Drupal project

I am setting up a website that will give lawyers convenient access to various hand-picked statutes and regulations. I have written PHP scripts that retrieve these laws from various databases and store them in the file system and a Xapian backend for seraching. I also have HTML templates for all pages. Basically, I have all the components for a Drupal based website but I have never used the system and so am looking for help in throwing everything together. In addition to displaying the laws and the search mask using the HTML templates, the system should provide for user registration, the ability to post comments on each page and possibly a few other standard Drupal features.