North Carolina General Statutes
By SmartBump Inc
Overview
NC General Statutes Look up North Carolina General Statutes / law, see how it has changed, and see what changes are coming. This tool gives you the full text of the North Carolina General Statutes. You can ask questions in plain English, like "What's the penalty for missing court?" , "What changes on January 1?" or "What other GS cite G.S. 105-294?" WHAT YOU CAN DO - Search by topic. You don't need to know the statute number. Describe what you're looking for and it finds the matching sections. - Look up a section. Type the citation any common way: 14-72.1, G.S. 14-72.1, or § 14-72.1. - See what's coming. Find laws that have passed but haven't taken effect yet, and when they start. - Compare versions. See exactly which words were added or removed, like tracked changes in a document. - Trace the history. See every amendment to a section, back to the 1800s. - Find connected laws. See which sections a statute refers to and which other sections refer to it. The second one can't be found by reading the statute itself. NOTES - Bills aren't included. A bill that's still moving through the legislature, or waiting for the governor's signature, won't show up here. If something isn't here, that doesn't mean it didn't pass. Check bill status at ncleg.gov. - North Carolina only. - This is not legal advice. You get the raw statute text, without the official notes and case summaries.
Tools
chapter_activity
Claudechapter for a corpus-wide view. Counts are STATUTORY, from history notes — not observations. For one section use amendment_history; for upcoming text use pending_changes.cross_references
Claudediff_statute
Claudemode="pending" compares the text in force against an enacted-but-not-yet-effective variant — use this for "what will change on 1 October". mode="observed" compares versions this database has actually recorded, optionally between two dates. CANNOT show text from before the ingest's first observation: observed history begins then, so most sections have only one version and return diff: null. For earlier change dates use amendment_history; for pending text use pending_changes.get_statute
Claudeas_of gives the text observed on a past date; pending lists variants enacted but not yet effective. Carries codified_through, session_laws_through and a legislation_note naming any enacted act that touches this section outside the codified text. An uncodified override ("Notwithstanding G.S. ...") is never codified, so it is reported regardless of the watermark. PENDING BILLS ARE NOT COVERED — a ratified bill is not law and appears in neither source, so an empty note is not evidence nothing passed. as_of RESOLVES AGAINST OBSERVED VERSIONS, NOT EFFECTIVE DATES — it answers "what did this database hold on that date", so it cannot reach text from before the first ingest run. For "what took effect on 1 October" use recent_law_changes(source="effective"). Section-level only — ask for "20-141", not "20-141(j1)". For WHEN it changed use amendment_history; for WHAT changed use diff_statute.pending_changes
Clauderecent_law_changes
Claudesearch_statutes
Claudeor. Court shorthand is expanded automatically and case-insensitively — FTA, DWLR, PJC, AWDW and similar become the statutory wording, because the statute book spells the phrase out and never uses the abbreviation. The expansion is reported back as expanded_query. Searches the law in force today, at section level. A low top rank means the corpus probably has no section on point — NC simply has no statute on some subjects, and saying so is a better answer than the nearest loose word match.





