Utah in the United States
Legal Materials
This entry is arranged by branch of government. The final section covers Other Useful Information, such as who to call for questions and copies of materials not available online.
Legislation
Bill Status: You check the status of a pending bill by pulling up the record through the Utah State Legislature’s Bills page, or just use the Quick Bill Search on the home page. For questions about pending legislation, call the Office of Legislative Printing at 801-538-1588.
Code: The Utah Legislature posts a free edition free edition of the Utah State Code. For commercial sources, see State Statutes and Codes.
Historical editions of the annotated Utah Code are available on Lexis back to 1991 (e.g., UTAH;UT1991) and Westlaw (e.g., UT-STMANN91). Fastcase has unannotated editions back to 2008 (subscription only). For copies of older editions, see the libraries listed in the “Questions and Copies” section at the end of this entry.
Session Laws: Utah’s session laws from 1851 to last year are published in the Laws of Utah. See the “Questions and Copies” section below for places to order copies from the print. Territorial and State session laws from 1847-1892 are posted free by the SJ Quinney College of Law library at the University of Utah. A complete collection of Utah session laws are available online through HeinOnline (by subscription to the Session Laws database free with a Utah library card.
Legislative History: For information about compiling Utah legislative histories, see theLegislative Intent and Legislative History page by the Division of Archives and Record Services. See also the other Utah legislative history guides listed in State Legislative History Research Guides on the Web and the State Legislative History entry in this Guide.
Judicial Branch
Opinions: Opinions of the Utah Supreme Court and Court of Appeals are available free back to 1996 from the Utah State Courts and back to 1950 from Google Scholar. For commercial online sources, see the State Cases entry in this legal Encyclopedia.
Dockets and Case Information: Dockets and case information for Utah State Court district court and justice court cases are available through a subscription service calledXChange. If you need just an occasional docket, contact the Utah State Law Library (801-238-7990).
Selected briefs submitted to the Utah Supreme Court and Court of Appeals are posted by Brigham Young’s Hunter Law Library (starting 1990 and 1988, respectively). Copies from a more comprehensive collection (Supreme Court, 1929 and 1940-present; Court of Appeals, 1986-present) can be ordered from the the Utah State Law Library (801-238-7990). Briefs from even older cases may be available from the Utah State Archives(801-533-3535). Alternatively, briefs may be available from the Clerk’s Office at the relevant court.
Court Rules: Utah State Court Rules are posted free by the court system.
Jury Instructions: The Utah State Courts post their civil and criminal Model Jury Instructions. They are also available on Lexis (UTAH;UTJICV civil; UTAH;UTJICR criminal; UTAH;UTJINS both).
Executive Branch
Administrative Code: The Division of Administrative Rules posts the current official Utah Administrative Code, which you can update with the Rules Effective Since Last Codification. For commercial sources, see State Regulations and Administrative Codes.
Historical editions of the Utah Administrative Code are available on Lexis back to 2004 (e.g.,UTAH;UTAD04) and Westlaw back to 2009 (e.g., UT-ADC09).
Regulations: New regulations (“Rules”) and the Governor’s Executive Documents are published in the Utah Bulletin. For commercial sources, see State Regulations and Administrative Codes.
Utah Rules are arranged by subject in the Utah Administrative Code, discussed above.
Agencies and Offices: Utah.gov includes a list of administrative agencies, with information about the agency and a link to the agency web site.
Other Useful Information
Constitution: The Utah State Legislature posts the current Constitution. The S.J. Quinney College of Law Library posts the first Constitution from 1896.
Forms: The Utah State Courts post free forms covering many common legal matters (power of attorney, service of process, divorce, probate, etc.).
Research Resources: For information about Utah legal materials, see Utah Legal Research (W.S. Hein & Sons) by Jessica Van Buren, Mari Cheney, and Judge Marsha Thomas. The Utah Practice Series, available on Westlaw (UTPRAC), discusses key areas of Utah law.
Municipal Codes: The Utah Law page by the S.J. Quinney College of Law library links to many City and County Ordinances.
News: Leading Utah newspapers include the Salt Lake Tribune and Deseret News.Utah Digital Newspapers provides access to articles published from 1850-1982 in over 50 Utah newspapers.
Questions and Copies: For questions about Utah legal materials, copies and/or inter-library loan, try calling the Utah State Law Library (801-238-7990) and/or the Hunter Law Library at Brigham Young University (801-378-3593).
UCC Filings: The Utah Department of Commerce posts an online UCC search. For more information and other places to search, see the “Filing Records” section of the Uniform Commercial Code entry.
Verdicts and Settlements: Utah jury verdicts are reported in Rocky Mountain Verdicts.
Note: We linked the resources to archive.org in an effort to decrease the number of broken links cited.
Primary Law
For more U.S. state primary law resources, see:
- U.S. State Law: Judicial Rules
- U.S. State Law: Codes
- U.S. State Law: Statutes
- U.S. State Legislative: Bills
- U.S. State Law: Executive & Administrative
- U.S. State Law: Municipal
Topics Covered by the Utah Legal Encyclopedia
Note: More detailed information about this State is provided in the Utah jurisdictional legal Encyclopedia, which tie together Utah statutory and case law.
Topics include:
- Utah Statutes
- UT Cases & Case Law
- Utah Legal Websites
- UT State Government Info
- Utah Counties
- Utah Cities
- Utah Legislation
- UT Court Reporters/Depositions
- Utah Legal Forms
- Utah Courts
- UT State Bar/Legal Associations
- Utah Law Enforcement
- Utah Media Sources
Finding the law: Utah in the U.S. Code
A collection of general and permanent laws relating to utah, passed by the United States Congress, are organized by subject matter arrangements in the United States Code (U.S.C.; this label examines utah topics), to make them easy to use (usually, organized by legal areas into Titles, Chapters and Sections). The platform provides introductory material to the U.S. Code, and cross references to case law. View the U.S. Code’s table of contents here.
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