The Maine Revised Statutes are the state’s official collection of general and permanent laws, arranged by subject rather than by the date of enactment. The full code is free to read online through the Maine Legislature’s website, where you can search by title and section number or run a keyword search across every title.1Maine State Legislature. Maine Revised Statutes Search Form The code spans more than 60 titles, and once you know how the layers fit together, pulling a citation or checking a rule takes only a minute or two.
How the Code Is Organized
The statutes stack in layers. Titles sit at the top as the broadest subject groupings: Title 17-A is the Maine Criminal Code, Title 29-A covers Motor Vehicles and Traffic, Title 36 handles Taxation, and so on. The Legislature’s main statutes page lists them in numerical order.2Maine State Legislature. Maine Revised Statutes Some titles have companions marked with a letter suffix. Title 18-C (Probate Code) sits alongside the older Title 18, and Title 28-B (Cannabis) sits beside the longstanding Title 28-A (Liquors).
Below each title, the code narrows. Many titles are divided into Parts, which group related Chapters. Chapters may contain Subchapters or Articles before you reach individual Sections, and Sections are where the actual legal text lives. Sections are also the unit you cite and quote. A large title like Title 5 (Administrative Procedures and Services) can nest several layers deep before you get to a single sentence of law.
Because the arrangement is thematic, you don’t need to know when a law passed to find it. Professional licensing questions start in Title 32 (Professions and Occupations). Property questions start in Title 33. Related provisions live together, which is what makes the code navigable without a legal background.
Finding a Statute Online
The Legislature’s search tool gives you two ways in. If you already have a citation, type the title and section numbers directly and you’ll land on the section. If you’re exploring a topic, run a full-text keyword search across the code and it will pull every section containing your terms.1Maine State Legislature. Maine Revised Statutes Search Form
You can also browse. The main statutes page lets you click from Title to Chapter to Section, which mirrors the experience of flipping through the print volumes.2Maine State Legislature. Maine Revised Statutes Once you’re on a section, you can read it as a webpage or download a PDF that preserves the original formatting for printing or sharing.
The PDFs Are Not Certified
The PDFs on the Legislature’s website carry a disclaimer noting that the text “has not been officially certified by the Secretary of State” and directing users to the Maine Revised Statutes Annotated for certified text.3Maine State Legislature. Maine Revised Statutes Title 18-C, Section 10-109 For everyday research the online version is reliable. If you need a certified copy for a court filing or other official purpose, you’ll need the annotated print edition or a copy obtained through the Revisor’s Office.
How to Read and Write a Citation
A Maine statutory citation identifies exactly where a provision lives. The standard in-state format puts the title number first, then “M.R.S.” (Maine Revised Statutes), then the section symbol and number. So 1 M.R.S. § 401 points to Title 1, Section 401, which is the declaration of public policy for Maine’s Freedom of Access Act.4Maine Legislature. Maine Revised Statutes Title 1, Section 401 – Declaration of Public Policy; Rules of Construction
For court briefs or law review writing, Bluebook style adjusts the form: Me. Rev. Stat. Ann. tit. 11, § 1-101 for the annotated West edition, or Me. Stat. tit. 11, § 1-101 for the unannotated version. Within Maine courts, the shorter 11 M.R.S. § 1-101 is common and accepted because the state is unambiguous.5Cornell Law School. Constitutions and Statutes The “Ann.” designation signals that the version you’re citing includes publisher-added notes and case references.
When New Laws Show Up in the Code
A law becoming effective and a law appearing in the Revised Statutes are two different events. A bill signed by the Governor ordinarily takes effect 90 days after the legislative session adjourns; emergency measures can take effect immediately on signature if two-thirds of each chamber approve emergency status.6Maine State Legislature. Path of Legislation in Maine, Detailed But integrating that new law into the code is a separate step handled by the Revisor of Statutes.
The Revisor’s Office publishes each session’s enacted laws as the Laws of Maine, tracks the new material by title and section to flag conflicts, and makes annual updates to the statutory database.7Maine State Legislature. About the Revisor’s Office During the gap between enactment and codification, the Chaptered Laws page (Laws of Maine) is where the text of the newly enacted legislation lives.8Maine State Legislature. Maine Law Always check the “current through” date shown on the statutes page so you know whether recent session laws have been folded in yet.
Reading the Words: Must, May, and Other Defaults
Title 1 sets construction rules that apply to every other title unless a chapter says otherwise. These defaults change what a statute actually requires of you, so they’re worth knowing before you read anything else.
“Must” imposes a mandatory duty and carries the same weight as “shall.” “May” signals permission, not a requirement. This distinction applies to laws enacted or amended after December 1, 1989.9Maine State Legislature. Maine Revised Statutes Title 1, Section 71 – Laws In older, unamended sections “shall” may appear where modern drafting would use “must,” and meaning can depend on context.
Words in the singular include the plural, and vice versa, unless the context clearly limits the meaning.9Maine State Legislature. Maine Revised Statutes Title 1, Section 71 – Laws The term “person” may include a body corporate, so corporations can be “persons” under many Maine statutes.10Maine State Legislature. Maine Revised Statutes Title 1, Section 72 – Words and Phrases Many chapters add their own definitions on top of these defaults.
What the Statute Alone Won’t Tell You
Two things sit outside the statutory text but often decide the outcome of a real question: agency rules and court interpretations.
Administrative Rules
Statutes are laws passed by the Legislature, but the operational details often live in administrative rules written by state agencies under authority the statute delegates to them. Rules carry the force of law. A statute might require a real estate appraiser to complete continuing education to renew a license; the rules from the Board of Real Estate Appraisers specify how many hours count and which classes qualify.11Maine State Legislature. Primer on Maine Law If your question involves a regulated activity, reading only the statute can leave you with an incomplete answer. Look for the corresponding rules for forms, deadlines, and fee schedules the statute itself won’t contain.
Annotations
The free version on the Legislature’s website is unannotated. It gives you the text of the law, nothing more. The commercially published Maine Revised Statutes Annotated (MRSA), produced by West, adds notes after each section pointing to court cases interpreting that statute along with the amendment history.11Maine State Legislature. Primer on Maine Law Court decisions can narrow a section’s scope, clarify ambiguous phrases, or strike part of it down as unconstitutional, and none of that will show up in the raw text. The annotated edition is available through law libraries, West print volumes, and databases such as Westlaw. The Revisor’s Office assists West with materials for the supplementary pamphlets and pocket parts that keep it current.7Maine State Legislature. About the Revisor’s Office
Researching Legislative Intent
Sometimes you need to know why a statute was passed, not just what it says. Maine offers strong resources for that. Every bill receives a Legislative Document (L.D.) number, and from there several types of records help reconstruct intent: Statements of Fact attached to L.D.s since 1971 and to amendments since 1979 (which Maine courts have accepted as evidence of legislative intent), committee files for most bills from 1983 forward containing testimony and fiscal notes, the Legislative Record with floor debate published since 1897, study commission reports collected since 1941, and bill summaries prepared by committee analysts from 1981 onward.
These materials live in the Law and Legislative Digital Library, which also hosts historical revised statutes, Laws of Maine, attorney general opinions, and executive orders.12Maine State Legislature. Law and Legislative Digital Library The Legislature also publishes a step-by-step guide to compiling a Maine legislative history.13Maine State Legislature. Compiling a Maine Legislative History