Lawyers in Louisiana, as in other states, will frequently subscribe to online legal research services like WestLaw or Lexis-Nexis to research Louisiana law. Subscriptions to legal research services can be very expensive, certainly more expensive then would be worthwhile for someone who doesn't practice law. But there are alternatives for doing your own legal research.
 

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Research materials are becoming more available (at no cost) to the public as more state agencies begin to make materials available on the Internet. Not only are most court decisions available, but now you can find statutes, administrative decisions, and much more without charge and from your home or office. For finding (and even purchasing) the best and lowest cost law books, go to our Law Books and Research Materials page.

How to Search. The only trick to doing research is in knowing how to key your search terms and in knowing what you are looking at when you get your results. For example, if you wanted to know what the inheritance tax rate in Louisiana is for this year, that information is available. But if you do a search on "tax" below in Louisiana Laws, you will never find what you are looking for because you will get thousands of results. On the other hand, if you search the Louisiana statutes on "inheritance tax", you will receive a more reasonable number of hits, but still over 200 documents. If you next search for "inheritance tax rate" the results now show 200 documents, but what you are looking for is the first document on the first page (R.S. 47:2403). Success!

Coming: a complete review of the legal research services.