Florida City, County & Local Laws: Resources

You can obtain many Florida cities' and counties' ordinances online for free through Municode.  A paid subscription to Municode allows you to search multiple ctities or counties at once or compare codes. Two other companies that publish local laws are Ecpde.360 and American Legal Publishing, although they typically have less laws available than Municode.  

• Local government can refer to a county, municipality, city, or special district
• Ordinance is a law itself
• Collections of ordinances are called the municipal code
• Charter is like the constitution of a city, county or town

(1) Find and read the text of the local law by checking Municode, Lexis, ECode360, American Legal Publishing, the city/county website, or the print laws. 

(2) Search Florida case law using some key words from the ordinance to see if any courts have interpreted or overruled the local law. 

(3) You may also want to review some secondary sources like treatises and nutshells to see if your topic is discussed generally. 

Benefits to joining include a listserv, seminars and CLEs, and access to the Local Government Law Desk Book. 

What if the local law is not available online? Some smaller counties and municipalities do not always have websites or put ordinances online.  You may have to call, email, or visit a county clerk, city clerk or public library to find printed copies of the laws. 

Click on a photo for contact information.

Elizabeth Farrell Clifford	Justin Peters
Amy Lipford	Kat Klepfer
Katie Miller	Katie Crandall
Dylan Dunn	Britt Hunter