About Legal by State

Legal by State explains U.S. state laws on everyday questions in plain English: is something legal where you live, since when, under what conditions, and what the actual statute says. We cover topics people search for every day — hemp and cannabis products, gambling and betting, driving rules, recording laws, deadlines to sue, and tenant questions — one state at a time.

What we do

Most legal information online is either written for lawyers or written to sell you something. We do neither. Every guide on this site answers one question for one state, cites the law it is based on, and tells you when it was last checked. We do not recommend dispensaries, sportsbooks, products or law firms, and our legal guides contain no affiliate links.

How our pages are made

We use AI tools to help draft, organize and update our guides. That is part of how we can keep hundreds of state pages current. It is not a substitute for verification: before a page is published, a human editor checks every legal claim against primary sources — the statute text, agency rules, attorney general opinions and court decisions — and links to them in the Sources section of the page. When a law changes, the page changes, and the review date at the top of the page is updated. You can read the full process on our How we research page and our rules on our Editorial policy page.

Who is responsible

Alex Hale is the editor of Legal by State and is responsible for everything published here. Alex is not a lawyer, and nothing on this site is legal advice. If you find an error, an outdated citation or a law we have missed, write to alex@legalbystate.com; corrections are our top priority and we note them on the page.

Independence

Legal by State is independently owned. We are not funded by cannabis, hemp, gambling or legal-services companies. Sponsored content, when we publish it, is clearly labeled and kept separate from our legal guides; advertisers never influence what a guide says.

A note on what this site is not

Laws change, enforcement varies by county and city, and your situation may have facts that change the answer. Our guides are a starting point for understanding the law, not a replacement for a licensed attorney in your state.