A little known method for divining legislative purpose is to examine how the statute of interest has evolved over time.  What if, for example, opposing counsel is trying to persuade the court to apply terms which the Legislature had previously stricken from the law?  A review of the relevant chaptered laws would uncover this development and effectively defeat your opponent’s argument.  To gain an understanding of the changes made to a statute over time, it is most useful to “begin at the beginning,” then to compare the changes in chronological sequence.  Legislative Research, Inc. (LRI) organizes the chaptered laws in chronological order to assist in such a review.  Also, while the West’s and Deering’s annotated codes supply the primary citations, LRI is sometimes forced to augment them from other sources.

Chaptered law reports serve another purpose.  Besides allowing you to analyze how a statute has evolved over time, you can also identify when specific language of interest first entered a statute.  This enables you to dig deeper for pointed legislative history research purposes.  Most of the time, LRI can provide this latter service at no cost. However, occasionally the statutory references are extremely lengthy and/or complex, requiring a separate report.

Fee.  The cost for this service is $100/hr, one hour minimum, plus $0.30 per page transmission costs.  The Chaptered Law Report includes a signed and dated authentication.