Hyperlink citations to statutes and regulations

[v-anne]

I suspect this may have been proposed in the past and rejected, but I think it would be a great addition to the opinion pages to incorporate hyperlinks to statutes (the Statutes at Large and U.S. Code) and regulations (the Federal Register and the Code of Federal Regulations).

The opinion pages right now link to the U.S. Reports and Federal Reporter for citations to other cases. But many federal court opinions cite other sources like the U.S. Code and CFR.

As an example, this case cites to both the U.S. Code and Federal Register. I think those references should link to other sources that include the content of those citations. There are many places that host this information; I don't think CourtListener should compete with them, but rather link to them.

Examples include:

• House OLRC's hosting of the U.S. Statutes at Large: https://uscode.house.gov/statviewer.htm
• Government Printing Office's hosting of the U.S. Statutes at Large: https://www.govinfo.gov/help/statute#searching
• Cornell LII's hosting of the U.S. Code: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text
• House OLRC's compendium of the U.S. Code: https://uscode.house.gov/
• Electronic Code of Federal Regulations: https://www.ecfr.gov/
• Federal Register: https://www.federalregister.gov/

This seems substantial enough that if there's interest it should wait until after the opinion page redesign is complete (or maybe it's already incorporated in the redesign and I didn't know).

[mlissner]

Thanks @v-anne! I'll let @flooie respond do this one, as our lead for case law. I think this is indeed a duplicate. This is definitely on our mind for 2025.