Maryland Law Resources

The Code of Maryland is the most current public record of all statutes still in force in the State of Maryland. The Commission to Revise the Annotated Code was appointed by the Maryland legislature on July 16, 1970, led by then-Senate President William S. James.

Beginning in the late 1950s, The Michie Company (a publishing firm in Charlottesville, Virginia) has been publishing revisions to The Annotated Code of Maryland. Between 1957 and 1973, these were printed in large black volumes on paper. The word "Annotated" in the title refers to a variety of relevant information which may be appended to the text of a specific law. This information may include references to earlier editions of the Code, appellate court decisions where the point of law was quoted or cited, a discussion of the way the law was applied in a specific case, or a reference to a legal periodical article on the subject. 

This revision process, known as codification, was scheduled to be completed by 2016. Each of the newly-printed red volumes covers a major subject area such as Agriculture, Criminal Law, Education, Environment, etc. Subjects are divided into titles, subtitles, and sections, as in Agriculture § 3-101.

Citation Format
The standard legal abbreviation for Michie's Annotated Code of Maryland is Md. Code Ann. The article or subject volume is subdivided into numbered title, subtitle, and section (preceded by the section symbol §) with further subdivisions as necessary.  Examples:  Education § 87-111 or Art. 25 § 104.

See below for access to the Annotated Code of Maryland in (1) Databases, and (2) Print.

For versions of the Code without annotation, or earlier codifications, see (3) Free Online Sources.  

Access available at all UM Libraries' locations through the Database Finder (https://www.lib.umd.edu/dbfinder). Remote access is limited to University of Maryland staff and students.