March 19, 2025 – There are many ways to stay current on changes in the legal landscape, from curated subscriptions in your favorite database to free update services from government websites. Setting up notifications directly to your email or browser is a helpful task to stay up to date.
Despite predictions over the past decade of the demise of email, many people still use their email inbox as both a task and information management tool. State and local government legislative and regulatory sources offer the ability to subscribe to updates by email. For those aiming for an inbox-zero approach, RSS feeds can push updates to browser extensions or stand-alone RSS readers, so you can catch up on updates when you’re ready to read them. (Get an overview of some popular RSS readers in a recent Wired article,
The Best RSS Feed Readers for Streamlining the Internet.)
Wisconsin Legislature Notifications
The 2025-26 legislative session began in January. The beginning of the session is a perfect time to set up notification alerts on the
Wisconsin Legislature website to stay on top of legislation, administrative rules, and committee work. Create an account with the notification service to get nightly emails based on topics you set up.
Setting up alerts is easy. On the homepage of the legislature’s website, look for the
Notification Service link. Create an account, using your preferred email address for updates. Follow specific authors or committees by choosing from an easy drop-down list to set up your alerts. Creating proposal and subject alerts takes a little more work.
Proposal Lookups
Subject searches are designed to retrieve keywords from legislation that meet your search. This can be the most difficult type of search to set up, because terms used in legislation may not necessarily match the words you’re searching. Set up parallel searches with synonyms or related terms to broaden your notification net. Create a separate notification for each distinct word or phrase you want to follow.
Indexes to the Wisconsin statutes and legislation for the session are some of the most valuable sources for identifying useful keywords, as well as common definitions and phrases used in the statutes. Find subject indexes to legislation for each session in the overview page for the session. The
2025-26 indexes are already in development, linked under the heading of Bulletin of Proceedings Indices.
For pending legislation, it’s a little easier to quickly set up an update. Copy the bill number or other proposal details to create a quick email alert in the notification system.
If you’re looking to subscribe to updates with an RSS reader, it’s even faster. Look for the orange RSS feed symbol at the top of the proposal’s page. Right-click to copy the link to the feed for the page, and add that URL to your feed reader. Now when that proposal page is updated, you should see an update in your RSS reader (see Figure 1).
Figure 1: Copy the link from the orange RSS feed symbol at the top of the page to paste into your favorite RSS feed reader.
Follow Rulemaking
In a recent issue of
Wisconsin Lawyer magazine, author Mark R. Thompson wrote an informative article on
administrative emergency rulemaking, detailing past and current practices for this process.
To stay current on new emergency rules, use the legislature’s notification service. Setting up Administrative Register and code updates can keep you informed at all stages of the rulemaking and codification process. Extensive checkboxes under the notification service allow you to follow general updates of the administrative code (see Figure 2).
Figure 2: Use the checkboxes under Administrative Rules notifications to subscribe to updates.
For example, an emergency rules alert I set up a few years ago delivers an email every time there is emergency rule activity. The emails sent are sparse on information, like the one pictured in Figure 3, but include links to follow and learn more.
Figure 3: An emergency rules alert email.
Executive Orders
Wisconsin executive orders don’t have a subscription option through the
governor’s website. However, you can subscribe to executive orders through the legislature’s RSS feed option, which works similarly to subscribing to a legislative proposal by RSS. Wisconsin Governor Executive orders are organized by governor. An RSS feed is available under each name. To subscribe to executive orders from Governor Evers, go to the
Tony Evers page to get the RSS feed link.
Federal Law and Regulatory Source Updates
On the federal level, several tools are available for tracking legislative updates and getting timely alerts. Head to
Congress.gov to set up updates on new and pending legislation. Set up tailored email alerts for saved keyword searches, appropriations, bill activity, daily calendars of legislative activity, and committee work.
Regulations.gov provides access to regulatory docket updates, like final regulations, notices, scientific or technical findings, guidance, and more. Researchers can use the Docket Subscriptions option to sign up for daily notifications whenever a regulatory docket has new documents added, modified, or removed. Look for the “Subscribe” button to set up your notification.
FederalRegister.gov also has subscription options and is your first stop for tracking regulatory updates. On any page with an email or RSS symbol (usually to the right of the page), set up an email notification or copy the link for your RSS feed reader. You can either set up a one-off email alert or create an account on the site to manage your subscriptions directly within your account.
Subscribe to executive orders through Federalregister.gov as well. Navigate to the
executive orders section under presidential documents, and look for the email and RSS symbols included just under the list of presidents.
Tracking Creatively
In addition to government email or RSS feed alerts, creative searchers can craft custom free alerts using free news or search engine alert services. Search engine notification services, like
Google Alerts, can vary in quality and often don’t include every update you may need.
However, they can be useful for a quick alert that there may be activity on an issue you’re tracking, and that you should invest a little time to search for more information directly at the source.
Boost Your Research with Help from a Law Librarian
Ask a librarian for help with your research! We are trained to assist with finding and using the best resources for your unique legal research needs. Law librarians are available at these Wisconsin libraries:
