersey Session Laws going back to 1808. The New Jersey State Publications Digital Library has digitized most of the New Jersey Session Laws back to 1810
• Case Law tools available at the NJSL Law Library include Lexis Plus and Westlaw databases, Reporters, subject specific treatise, and a number of practice guides such as New Jersey Pleadings and Practice, and the New Jersey Practice series.   When doing case law research outside the library, we recommend using Google Scholar