The OCGA is the descendant of the first successfully enacted attempt in any English-speaking jurisdiction at a comprehensive codification of the substance of the common law, the Code of Georgia of 1861.

[2] In 1889, Field expressly conceded that point in a written article; he credited his lack of awareness of the contemporaneous Georgia project "to the breaking out of the Civil War.

[3] After the Civil War (in which Cobb died at the Battle of Fredericksburg), the Code had to be heavily revised in 1867 to eliminate portions that were obviously incompatible with the Thirteenth Amendment.

In October 2018, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit held that the Official Code of Georgia, Annotated, is not copyrightable.

[1] The Code Revision Commission, established by the Georgia General Assembly,[6] appealed this decision to the United States Supreme Court.