Federal Rules of Evidence online

Taking a deep dive into the Federal Rules of Evidence? Here’s how to find searchable, annotated versions of the FRE on Westlaw and Lexis Advance, as well as how to find the official pdf version from the US Government Publishing Office.

Westlaw version (searchable, annotated)
  1. Log in to Westlaw.
  2. Click “Federal Materials,” then “United States Code Annotated (USCA).”
  3. Scroll down, just below Title 28, then click on “Federal Rules of Evidence.”
  4. At this point, any terms you enter in the search box will be searched throughout the FRE, or you can click the checkboxes next to particular rules first, in order to narrow the search to just those rules.
  5. Clicking the link to a particular rule will provide the text of the rule, Notes of Decisions (case law interpreting the rule), and Citing References (all primary and secondary materials available on Westlaw that cite to that rule; use filters to narrow this down).
Lexis Advance version (searchable, annotated)
  1. Log in to Lexis Advance.
  2. Click “Browse,” then “Sources,” then type USCS and click on “USCS – Federal Rules Annotated” in the list of suggestions, then click the magnifying glass to search.
  3. Click the link to “Table of Contents – USCS – Federal Rules Annotated.”
  4. To the right of “Federal Rules of Evidence,” there is a magnifying glass with a plus sign. Clicking this will narrow your search to just the Federal Rules of Evidence.
  5. To the left of “Federal Rules of Evidence” is a triangle. Clicking this triangle will expand the rules you can choose from. Clicking the link to a particular rule will provide the text of the rule, Interpretive Notes and Decisions (case law interpreting the rule), and a link to Shepardize the rule (this reveals all primary and secondary materials available on Lexis Advance that cite to the rule; options to narrow these results are on the left side of the screen).
US Government Publishing Office version (official)

The gpo.gov website is free; no login is needed. The pdfs available on the site have wide margins that are great for marking up with your own notes. Most importantly, these pdfs are official sources of law provided by the federal government.

PDF version of Federal Rules of Evidence on gpo.gov (93 pages; may load slowly)