Chapter 6 · Educational

How to Find a Statute

You rarely start with a citation. You start with something you know — a law’s common name, its subject, or a citation in the wrong form — and the trick is reaching for the finding aid that matches what you have. Three of them, each suited to a different starting point.

Try each tool. The green tag on each one tells you when to reach for it. All three roads below end at the same place — Title III of the ADA — which is exactly where How to Read a Statute picks up.

Finding aid 1

Popular Name Table

Use when you know the law’s common name but not its citation.

Laws are known by their names long before anyone remembers their code numbers. The Popular Name Table maps the name to the citation — including the Public Law number, your starting point for everything from legislative history to the conversion table below.

Finding aid 2

Subject Index

Use when you know the subject but not the law’s name.

When you can describe the problem but can’t name the statute, the index is your route. You look up the subject, follow the sub-entries to something specific, and it hands you the section number.

Finding aid 3

Conversion table

Use when you have one citation form and need another.

The Popular Name Table gave you Pub. L. 101-336 — but a law’s sections rarely sit together in the Code. The conversion table shows where each part of the Act actually landed, so you can jump from the public-law citation to the exact code sections you need.

Starting point — from the Popular Name Table: Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 · Pub. L. 101-336 · 104 Stat. 327

Title	Subject	Codified at
Title I	Employment	42 U.S.C. §§ 12111–12117
Title II	Public services (state & local government)	42 U.S.C. §§ 12131–12165
Title III	Public accommodations (private entities)	42 U.S.C. §§ 12181–12189 →
Title IV	Telecommunications	47 U.S.C. § 225
Title V	Miscellaneous provisions	42 U.S.C. §§ 12201–12213

One Public Law, five places in the Code. Your client’s problem is about a private business serving the public — Title III — so you follow that row to § 12181 / § 12182.

All three roads converged. Whether you started from the name, the subject, or the Public Law number, you arrived at Title III, §§ 12181–12189. The finding aid you pick is decided by what you already know — which is the Question Method working at the very first step. Next, open How to Read a Statute to work the provision itself.