Law Libraries

Law Librarian Attributes Weight Loss to Starbucks Diet

Move over, Jared. A law librarian says she lost nearly 80 pounds by eating out, but she didn’t go to Subway. Christine Hall, 66, says she managed to lose weight by buying most of her meals from Starbucks, Today reports. Above the Law notes the story and identifies Hall as…

Oct 12, 2012 2:14 PM CDT

Archivists in State of ‘Triage’ as Budget Cuts Threaten Access to Public Records

As governments tighten budgets, archivists are being forced to cut back on staff and conservation activities, threatening historical documents and records throughout the country. This is particularly true in Georgia where the Georgia Archives may soon be impossible to visit, making it the first state without archives open regularly to…

Sep 27, 2012 11:32 AM CDT

Library of Congress Introduces Site Intended to Replace Thomas.gov

The Library of Congress recently unveiled Congress.gov, a legislative information site that is intended to eventually replace Thomas.gov, the entity’s existing research site. According to Robert Ambrogi’s LawSites, Congress.gov will have better search features and is designed to be more user friendly. It will also be easier to use on…

Sep 21, 2012 7:13 PM CDT

Askew Elected a Trustee of National Conference of Bar Examiners

Hulett “Bucky” Askew, the ABA’s former consultant on legal education, has been elected to the board of trustees of the National Conference of Bar Examiners. Askew’s election was announced in a press release (PDF) on Thursday by the NCBE, which develops the tests that are used as part of the…

Sep 6, 2012 11:00 PM CDT

Tips on Doing Legal Research Online—For Free (Video)

You actually can get something for nothing when it comes to online legal research, says Matthew Braun, a legal reference librarian at the Law Library of Congress. An annual meeting speaker for an ABA Standing Committee on the Law Library of Congress event, Braun shared some free legal research tips…

Aug 3, 2012 11:48 PM CDT

Critical Race Theory Is Less Popular, While Interest in IP Rises, Law Review Citation Study Finds

A new study of the most-cited law review articles concludes that critical legal studies and critical race theory “have faded in acceptance.” The opposite is true for intellectual property law, according to the study by Yale associate librarian Fred Shapiro and Harvard law librarian Michelle Pearse. IP was once viewed…

Jun 1, 2012 3:22 PM CDT

A Canine Cure: Law Library Sponsors Therapy Dog Program for Stressed-Out Students

When Jenni Parrish, library director at the University of California’s Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco, heard about Monty, the 11-year-old Jack Russell-border terrier mix who served as a therapy dog at Yale’s law library (see “Going to the Dogs,” ABA Journal, August 2011), she wondered whether there…

Jun 1, 2012 9:10 AM CDT

The Supreme Court Spurns Wikipedia, But Federal Appeals Courts Cited It Nearly 100 Times in 5 Years

Federal appeals courts are increasingly citing the reader-edited encyclopedia Wikipedia, though the trend has not spread to the U.S. Supreme Court. Federal appeals courts have cited Wikipedia about 95 times in the last five years, according to a search by the Wall Street Journal Law Blog. In the Chicago-based 7th…

Apr 24, 2012 1:18 PM CDT

New Bankruptcy Website Stores Downloaded PACER Documents for Free Reading

A new website called Inforuptcy is touted as a cheaper alternative to PACER for users searching for bankruptcy documents. The site charges users the regular PACER fee for documents that are not yet in its database. After a document is accessed, however, it remains in the website database for future…

Apr 19, 2012 2:41 PM CDT

Developers: Planned Law School in Daytona Beach Would Cost Up to 35% Less Than Most Schools

Plans for a law school in Daytona Beach, Fla., are in the works. Jacksonville, Fla., lawyers Eric Smith and Steven Nemerson, both former educators, are behind the plans, along with Jacksonville developer Jim Catlett, the Florida Times Union reports. Smith says Daytona Beach, with its large population of aeronautical and…

Apr 16, 2012 7:13 PM CDT

Was Chief Justice Roberts Right? Law Review Circulation Reaches New Lows

Are law review articles so boring that no one wants to pay to read them? Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. expressed his views last year at a judicial conference. “Pick up a copy of any law review that you see, and the first article is likely to be, you…

Feb 29, 2012 1:44 PM CST

Two Lawyers Sue West and LexisNexis for Reproducing Legal Briefs

Two lawyers have filed a class action suit claiming West Publishing and Reed Elsevier are violating the copyrights of lawyers by reproducing their lawsuit documents in Westlaw and LexisNexis databases. The plaintiffs, Oklahoma lawyer Edward White and New York City lawyer Kenneth Elan, filed suit on Wednesday in Manhattan federal…

Feb 23, 2012 12:49 PM CST

ABA Supports Uniform Law for Online Publication of Court Decisions and Laws

The ABA House of Delegates has approved a resolution supporting the Uniform Electronic Legal Material Act governing the authentication and preservation of laws, court decisions and other legal materials published online. Resolution 102B supporting the model law was approved on a voice vote, though a significant number of delegates voted…

Feb 6, 2012 5:56 PM CST

Pacer App Developed by UCLA Law Grad Is Free for the Holidays

Updated: Lawyers who want to search and view federal court records on their iPhones can use a new iPhone app developed by a recent law grad. The app, FedCtRecords, usually costs $19.99 but it’s free for the holidays, report the Wall Street Journal Law Blog and iPhone J.D. Newton Oldfather,…

Dec 20, 2011 2:44 PM CST

Gloria Allred and Politicking Law Prof Make List of Top 10 Quotes of the Year

Celebrity lawyer Gloria Allred and former Harvard law professor Elizabeth Warren are being recognized for their turns of phrase on a list of this year’s top 10 quotations. Yale law librarian Fred Shapiro assembled the list that will be used in his next edition of the Yale Book of Quotations,…

Dec 19, 2011 3:28 PM CST