The OLC's Opinions

Opinions published by the OLC, including those released in response to our FOIA lawsuit

This Reading Room is a comprehensive database of published opinions written by the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC). It contains the approximately 1,400 opinions published by the OLC in its online database and the opinions produced in Freedom of Information Act litigation brought by the Knight Institute, including opinions about the Pentagon Papers, the Civil Rights Era, and the War Powers Act. It also contains indexes of unclassified OLC opinions written between 1945 and February 15, 1994 (these indexes were created by the OLC and intended to be comprehensive). We have compiled those indexes into a single list here and in .csv format here. This Reading Room also contains an index of all classified OLC opinions issued between 1974 and 2021, except those classified or codeword-classified at a level higher than Top Secret (the OLC created this index, too, and intended it to be comprehensive).

The Knight Institute will continue updating the reading room with new records. To get alerts when the OLC publishes a new opinion in its database, follow @OLCforthepeople on Twitter.

Showing 61–70 of 2202

4/15/2021
Annotated index of 1949 unclassified OLC legal opinions

The OLC disclosed a preliminary index of all unclassified OLC legal opinions issued in 1949 to the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. This version of the index (annotated by Institute staff) shows which opinions are already publicly available (blue).

4/15/2021
4/15/2021
Annotated index of 1950 unclassified OLC legal opinions

The OLC disclosed a preliminary index of all unclassified OLC legal opinions issued in 1950 to the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. This version of the index (annotated by Institute staff) shows which opinions are already publicly available (blue).

4/15/2021
4/15/2021
Annotated index of 1951 unclassified OLC legal opinions

The OLC disclosed a preliminary index of all unclassified OLC legal opinions issued in 1951 to the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. This version of the index (annotated by Institute staff) shows which opinions are already publicly available (blue).

4/15/2021
4/15/2021
Annotated index of 1952 unclassified OLC legal opinions

The OLC disclosed a preliminary index of all unclassified OLC legal opinions issued in 1952 to the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. This version of the index (annotated by Institute staff) shows which opinions are already publicly available (blue).

4/15/2021
4/15/2021
Annotated index of 1953 unclassified OLC legal opinions

The OLC disclosed a preliminary index of all unclassified OLC legal opinions issued in 1953 to the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. This version of the index (annotated by Institute staff) shows which opinions are already publicly available (blue).

4/15/2021
4/15/2021
Annotated index of 1954 unclassified OLC legal opinions

The OLC disclosed a preliminary index of all unclassified OLC legal opinions issued in 1954 to the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. This version of the index (annotated by Institute staff) shows which opinions are already publicly available (blue).

4/15/2021
4/15/2021
Annotated index of 1955 unclassified OLC legal opinions

The OLC disclosed a preliminary index of all unclassified OLC legal opinions issued in 1955 to the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. This version of the index (annotated by Institute staff) shows which opinions are already publicly available (blue).

4/15/2021
4/15/2021
Annotated index of 1956 unclassified OLC legal opinions

The OLC disclosed a preliminary index of all unclassified OLC legal opinions issued in 1956 to the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. This version of the index (annotated by Institute staff) shows which opinions are already publicly available (blue).

4/15/2021
4/15/2021
Annotated index of 1957 unclassified OLC legal opinions

The OLC disclosed a preliminary index of all unclassified OLC legal opinions issued in 1957 to the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. This version of the index (annotated by Institute staff) shows which opinions are already publicly available (blue).

4/15/2021
4/15/2021
Annotated index of 1958 unclassified OLC legal opinions

The OLC disclosed a preliminary index of all unclassified OLC legal opinions issued in 1958 to the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. This version of the index (annotated by Institute staff) shows which opinions are already publicly available (blue).

4/15/2021

The OLC disclosed a preliminary index of all unclassified OLC legal opinions issued in 1949 to the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. This version of the index (annotated by Institute staff) shows which opinions are already publicly available (blue).

The OLC disclosed a preliminary index of all unclassified OLC legal opinions issued in 1950 to the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. This version of the index (annotated by Institute staff) shows which opinions are already publicly available (blue).

The OLC disclosed a preliminary index of all unclassified OLC legal opinions issued in 1951 to the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. This version of the index (annotated by Institute staff) shows which opinions are already publicly available (blue).

The OLC disclosed a preliminary index of all unclassified OLC legal opinions issued in 1952 to the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. This version of the index (annotated by Institute staff) shows which opinions are already publicly available (blue).

The OLC disclosed a preliminary index of all unclassified OLC legal opinions issued in 1953 to the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. This version of the index (annotated by Institute staff) shows which opinions are already publicly available (blue).

The OLC disclosed a preliminary index of all unclassified OLC legal opinions issued in 1954 to the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. This version of the index (annotated by Institute staff) shows which opinions are already publicly available (blue).

The OLC disclosed a preliminary index of all unclassified OLC legal opinions issued in 1955 to the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. This version of the index (annotated by Institute staff) shows which opinions are already publicly available (blue).

The OLC disclosed a preliminary index of all unclassified OLC legal opinions issued in 1956 to the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. This version of the index (annotated by Institute staff) shows which opinions are already publicly available (blue).

The OLC disclosed a preliminary index of all unclassified OLC legal opinions issued in 1957 to the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. This version of the index (annotated by Institute staff) shows which opinions are already publicly available (blue).

The OLC disclosed a preliminary index of all unclassified OLC legal opinions issued in 1958 to the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. This version of the index (annotated by Institute staff) shows which opinions are already publicly available (blue).