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News of the Hastings Law Library

For an online version of citation manuals, visit The Introduction to Basic Legal Citation (LII 2007 ed.), by Peter W. Martin. It was revised in May 2007 to reflect changes appearing in the third edition of the ALWD Citation Manual, published in 2006. It is also keyed to the current (18th) edition of The Bluebook, published in 2005. Each topic covered includes references to both The Bluebook and the ALWD Citation Manual. Since this pubication is more concerned with the forms of citation used in processional practice, the niceties of typeface styles for law review articles is not the focus of this edition.

Posted by Susan Nevelow Mart at 09:29 AM | Permalink

A hornbook is a informative text that serves as primer for study. The hornbook originated in England in 1450, and has been favored in various areas of study over the years. Originally, it referred to a leaf or single-page of text containing basic study materials for children; it was covered with a sheet of transparent horn and then attached to a small wooden frame with a handle. In recent legal studies, a hornbook has become a common term used to describe a one-volume treatise written primarily for law students on subjects typically covered by law school courses. Unlike casebooks, which are collections of cases (or parts of cases) chosen to help illustrate and stimulate discussion about legal issues, hornbooks attempt to summarize and explain the law in a specific area. One popular set of hornbooks is "West's Hornbook Series." Hornbooks can be a great place to find a clear explanation of a point of law. The library has hornbooks on most subjects at the circulation desk. The library's most popular hornbooks are listed on our study guides webpage.

Posted by Vincent Moyer, FCIL Librarian at 08:53 AM | Permalink

Here are two books that might be helpful when you start thinking about writing your law review note or seminar paper:

- Scholarly Writing for Law Students: Seminar Papers, Law Review Notes, and Law Review Competition Papers, by Elizabeth Fajans and Mary R. Falk (3rd ed. 2005) [See description on publisher's website]

- Academic Legal Writing: Law Review Articles, Student Notes, Seminar Papers, and Getting on Law Review, by Eugene Volokh (2d ed. 2005) [See author's website]

They both include information about choosing a topic, writing & editing your paper, and getting your paper published.

Posted by Vincent Moyer, FCIL Librarian at 02:02 PM | Permalink

If you need to read an opinion but you don't have a reporter citation, you can find the case you want using a DIGEST. This tutorial gives you some more information.

Posted by Julie Horst at 09:17 AM | Permalink

What does American Jurisprudence look like? Why would I ever want to read an ALR? These answers and more can be found by taking a look at Adam Engelhart's fantastic photographic field guide to the law library. A Hastings 3L, Adam posted pictures of all of the "principal legal reference works for 1Ls in the Hastings library, along with short descriptions and Bluebook citation rules."

Posted by Julie Horst at 09:13 AM | Permalink

The Congressional Research Service is the neutral research arm for the Congress. It publishes detailed and concise reports on a variety of topics, and has just released a new edition of a report on deaths in the U.S. military from the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812 to the present. The new report, American War and Military Operations Casualties: Lists and Statistics has been updated to include Operation Iraqi Freedom.

According the the CRS:

"This report is written in response to numerous requests for war casualty statistics and lists of war dead. It provides tables, compiled by sources at the Department of Defense (DOD), indicating the number of casualties among American military personnel serving in principal wars and combat actions."

Beginning with the Korean War, the report provides information on specific cause of death and demographic data.

UC Hastings subscribes to the Congressional Research Service, or you can access the report from Secrecy News.

Posted by Susan Nevelow Mart at 01:43 PM | Permalink

One of the major differences in searching on Westlaw and Lexis is the default search. If you type in res ispa loquitor in Westlaw, the default connector is OR: you are searching for any document that has res or ipsa or loquitor. Well, that will bring up a lot of irrelevant documents so you need to put the phrase in quotation marks.

On Lexis the default is +2 or within 2 words. So you will pull up all of the documents that have res within 2 words of ipsa within 2 words of loquitor, giving you more focused results. You must put quotation marks around your words to get results with the exact phrase, but at least +2 is more like the default search on all the major web search engines you are used to using: AND.

Westlaw has just added a feature that allows you to change their default. Your basic default search would then be the same on both Lexis and Westlaw.

Just click Preferences, in the upper right corner of the screen, then click the Search link in the left frame. Under the Terms & Connectors heading, notice the Space Connector option. You can set the spaces.

Remember, though: if you want an exact phrase, use quotation marks. This is epecially important for phrases like "employment at will" where employment within 2 words of will could get many variations: employment that will, employment status will, employment contract will...You get the idea.

Posted by Susan Nevelow Mart at 11:07 AM | Permalink

Today's panel, NUTS & BOLTS OF JUDICIAL CLERKSHIP INTERVIEWS (Wednesday, April 25, 12:40-1:30 pm in Rm. F) features tips on clerkship interviews and the overall clerkship application process, but how do you find out about the judges themselves?

Two great resources are the Almanac of the Federal Judiciary and the Daily Journal's Judicial Profiles.

The Almanac of the Federal Judiciary Vol. I Profiles and Evaluations of All Judges of the U.S. District Courts contains detailed biographical information including publications, professional associations, academic honors, noteworthy rulings, media coverage and lawyers' evaluations. This volume lists judges on the U. S. Tax Court, U. S. Claims Court, Court of International Trade, Court of Military Appeals, Bankruptcy Judges and U. S. Magistrates.
Vol. II Profiles and Evaluations of All Judges of the US Circuit Courts and the U. S. Supreme Court covers the same categories of information as found in Vol. I. Additionally, Vol. II provides introductory material to each circuit and the Supreme Court. Both volumes of the Almanac of the Federal Judiciary are available at the Circulation Desk. (Hint: vol. 1 District is red, and vol. 2 Circuit is blue.)

The Judicial Profiles comprise 13 volumes of biographical information of judges in all California state and federal courts. Often humorous or anecdotal, these biographies first appeared as columns in the L. A. Daily Journal. Profiles contain personal information as well as records of education and service. These volumes are available behind the Reference Desk.

For more resources on judicial information, here is the Hastings Library Judicial Directories Research Guide.

Posted by Julie Horst at 11:27 AM | Permalink

If you are doing California legislative history research, you'll want to check the Governor's Chaptered Bill File. When the governor signs a bill into law, the bill is filed with the Secretary of State and chronologically "chaptered." For each bill that is chaptered, a file is created containing the documents the governor's office received regarding that bill.

Hastings Law Library has all of the available film, from 1943 - 1995. The files typically contain, at a minimum, the enrolled bill report and a letter from the bill's sponsor. In addition, there are files from bills vetoed by a governor; these files include the governor's veto statement. For more information on California legislative history, see the Hastings Research Guide: Compiling a California Legislative History.

Posted by Susan Nevelow Mart at 11:56 AM | Permalink

The Thurgood Marshall Law Library has created an online collection of Congressional Research Service Reports in the subject areas of Health Law & Policy and Homeland Security/Terrorism.

The Congressional Research Service (CRS) works exclusively for members and committees of the United States Congress. An arm of the Library of Congress, the agency is renowned for its non-partisanship and its in-depth analysis of issues. Search other CRS Reports through the Hastings Law Libary Subscription Database page.

Posted by Julie Horst at 01:53 PM | Permalink

True of False.. can you ask a Hastings reference librarian a research question anytime via the Internet?
It's true.

Just click on the image in the middle of the library home page that says Ask a Librarian - Click Here of E-mail Reference. This service is provided by the reference librarians at Hastings and is only available to Hastings students, staff and faculty. Questions submitted via e-mail are reviewed and answered daily, Monday through Friday.

Posted by Chuck Marcus at 04:54 PM | Permalink

Google's Beta Patent Search Engine covers the entire collection of patents made available by the United States Patent & Trademark Office — from patents issued in the 1790s through those issued in the middle of 2006, totalling almost 7 million.

Lexis-Nexis hosts the famous Chisum on Patents.

Walker on Patents was first published in 1885 and is now available on Westlaw as Moy's Walker on Patents.

Some books with the basics can be found at the Circulation desk:
~ Intellectual Property : the law of copyrights, patents and trademarks / by Roger E. Schechter
~ An Introduction to Patent Law / by Janice M. Mueller
~ Principles of Patent Law / by Roger E. Schechter

Posted by Julie Horst at 04:20 PM | Permalink

The library has a number of resources and study aids that may be helpful to students. Many are available at the Circulation Desk in the First Floor Library and can be checked out for two hours.

Another place to look is on lawschool.westlaw.com. Go to the home page and click "Survival Guide" (located on the orange bar). There's a section on the right called Exam & Class Prep which links to outlines on FindLaw. Don't overlook the "More resources" menu right below the links list, which contains guides for specific 1L courses.

Computer Assisted Legal Instruction (CALI) produces multiple-choice lessons in almost every subject area with answers and explanations. The lessons are available online or in CD (for Windows). Students can get a free CALI CD in the First Floor Library. Or ask for an authorization code from a reference librarian, which will allow online access to all of the CALI exercises at http://www.cali.org.

This link takes you to Study Aids on Lexis which include Area of Law Outlines, Understanding Series and the Questions & Answers Series.

Posted by Julie Horst at 02:40 PM | Permalink

According to Paul Hellyer's article in Law Library Journal, 53% of UN Documents that are cited in US state and federal cases are resolutions.

Resolutions are very easy documents to find. The General Assembly Resolutions are full text back to 1946 including Special Sessions and Emergency Special Sessions. The Security Council Resolutions are also available back to 1946. The Economic and Social Council Resolutions are here back to 1992.

If you need any help with United Nations research, stop by the Reference Desk and ask a Librarian.

Posted by Julie Horst at 09:35 AM | Permalink

You can search selected municipal codes on Lexis. To drill down to the databases, go to States Legal-U.S | Combined States | Statutes and Legislative Materials | Municipal Codes. There are 34 listed states. If the city you want isn't there, here are a few other resources to try:
* Municode.com has an ordinance database.
* The UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies Library maintains a large depository collection of local ordinance codes and charters issued by California cities and counties. Their website includes a list of currently available codes and charters issued in loose-leaf format; links are provided to electronic editions, when available.
* San Francisco's Municipal Codes are available online.
* Finally, the Seattle Public LIbrary maintains a page of links to online municipal codes, arranged by state.

Posted by Susan Nevelow Mart at 12:31 PM | Permalink

Once a bill becomes a law, it is given a public law (P.L.) number indicating the congressional session and sequence number of its enactment. The first law of the 110th Congress is P.L. 110-1. These public laws are published in the Statutes At Large, the official publication for federal session laws.

But having to look up a law by the date of its enactment would be grueling research even for a law librarian, so fortunately the chronological public laws get codified. The U.S. Code is an arrangement of all the laws by subject called titles. There are 50 of them and they are divided into chapters and sections.

Posted by Julie Horst at 09:09 AM | Permalink

The Annenberg Political Fact Check is a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania. What's great about this page is that the site creators examine recent statements by politicians or political organizations from any political party, and print the claim, test its truthfulness, and cite their sources.

Posted by Julie Horst at 02:03 PM | Permalink

If you have citation to a UN document that includes a symbol (some examples are: A/62/50 or ST/ADM/SER.B/517 or E/CN.4/2006/10/Add.2) go to UNBISnet, the United Nations Bibliographic Information System of the Dag Hammarskjöld Library, and search here.

Many UN document symbols start with a letter (the first component of the symbol which reflects the parent organ issuing the document or to which the document is being submitted):
A/- (General Assembly)
S/- (Security Council)
E/- (Economic and Social Council)
ST/- (Secretariat)

Coverage on UNBISnet is from 1979 onward, however, they are adding older documents on a regular basis.

Posted by Julie Horst at 11:52 AM | Permalink

To see a list of recent cases organized by topic (including but not limited to: Antitrust, Bankruptcy, Commercial Law, Criminal Justice, Education, Environmental Law, Family Law, Health, Intellectual Property, Labor & Employment, Products Liability, Real Property or Tax), look in the Westlaw Directory under Legal Periodicals & Current Awareness | Westlaw Highlights & Bulletins | Westlaw Topical Highlights.

If you're interested in recent cases by jurisdiction, the following states have summaries of recent federal and state judicial, legislative, and administrative activities: California, Florida, Illinois, Louisiana, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Texas. The state bulletins are found in the Westlaw Directory under Legal Periodicals & Current Awareness | Westlaw Highlights & Bulletins | Westlaw State Bulletins.

Find Circuit Splits: You can read the arguments in each circuit and then decide how the circuit split should be resolved. Find these at Split Circuits - A blog dedicated to tracking developments concerning splits among the federal circuit courts, written by Professor A. Benjamin Spencer from the University of Richmond School of Law.

Look at subject specific current awareness resources such as BNA's International Trade Reporter and Family Law Reporter. These resources list hot topics of current interest to practitioners and academics.

The Lexis Hot Topics webpage is a good place to read about interesting new laws and proposed legislation. Another great source for current topics are newsletters. One way to access them on Lexis is to go to News & Business > News > By Industry & Topic > Legal where you can select categories such as: Banking Law, Bankruptcy Law, Corporate Law, Employment and Labor Law, Entertainment Law, Environmental Law, Health Care Law, Insurance Law, International Law, Litigation, School Law, Securities Law and more.

Posted by Julie Horst at 08:59 AM | Permalink

Recently someone was wondering which country had more Buddhists: Singapore, South Korea, or Sri Lanka. A new favorite website makes this easy to find out -- check out NationMaster. This massive central data source is a handy way to graphically compare nations with its vast compilation of data from such sources as the CIA World Factbook, UN, and OECD.

Look here to see if your answer is correct.

Posted by Julie Horst at 04:00 PM | Permalink

Thurgood Marshall Law Library: Historical Publications of the United States Commission on Civil Rights

Since 2001, staff members at the Thurgood Marshall Law Library at the University of Maryland have worked to create an electronic archive of United States Commission on Civil Rights publications. They have worked with a number of partners on this ambitious project, including the United States Government Printing Office and The United States Commission on Civil Rights. The site is easy to use, as visitors can locate various publications merely by consulting the materials by title, date, or subject. The subject listing is quite thorough, as visitors can look through headings like "Alaska", "Migrant Workers", and "Welfare reform". Browsing by year is an equally fruitful proposition as documents such as "Racism in America and how to combat it" from 1970 and 1992's "Civil rights issues facing Asian Americans in the 1990" will be of interest to legal scholars, historians, and others.

This entry courtesy of InSITE, a current awareness service of Cornell Law Library. The law librarians at Cornell evaluate potentially useful Web sites, select the most valuable ones, and provide commentary and subject access to them.

Posted by Julie Horst at 09:42 AM | Permalink

A congressional committee may request a special study in a specific subject area relating to proposed legislation; these are called committee prints. Committee prints often provide valuable information such as statistical analyses or historical background research.

Here's more info from the Government Printing Office:
"Congressional committee prints are publications issued by congressional committees on topics related to their legislative or research activities. They are an excellent resource for statistical and historical information, and for legislative analysis. The subjects of the committee prints vary greatly, due to the different concerns and actions of each individual committee. Some basic varieties of committee prints include: draft reports and bills, directories, statistical materials, investigative reports, historical reports, situational studies, confidential staff reports, hearings, and legislative analyses.

The prints are generally viewed as internal background information publications and often are not announced for public distribution. Procedures for the printing and publication of these prints differ with each committee, and formats are inconsistent. Few prints have been allocated serial numbers, but most have not. The individual committee prints are not a part of the U.S. Congressional Serial Set, because those documents come from the Senate and the House of Representatives as a whole.

Committee prints do not have a consistent numbering system or publication history, the reason being that these papers are printed copies of committee members’ work. The Senate has a numbering system for its committee prints, but the House does not (e.g. "S. Prt. 108-3").

GPO Access contains congressional committee prints for the 105th Congress (1997-98) forward. Documents are available in ASCII text and, in some cases, in Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF)."

Posted by Julie Horst at 10:11 AM | Permalink

Let's say you read an article at SFGate today about global warming and you wondered what Congress was doing about it. Where would you start? A great subscription database to search is CRS.

The Congressional Research Service (CRS) works exclusively for members and committees of the United States Congress. An arm of the Library of Congress, the agency is renowned for its non-partisanship and its in-depth analysis of issues.

Here's a report reviewing "the status of energy efficiency and renewable energy legislation introduced during the 110th Congress."

Posted by Julie Horst at 11:07 AM | Permalink

The First Floor Library collection contains Reference, Course Reserves placed by professors, Witkin, Shepards, popular legal treatises, primary legal materials, and books beginning with call numbers A-G, L-N, Q-V. If the book you are looking for has a call number that starts with H, J, K, or P, you can request it from retrievable storage. Books brought from storage are available the following business day by 2 p.m.

Posted by Julie Horst at 09:29 AM | Permalink

Developed by Ellen Callinan, JUST ASK is a great acronym to remember whenever you begin a research project.
J Jurisdiction
U Useful tips
S Scope of Research
T Terms of Art
-
A Acronyms
S Sources
K Key cost constraints

Posted by Julie Horst at 09:59 AM | Permalink

If you're looking for the transcript of a Congressional Hearing, check out GPO Access, which has selected hearings from the 105th Congress to the current (110th), at http://www.gpoaccess.gov/chearings/index.html. Both House and Senate hearings are available. Most Congressional hearings are published two months to two years after they are held. Only hearings from the committees that are released to the Government Printing Office get published. If you want a copy of a hearing transcript from the last two months, the web page for the Committee that hosted the hearing is the best place to look. Be warned, though, not all hearing transcripts are released.

Posted by Susan Nevelow Mart at 12:04 PM | Permalink

The federal government is famous - or infamous - for creating acronyms. Entire sentences can be spoken in "governmentese" with only a few proper nouns thrown in. So if you need to know which FAR regulations apply to the RFP for the DOE, check out: GovSpeak: A Guide to Government Acronyms and Abbreviations.

Posted by Susan Nevelow Mart at 01:06 PM | Permalink

Recently a student was overheard to say, "Wow, using the book version of the California Codes is way easier than using it online." The California Codes are divided into 29 titles beginning with Business & Profession and ending with Welfare & Institutions. The state of California does not publish an official code. Most lawyers use commerically published codes by Deering's (of the Lexis-Nexis Group) and West's (of West Group).

The great thing about the Deering's and West's versions are the annotations--or what I like to call the whipped cream, nuts, fudge sauce, and cherry on top.

An annotation to a code section includes the legislative history, any comments from the Judicial Council or the Law Revision Commission, and a selection of case annotations. There could also be a reference to an Opinion of the Attorney General, a reference to a California regulation, or to a law review. And it's not just code sections that get annotated, there are also the annotated California constitutions, and annotated court rules.

Now that you know how useful these are, where can you find them? There is a copy of the West version right next to the Reference Desk in the First Floor Library, and another copy in the Gold Reading Room in alcoves 7/8. A copy of Deering's can be found in alcove 6 of the Gold Reading Room.

Posted by Julie Horst at 11:56 AM | Permalink

Wondering where to find information on circuit splits now that U.S. Law Week doesn't publish an intermittent column on the subject? The void has been filled on blogosphere, at Professor A. Benjamin Spencer's Circuit Splits blog: http://splitcircuits.blogspot.com/. There are entries for new circuit split decisions, and you can search the archives, which go back to October, 2005. This is a great place to search for note topics.

Posted by Susan Nevelow Mart at 04:14 PM | Permalink

Finals are almost over, so if you were thinking of using some of that spare time investigating your government files or finding out what your favorite agency has been up to recently, you might want to find out how to request information from a government agency. The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press has a website, the FOIA Letter Generator, that takes you step by step through the request process for any federal agency, or almost any component of a state or county government. The web form will take you to a briefing paper on the FOIA process How to Use the Federal FOIA Act. Once you have enough background information, the letter generator takes you step-by-step through the process.

And should you need to file an appeal, two attorneys have sample forms on their website, FOIAdvocates.

Posted by Susan Nevelow Mart at 09:40 AM | Permalink

Legal Scholarship Network, a division of Social Science Research Network (SSRN), is a searchable database of abstracts of working papers, and articles accepted for publication. Here's an example:

Denning, Brannon P. Brother, Can You Paradigm? Constitutional Commentary, Vol. 23, No. 101, 2006.

Posted by Julie Horst at 03:12 PM | Permalink

The University of Michigan is making the full text of federal committee hearings (from the 1980s) which have been digitized by Google available through a link in its catalog, MIRLYN: http://mirlyn.lib.umich.edu/. If you're looking for hearings from a different decade, our library research guide will tell you where else to search.

Posted by Julie Horst at 10:34 AM | Permalink

Getting a job as a judicial extern is a great way to practice your legal knowledge in real-life situations. The Library has resources to help you find a judge. Check out the Judicial Profiles in the Reference Collection, or one of the other judicial directories listed in our research guide. To see what lawyers have written about federal district court and magistrate judges, check out the Robing Room.

Posted by Julie Horst at 03:26 PM | Permalink

The Hastings Law Library Interlibrary Loan Service supports the instructional and research needs of UC Hastings students, faculty and staff by obtaining materials which are not available at the UC Hastings library. Two to three weeks after you submit a request either online or in paper, you will get a notice in your SIC folder alerting you that the book or article has arrived. Once you've received the notice, come to the Library Circulation Desk to collect the book.

Posted by Julie Horst at 03:52 PM | Permalink

Lawyers have become so concerned about the poor research skills demonstrated by new associates that the ABA has requested the National Conference of Bar Examiners to investigate making legal research a bar topic. While a change in the bar format is not going to happen overnight, the message to new lawyers still stands. Job applicants who can demonstrate superior research skills will have an advantage. One way to acquire the legal research skills you need is to take advantage of the Advanced Legal Research Class being taught next semester on Tuesdays from 9:40 to 11:30. The class is open to both second and third year students.

Posted by Susan Nevelow Mart at 10:46 AM | Permalink

The Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) from 1938 through the 1983 edition is now available through HeinOnline's Federal Register library collection in .PDF.

Included in the announcement is this description of the CFR:
"The CFR is the codification of the general and permanent rules published in the Federal Register (also available in HeinOnline from its' inception in 1936) by the executive departments and agencies of the U.S. Federal Government. The CFR is divided into 50 titles that represent broad areas subject to U.S. Federal regulation."

Posted by Julie Horst at 09:17 AM | Permalink

Lots of students come in for research assistance and when we ask them what their strategy has been they respond, "Well, I searched Google." But sometimes Google isn't the best place to start, it all depends on what you're looking for. There are many documents besides legal ones on Westlaw and LexisNexis; both of their search engines are easier to use, they are more sophisticated, and they produce more honest results. If you need help with your LexisNexis research, Debbie is on campus hanging out in 1M everyday. If you'd like to schedule an appointment with her, login to LexisNexis, click the Myschool tab, scroll to the bottom of the page and choose a day/time.

Posted by Blogger at 10:48 AM | Permalink

The city and county of San Francisco has a law library for the public. It is located at 401 Van Ness Avenue on the 4th floor. Their collection consists of periodicals, statutes and digests from every state, complete regional reporters, and a wide variety of California secondary sources.

Posted by Julie Horst at 09:02 AM | Permalink

Manipulating census information can be difficult, but Social Explorer and Queens College CUNY have created a wonderful interactive web site, at www.socialexplorer.com. You choose your region and the characteristics you are interested in, in any of the census years from 2000 back to 1940, and a chart or map will be created for you. This information is useful for paper topics such as immigration (foreign born) or homelessness (poverty) either for the US or a particular state. New census information is being added all the time, and the goal is to provide access to the complete historical census information for the United States.

Posted by Susan Nevelow Mart at 10:17 AM | Permalink

Computer Assisted Legal Instruction (CALI) produces multiple-choice lessons in almost every subject area with answers and explanations. The lessons are available online or in CD format. Students can get their own free CALI CD at the reference desk and download the exercises to a laptop. Or students can get an authorization code from a reference librarian, which will allow online access to all of the CALI exercises at http://www.cali.org.

Posted by Julie Horst at 09:49 AM | Permalink

Looking for information on US Senate or House votes? The Washington Post hosts an impressive searchable database of every vote in the United States Congress since the 102nd Congress (1991).

This database is very easy to use and gives you access to congressional floor votes for bills and resolutions. You can track the voting histories of individual members of Congress and get notification of their current votes via RSS feed. The database includes biographical information and links to the full text of bills, public laws and legislative information at Thomas.

The database also allows you to see how congressional votes are distributed: By party | By state | By region | By boomer status | By gender | By astrological sign. BTW, we in the libary are eagerly awaiting to assist you with your note on Congress, baby boomers, and the zodiac. ;-)

Posted by Chuck Marcus at 02:32 PM | Permalink

Are you a little confused about Shepardizing in the books? Try our tutorial. If the tutorial doesn't answer all your questions, come and talk to a librarian at the Reference Desk in the First Floor Library. We can help.

Posted by Susan Nevelow Mart at 01:43 PM | Permalink

Did you have such a great summer that you forgot how to search Westlaw and Lexis-Nexis? No worries, both the Lexis and Westlaw representatives are available for training to help you get back into school mode. If you don't find Mark or Debbie in the Computer Lab, the reference desk will give you their email address.

Posted by Blogger at 10:32 AM | Permalink

Finding a disagreement in the circuit courts is one good way to find a paper topic. You can read the arguments in each circuit and then decide how the circuit split should be resolved. The drawback of course is that a higher court may rule on the split and decide the issue before your paper is finished (or before your article is published). But even with that risk, this is still a tried and true way to find a topic.

BNA's United States Law Week used to publish a popular feature called the "Circuit Split Roundup." Professors still recommend this feature and students still come to the library looking for it, but it hasn't been published for several years. Perhaps the best place to find current circuit splits is "Split Circuits - A blog dedicated to tracking developments concerning splits among the federal circuit courts," written by Professor A. Benjamin Spencer from the University of Richmond School of Law.

Posted by Vincent Moyer, FCIL Librarian at 02:30 PM | Permalink

We have compiled a short list of the main books used by 1Ls. We have included information about casebooks, study guides, hornbooks, and the primary resources you'll use in your LW&R class. We also listed a few books focusing on how to succeed in law school. If you have any other questions about law books or using the law library, stop by the reference desk and we'll try to point you in the right direction. For additional information about the library, refer to our FAQ page or simply email a reference librarian.

Posted by Vincent Moyer, FCIL Librarian at 10:38 AM | Permalink

Where can you find a good law dictionary? The preeminent law dictionary for American Law is Black's Law Dictionary. It is available in the First Floor Library at the Circulation Desk and the Reference Desk and on the regular shelves at KF156 .B53 2004. There is a copy available on the dictionary stand in the Gold Reading Room. There is also a copy available in the Computer Lab on Floor 1M. The first edition of Black's was published in 1891; the most recent edition is the 8th edition published in 2004.

The 8th edition of Black's is also available on Westlaw.

There are some very basic law dictionaries available for free online:

- Commonly Used Terms (Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts)
- Everybody's Legal Glossary (Nolo Press)
- Merriam Webster's Dictionary of Law, 1996 (Findlaw)
- People's Law Dictionary (Law.com)
- Law Dictionary--Glossary of Legal Terms (LawyerIntl.com)
- One-L Dictionary (Harvard Law Library)
- Glossary of Terms Used in Legal Research (West Publishing)
- Wex Legal Dictionary and Encyclopedia (Cornell's Legal Information Institute)

Posted by Vincent Moyer, FCIL Librarian at 11:29 AM | Permalink

Most of the books you will need to complete your LW&R assignments are in the Gold Reading Room on the 3rd floor of 198 McAllister. Here's a list of titles with the alcove number where they are shelved. Please note that the Shepard's titles, and the Pacific Reporter are only in the First Floor Library.

Posted by Blogger at 02:27 PM | Permalink

More than half of the documents issued under GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) have been scanned and are now available here.

Posted by Blogger at 09:59 AM | Permalink