About the Legislative Services Division

The mission of the Legislative Services Division (LSD) is to provide bill and amendment drafting, committee staffing, policy and legal research, reference and communications, information technology, and administrative support services to the House, Senate, and other divisions of the Legislative Branch and to support the mission of the Legislative Council.

Established in 1957 as the Montana Legislative Council, LSD was originally created by the Legislature as the first permanent legislative agency to provide information to legislators and the public and to study selected problems confronting the Legislature in the interims between biennial sessions.

Since then, the Legislature has added to the division’s duties and responsibilities in a variety of areas. The division is organized into five functional offices, each of which is nonpartisan and serves the entire Legislature. These are:

• Financial Office
• Human Resources Office
• Legal Services Office
• Office of Legislative Information Systems (OLIS)
• Office of Research and Policy Analysis (ORPA)
• Legislative Environmental Policy Office (LEPO)