LibGuides: Evaluating Websites and Blogs (Law Library): Official/Authentic Primary Sources

Primary Sources on the Internet - Official? Authentic?

Try to use primary law online that is official and authenticated, if available.

Official Legal Resource = One that has been governmentally mandated or approved by statute or rule.

If there is a conflict between an official source (eg. official United States Code) and an unofficial source (U.S. Code Annotated or United States Code Service), the official source prevails.

Authentic Legal Resource = Content has been verified by a government entity to be complete and unaltered. Technologies are in place to prevent tampering with the text, such as encryption or watermarking. (For a more complete definition, see American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) State-by-State Report on Authentication of Online Legal Resources.)

Bluebook Rule Bluebook Rule 18.2.1, concerning Internet citation, states that the Bluebook prefers citing the authenticated source, and if none is available, the official source.

Federal Authenticated/Official Documents

Authentication of government digital documents
Instructions on how to validate the certificate on the electronic document.

State Authenticated/Official Documents

State Online Legal Information
AALL and chapter volunteers researched primary legal materials in their states to determine if online legal materials are trustworthy and preserved for permanent public access.
Ohio Online Legal Information
What is considered official in Ohio?
Uniform Electronic Legal Material Act (UELMA)
The Uniform Electronic Legal Material Act (UELMA) provides states with an outcomes-based approach to the authentication and preservation of electronic legal material. The goals of the authentication and preservation program outlined in the Act are to enable end-users to verify the trustworthiness of the legal material they are using and to provide a framework for states to preserve legal material in perpetuity in a manner that allows for permanent access.

The Act requires that official electronic legal material be:
1. Authenticated, by providing a method to determine that it is unaltered;
2. Preserved, either in electronic or print form; and
3. Accessible, for use by the public on a permanent basis.
Ohio UELMA
Ohio adopted the Uniform Electronic Legal Material Act by passing 132nd General Assembly, S.B. 139 (2018).