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North Carolina Practice

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This guide describes the main works located in the law library (including electronic access, where available) dealing with North Carolina law. The Clarence W. Walker North Carolina Alcove (Level 3) houses most North Carolina legal materials in print, although additional titles are available in the General Collection (Level 2) and the Reserve Collection (Level 3).

There are two print choices for statutory code research in North Carolina. The General Statutes of North Carolina, the official version published by Lexis Publishing, and West's North Carolina General Statutes Annotated are located in both the North Carolina Alcove and also with the other State Codes (Level 3). Electronic versions of the General Statutes of North Carolina Annotated can be found in Lexis Advance (Law School users only) and in the university-wide database Nexis Uni. West’s North Carolina General Statutes Annotated can be found electronically on Westlaw (Law School users only). Unannotated versions of the General Statutes are also provided online by the North Carolina General Assembly, on Bloomberg Law (Law School users only), and in the university-wide database Fastcase.

The General Assembly's Legislation page also provides the texts of bills and bill status information from 1985 forward, and session laws back to 1959. Earlier session laws, from colonial times to present day, are digitized in HeinOnline’s Session Laws Library. For an annual survey of new legislation passed by the General Assembly, see Legislative Summaries (formerly a print series called North Carolina Legislation, available in Superseded Ref. KFN7821 .N864 1974-2008).

The official North Carolina case reporters and the North Carolina Reporter (containing North Carolina cases from the South Eastern Reporter), as well as the North Carolina Digest and Shepard's North Carolina Citations, are located in the North Carolina Alcove on Level 3. Additional copies of the official reporters are on Level 2 in KFN. Opinions of the North Carolina Supreme Court and Court of Appeals (1998-present) are also available on the Administrative Office of the Courts' website.

Briefs for many North Carolina Supreme Court and Court of Appeals cases are located in the NC Records & Briefs collection (Level 1), organized by opinion citation. Briefs and records for cases filed beginning in 1998 are available online. Recent briefs from the Supreme Court are also on microfiche in the Microforms Room. For more information about finding records and briefs generally, view the Court Records and Briefs Research Guide.

Proposed executive agency regulations are first published in the North Carolina Register (weekly), and once passed, are incorporated into the North Carolina Administrative Code. Current editions of both the Register and the Code are located in the North Carolina Alcove and are available online from the state Office of Administrative Hearings. Historical editions of the NC Register can be found at the call number KFN7436 .N67 (from 1986); prior editions of the Administrative Code can be found in the Superseded Codes collection and in the Microforms Room on Level 1.

For current awareness and news about North Carolina law and lawyers, see North Carolina Lawyers Weekly (NC Alcove & online; see Reference Desk for access).

rev. 10/2017 jlb

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