New from Lexis: Legislative & Regulatory Impact

Lexis Legislative and Regulatory Impact are now available to law school users. These services offer real-time analysis of how proposed legislation and regulations impact existing law.

Legislative Impact allows you to see what sections of the U.S. Code a pending bill will change. For bills that have passed, it shows (1) the changes to the U.S. Code made by the bill, (2) amendments made by subsequent legislation and (3) pending bills which will make changes. This information previously was very time consuming to gather, but Lexis (via Potomac Publishing Company) offers it all in one easy-to-read report. Also, for a particular U.S. Code section, this service lists pending bills that will make changes to that section.

There are similar databases for twenty state legislatures, and all fifty states will be available early next year.

To access: from the Legal tab, click on “Federal Legal-U.S.”, scroll down to “Find Statutes, Regulations…” and you will see a link for Legislative Impact & Regulatory Impact. Also, if you pull up a pending bill, Public Law(federal) or state session law , there will be a link to retrieve the legislative impact in the top left hand corner.

Similarly, Regulatory Impact tells you what administrative code sections are affected by final and proposed rules.

You can browse by agency or search for a specific administrative code section. On the federal level, for example, you can browse by agency to find proposed and final rules in the Federal Register and what CFR sections are affected. You may also search for a CFR section and see final and proposed rules from the last 12 months of the Federal Register. Regulatory Impact is available for 31 states, and all 50 states will be available early next year.