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Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) - Pathfinder

This pathfinder will be useful in finding information about the Uniform Commercial Code. First published in 1952, the code, or UCC, is a model code jointly created and revised by the American law Institute and the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws. The UCC is not a law itself, but serves as a recommendation of the laws that should be adopted in each of the 50 states.

The UCC is divided into 11 articles. They are as follows:

1. General Provisions.
2. Sales.
2 A. Leases.
3. Commercial Paper.
4. Bank Deposits and Collections.
4A. Funds Transfers.
5. Letters of Credit.
6. Bulk Transfers.
7. Warehouse Receipts, Bills of Lading and other documents relating to title.
8. Investment Securities
9. Secured Transactions; Sales of Accounts and Chattel Paper.

Article 1 of the Code has a set of general provisions that are equally applicable to all following items. Article 1 was revised in 2001 to harmonize it with amendments to other articles.

Each of the 50 states, including the District of Columbia and the Virgin Islands, has adopted part, or all of the UCC, and has made its own modifications. The UCC is a model code. It does not have any legal impact unless its provisions have been enacted by states. The primary sources for UCC research include the code itself, the official comments of the Permanent Editorial Board and PEB commentaries, and judicial opinions from each state regarding the code.

For an introduction to the topic, see: Text of the Uniform Commercial Code at the Legal Information Institute, Cornell University Law School.

Primary Sources

  • Uniform Commercial Code  KF879. 514. A3  This entry includes the 1949 draft; the 1952 official draft; the 1958 official text, and the 1972 official text.
  • Uniform Commercial Code Reporting Service  KF880.U5  This 73-volume set includes unnumbered volumes: Findex, state correlation tables, as well as current materials and a separate monthly newsletter, U.C.C. bulletin.
  • Uniform Laws Annotated (1968-) KF165.A5  This multi-volume series has the official text, comments, PEB commentaries, cross references, state variations, digests to cases and citations to law review articles.
  • American Law Institute Library, available through HeinOnline. The library contains the code, as well as superseded restatements, reports, codifications reports and other ALI-issued reports and publications.
  • LexisNexis provides access to the UCC Official Text and Comments of the Uniform Commercial Code in its UCC database for Articles 1, 7 and 9. The remaining articles can be found in article-specific LexisNexis databases by the name UCC plus the number of the specific article.
  • Westlaw has the full UCC text in its UCC-Text database. Commentaries from the Permanent Editorial Board for the UCC are available separately in the UCC-PEB database.

Treatises

Journals

Web Pages and Web Portals

 

Prepared by: Suzanne Elliott and Lori Hagen
April 2011