Legal Resources
Disclaimer: The library cannot provide legal advice. Librarians can help you find legal information resources but only attorneys admitted to practice may provide legal advice. Navigating legal issues is complex and self-represented litigants often do poorly in the court system. This site provides links to help you find lawyers and understand basic legal issues. While there are good sites on the Internet to find legal information, more detailed information may be available in print. For example, the library’s set of Pennsylvania statutes provides useful cross references to relevant cases that cite the statutes. That information is not freely available on the Internet.
PENNSYLVANIA LEGAL RESEARCH AND FORMS
- Family law forms with online interviews from PA Law Help
- Pennsylvania Court Forms – From the State Courts
- Representing yourself in court
- Self-help resources from North Penn Legal Services
- Upsolve – Free app to complete forms to file for bankruptcy
- Westlaw – Available within the main Hughes Library only. Please ask a reference librarian for Assistance
LOCAL LEGAL LINKS
Find an attorney
- Monroe County Bar Association Attorney Referral Service
913 Main Street, Stroudsburg, PA 18360• phone: (570)424-7288 - North Penn Legal Services
10 North Tenth Street, Stroudsburg, PA 18360 • Phone: (570) 424-5338 • Toll Free: (800) 532-8282
North Penn Legal Services (NPLS) provides civil legal representation to low-income people and ensures equal access to justice for all. As a regional non-profit provider of civil legal aid for more than 40 years, NPLS offers assistance with these civil legal problems: consumer, education, family,
elderly, housing, utilities, domestic violence, employment, and public benefits. - Lawyers.com – Lawyers.com uses the same database as the Martindale-Hubbell directory. It is a national database of attorneys that is searchable by location and practice area and provides some background on the attorneys and links to their websites.
- Catholic Charities provides low-cost legal assistance with immigration matters.
Monroe County Links
- Court website
- Legal forms for the Court of Common Pleas
- Court calendars
- Property Tax Reassessment – Search Properties
- Zoning regulations and ordinances for Monroe County municipalities
- PowerPoint explanation of tax reassessment
- Foreclosure Diversion Program
- Foreclosure Counseling – Free and low cost counseling is available from IntegraPA, a not-for-profit agency.
- Child Custody video for Monroe County – produced by NorthPenn Legal Services
- Additional Legal links from the Monroe County Bar Association
PENNSYLVANIA PRIMARY LEGAL MATERIALS
- Pennsylvania Statutes from Pennsylvania General Assembly
- Pennsylvania Statutes from Findlaw
- Regulations – PA Code – current regulations
- PA Bulletin Weekly gazette of state rulemaking. Current issues and back issues from 1996 to present.
- Case law from Google Scholar – At the home page choose the button that says “case law” and choose “Pennsylvania Courts.” Google Scholar has state case law going back to 1950 and federal case law back to 1923. It is possible to search by citation or by topic. A citation search is the best way to retrieve a specific case.
- Pennsylvania Court Docket Sheets
- Municipal Codes – Local municipal codes are available from a number of publishers. Below are links to two sites that host codes for Pennsylvania municipalities:
FEDERAL PRIMARY LEGAL MATERIALS
- United States Code – Current version of the federal statutes from the Office of Law Revision Counsel, publishers of the United States Code.
- Code of Federal Regulations The most current version of federal regulations from the U.S. Government Publishing Office
- Case law from Google Scholar – At the home page choose the button that says “case law” and choose “Federal Courts.” Google Scholar has federal case law back to 1923. It is possible to search by citation or by topic. A citation search is the best way to retrieve a specific case.
- U.S. Supreme Court Opinions – The most recent Supreme Court Opinions can be found at this site, along with related court documents.
- Justia.com – Good links to both federal and state legal materials and federal dockets.
FEDERAL COURTS
- Federal Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania
- Bankruptcy Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania
- Third Circuit Court of Appeals
- Federal Court Dockets
FEDERAL OFFICES
- Social Security Administration – Monroe County Office is located at 9090 Franklin Hill Road, East Stroudsburg, PA 18301 – Phone: 1-888-835-6169
- Tax/Internal Revenue Service
- Tax Forms
- U.S. Government Publishing Office
- U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services
- Veteran’s Administration