Looking for a book

March 6, 2018 9:17 AM

I would be very interested to find a book/website/other resource showing interesting differences in law (particular area of law doesn't matter, ideally a wide range) between different states (not a "wacky" laws list). Does such a work exist? I have been unable to find anything outside of the numerous lists online of goofy examples of laws. Thank you for any help you can provide. Have a great day.
posted by gibbsjd77 to Law & Government (8 answers total)

Resources like this list of gun laws by US state?
posted by Margalo Epps at 9:54 AM on March 6, 2018

I'm neither a lawyer nor law librarian, but do you have a law school near to you? Looking up their law library and getting in touch with a law librarian to ask them if there's an authoritative title on it they could point you to might help.

You don't even need to have one near you, really - many (most?) have a publicly-available online catalogue you can search ("comparative law" + "laws and legislation" might be one starting point).
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 10:13 AM on March 6, 2018

The National Conference on Commissioners on Uniform State Laws tries to write high quality (and uniform) legislation for the areas which state gets to make their own laws. If you wanted an overview of the issues that they think need would benefit from standardization, look at their list of acts that they are working on.
posted by metahawk at 10:28 AM on March 6, 2018 [1 favorite]

Spend some time digging around Wikipedia? Legal systems gives you the big picture fundamental differences with links to national examples, and there are a bunch of interesting examples of different legal systems running into each other in marriage, divorce, and property law.
posted by yeahlikethat at 10:51 AM on March 6, 2018

Comparative Law is a thing. I know there are at least two journals, one British, one US, on the phone so difficult to link but i think easy to find if you search for journal of comparative law. Those are geared towards academic s in the field possibly to scholarly but a starting point.

There are also published studies comparing national law within the EU
posted by 15L06 at 11:20 AM on March 6, 2018

Try googling "50-state survey" + some area of law you are interested in.
posted by praemunire at 2:40 PM on March 6, 2018

Response by poster: Thank you everyone for the helpful input. Appreciate your time. Have a great day.
posted by gibbsjd77 at 5:25 AM on March 7, 2018

Best answer: National Conference of State Legislatures is probably more targeted to policy trends, but has overviews of state law on various topics (ex: body worn cameras, plastic bag bans, raw milk), including summaries of recent state legislation.
posted by cdefgfeadgagfe at 12:39 AM on March 8, 2018