The great people over at CALI (Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction), have partnered with the Legal Information Institute (LII) at Cornell Law School to bring free* .epub files of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure and Evidence. The downloads will currently work on iPads, iPhones, Nooks, and other devices that can read the .epub format (like Mobipocket if you’re on Windows).

Note: These are E-Book formats, so it won’t work in your PDF Reader.

This isn’t just a bare-bones version of the Rules, either. The ebooks have the following features built into this initial version (with promises of more to come):

  • The complete rules as of December 1, 2010.
  • All notes of the Advisory Committee immediately following each rule.
  • Internal links to rules referenced within the rules.
  • External links to the LII website’s version of the US Code.
For those of you that aren’t in Academia, you may not be as familiar with CALI and the great training programs they produce. There are a number of things they produce that aren’t just for law students. Law firms can access the lessons, innovations, and online materials for the embarrassing low price of $250 a year. Even for those law firms that are cheap, this is a bargain.
*Although you can download and use the Federal Rules ePubs for free, you can show your support for the hard work of the LII crew by donating an amount (go ahead and make it an even $20.00), and help support their work and encourage them to produce even more great content.