Guides

Statutes — point-in-time text

The statute endpoints return authoritative state statute text as it was in force on a given date — the ground truth an agent needs to prove a citation instead of trusting the model. Coverage today: the full U.S. Code (release points, current through Pub. L. 119-102) plus twelve states — California, Texas, Oregon, Illinois, New Jersey, North Carolina, New York (act-effective dates, floor 2014), Colorado, South Carolina, Connecticut, Florida (annual editions 2010–2025), and Delaware— 775,250 sections, each on its jurisdiction's honest temporal basis. /statutes/coverage is the live source of truth. See the capability overview for positioning.

How asOf resolves

asOf is a date, not a year. Editions take force mid-year, so the resolver returns the latest version whose validity began on or before your date. The same citation, four dates:

asOf	Resolves to	Why
2011-02-01	2010 edition	The 2011 edition wasn't in force yet that February.
2015-03-14	2012-introduced text	The section was unamended 2012→2015; the in-force version is the one that introduced the text.
2020-03-14	2018-introduced text	Same rule — validity bounds span unamended years.
2009-06-01	404 no_edition_on_file	Before the coverage floor. Never a nearest guess.

Temporal honesty

Every response declares its temporalBasis. Florida is served at compiled-editiongranularity: validity bounds are the state's annual compiled editions, resolved by effective date — notper-act effective dates. An amendment that took effect mid-cycle appears when the state's compiled edition does. A verification product can't silently approximate, so the contract says exactly what the bounds mean.

Endpoints

GET/statutes/coverage

Which jurisdictions are served, what their validity bounds mean, and the earliest date on file — computed live from the corpus. Call it before attempting verification. Free (0 units).

Example response

{
  "coverage": [
    { "jurisdiction": "fl", "name": "Florida", "cadenceClass": "edition",
      "temporalBasis": "compiled-edition", "coverageFrom": "2010-07-01",
      "latestVersion": "2025", "sections": 26776, "versions": 48076 },
    { "jurisdiction": "ny", "name": "New York", "cadenceClass": "continuous",
      "temporalBasis": "act-effective-date", "coverageFrom": "2014-09-22",
      "latestVersion": "2026-07-22", "sections": 40458, "versions": 40458 }
  ],
  "note": "asOf dates earlier than coverageFrom return no_edition_on_file..."
}

GET/statutes/lookup

The one section version in force on the asOf date — full text, validity bounds, provenance, disclaimer.

jurisdiction: string — required, lowercase (fl)
citation: string — required, section key as printed (768.28)
asOf: date YYYY-MM-DD — defaults to today

Example response

{
  "result": {
    "citation": {
      "jurisdiction": "fl",
      "key": "768.28",
      "display": "§ 768.28, Fla. Stat.",
      "parts": { "chapter": "768", "titleNumber": "XLV", "chapterTitle": "NEGLIGENCE" }
    },
    "catchline": "Waiver of sovereign immunity in tort actions; recovery limits; ...",
    "bodyText": "(1) In accordance with s. 13, Art. X of the State Constitution, the state...",
    "historyNote": "s. 1, ch. 73-313; s. 1, ch. 74-235; ...",
    "status": "active",                     // active | repealed | reserved
    "validFrom": "2018-07-01T00:00:00Z",
    "validTo": null,                        // null while still in force
    "ingestedAt": "2026-07-22T02:14:09Z",
    "temporalBasis": "compiled-edition",
    "provenance": {
      "sourceUrl": "https://www.flsenate.gov/Laws/Statutes/2018/Chapter768/All",
      "retrievedAt": "2026-07-22T02:14:09Z",
      "contentHash": "31212df8a94c...",     // sha256 of the exact bodyText served
      "sourceSystem": "flsenate.gov",
      "versionLabel": "2018"                // the edition that introduced this text
    },
    "disclaimer": "Unofficial copy of the Florida Statutes, reproduced from official state sources..."
  }
}

GET/statutes/text

Same resolution, lighter payload — citation, catchline, body, history note, status, temporalBasis, version label, disclaimer. Use when you don't need validity bounds or full provenance.

jurisdiction: string — required
citation: string — required
asOf: date YYYY-MM-DD — defaults to today

GET/statutes/search

Ranked full-text search over catchlines + body, restricted to versions in force on the asOf date, with highlighted snippets.

q: string — required, websearch syntax (quoted phrases, OR, -exclusions)
jurisdiction: string — default fl
asOf: date YYYY-MM-DD — defaults to today
limit: integer 1–25 (default 10)

Example response

{
  "results": [
    {
      "citation": { "jurisdiction": "fl", "key": "768.28", "display": "§ 768.28, Fla. Stat." },
      "catchline": "Waiver of sovereign immunity in tort actions; ...",
      "snippet": "...hereby waives <b>sovereign</b> <b>immunity</b> for liability for <b>torts</b>, but only to the extent...",
      "status": "active",
      "temporalBasis": "compiled-edition",
      "versionLabel": "2018",
      "provenance": { "...": "..." }
    }
  ],
  "disclaimer": "Unofficial copy of state statutes served at compiled-edition granularity..."
}

Auditability

Raw source pages are archived at crawl time and every served text carries a sha256 content hash — any answer can be re-derived from the state's own publication. The amendment trail is first-class: the state's history note ("s. 1, ch. 73-313; …") rides every version.

# A cite-check in one call: does the quoted text match the law
# in force on the document's date?
curl "https://api.lawfirm.dev/v1/statutes/text?jurisdiction=fl&citation=95.11&asOf=2021-09-01" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer lf_live_..."