Legislative History Services

Since 1974, attorneys and court personnel have turned to Legislative Intent Service, Inc. [“LIS”] whenever they need clarity and interpretation on federal and state statutes and regulations. LIS locates legislative history documentation that enables you to understand existing law and the cause or circumstances leading to its enactment or amendment.

LIS has the largest private collection of legislative history materials in the United States. In addition, our experienced research staff knows how to track down legislative and administrative documents generated from the 1700s to today. Documents collected by LIS have been submitted and relied upon by courts and administrative agencies at all levels.

Areas of Expertise

  • Complicated or Unknown History: Our free quotes list the full history of a statute, including the historical derivation often unrecorded by publishers. In cases of unknown administrative histories, our staff works within your budget to track down your section or language of interest.
  • State Statutes: We provide research on bills that enacted or amended sections and statutes. We provide research on bills two ways: custom and online store. Read more about the difference and what documents you can expect here.
  • State Rules, Regulations and Administrative Code Sections: We determine when your language of interest was added and access the rulemaking files, official publications and filings that document the promulgation and amendment of rules and regulations.
  • Federal Statutes: We track down the enacting bill, relevant related bills, committee reports, abstracts of hearing transcripts, congressional debates, studies and presidential papers regarding the enactment and amendment of your statute of interest. Find out more here.
  • Federal Regulations: We provide excerpts from all relevant Code of Federal Regulations and Federal Registers regarding the history of federal regulations. Find out more here.
  • California Rules of Court: We provide the administrative files regarding the promulgation and amendment of rules.
  • California Wage Orders: We help you determine when your wage order language of interest was added and provide Industrial Welfare Commission rulemaking files regarding your specific provision(s).
  • California Constitutional Provisions: Whether a provision was added by a convention, the Legislature or Proposition, we provide history documents regarding your Constitutional provision of interest.
  • Tracing: If your state or federal provision has a complicated history, we can help narrow down your bills or actions of interest by tracing the language changes.

Our Fees Are Recoverable

Because complete legislative history research is not readily available to the public, the costs of legislative history research fees are a recoverable cost. (Van De Kamp v. Gumbiner, 221 CA3d 1260 (1990))