Frequently Asked Questions
ACRIS: Online City Register a part of the New York City Register web site, which you can use to find out who owns property. Copies of deeds and mortgages may be downloaded.
New York City Department of Buildings (DOB) for information relating to plans, permits, certificates of occupancy, electrical and plumbing work, and certain types of violations. At this time, the actual plans that are filed are not available online.
New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development For information about housing violations and also registration of the managing agent and owner.
New York State Division of Housing and Community Renewal (DHCR), Office of Rent Administration This agency administers rent stabilization and rent control. Use this site to check on case status with the DHCR, download forms, read DHCR information sheets, bulletins and other information about rent regulation. IF you have a pending DHCR case, you can check its status.
New York City Rent Guidelines Board This is the agency that determines the rent increases for rent stabilized tenants. The orders setting rent increases are available. There is also an information page about tenants’ rights.
New York State Department of State This web site is for checking on: licenses for many professions, including real estate brokers and determining if a business entity is validly registered to do business in New York State; it contains a lot of general information about state government.
New York State Unified Court System Look here for attorney registration information, court decisions online, information about judges, some advice and forms for pro se litigants, and links to law libraries and other law related sites.
Federal Judiciary Courts Information about all Federal courts, and some decisions of interest – follow the link to the court in which you are interested.
PACER Service Center: Administrative Office of the US Courts Many Federal court decisions available online.
E.courts: Casetrac A direct link to state court decisions and court calendars for several state courts.
Decisions of Appellate Term
New York Law Journal a daily newspaper read by most attorneys in the city. Contains articles of interest to the legal profession, publishes the part rules for courts in New York City, and many court decisions that are not reported elsewhere.
Law.com Law Dicitionary Definitions of legal terms online.
link to case information for New York County Supreme Court[broken] case information page. You can find decisions and also court papers, pleadings and other papers for many (but not all) cases. The state court system is supposed eventually going to have almost everything on line, but there is a long way to go at this point.
Court Guides A link to find the addresses and telephone numbers for state courts.
The Association of the Bar of The City of New York This link will be of interest to attorneys, but also has some things that may be of interest to non-attorneys. One of their pages is called “Legal Help for the Public”. They also maintain an attorney referral service, which can be reached at (212) 626-7373.
New York County Lawyers Association Another bar association in New York. Provides continuing legal education (CLE) for attorneys, has a good law library available to members, and has a series of committees for lawyers in various areas of practice.
Lawyers.com A commercial service for finding lawyers who are a member. It is run by the same company that provides LEXIS online legal research. It is not limited to New York State; you can find a lawyer in Alaska there if you want to.
The New York State Bar Association headquartered in Albany, NY. Has a free online legal research service available to members. There is a page for links to public resources, such as lawyer referral services, guidelines on selecting a lawyer, and finding a legal aid or legal services lawyer.
LawHelp/NY A site with information and links to legal aid and legal services organizations which provide free legal help to low income clients, or clients with in special categories such as senior citizens, AIDS victims or the mentally ill. It is accessible in several languages other than English, as well.
iLawyer.org A not-for-profit lawyer referral service commented upon favorably by the American Bar Association.
Lexis Nexis Research System A legal research service with almost all officially published cases available online. Some really old cases may not be available. Allows several different types of searches for finding case law to support your point. They also provide the NEXIS service which permits searches of publications for particular words or phrases. The company that runs the service also publishes law books and provides a vast variety of services. However, the legal research service is not free – you have to subscribe. It is the research service that we use here at Grimble & LoGuidice, LLC.