Ross-Blakley Law Library Blog

Westlaw
Your Westlaw password will remain active over the summer for a limited number of research hours.  Westlaw does allow full summer access for the following permissible uses:

• Law school class
• Law Review or Journal work
• Moot Court work
• Project for a Professor
• Unpaid, non-profit public interest externship/internship

To extend your Westlaw access
Eligible students will need to register for a password extension and must agree to only use their password for permissible purposes.  To register for a password Summer Extension visit    http://lawschool.westlaw.com/registration/summerextension.asp.

Access to Westlaw for graduates
Graduating students can register for the Westlaw Grad Elite Extension Program that will extend their … Continue Reading

Please join us tomorrow for a lunchtime alumni panel featuring Kaitlyn Redfield Ortiz (’12) and Masha Shmukler (’11) to learn how your legal research skills can help you in your upcoming summer or post-graduation legal position

Thursday, April 10th

Room 105 at 12:15pm

**Cookies and Starbucks coffee provided **

Kaitlyn Redfield Ortiz will discuss her research experiences as a Judicial Clerk (U.S. Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit) and as a current Associate at Lubin & Enoch

Masha Shmukler will discuss her research experiences as an Associate at Greenberg Traurig LLP (corporate and securities law)

- Ask questions and get answers about “real world” legal research

- … Continue Reading

Please join us for a lunchtime panel on legal research in the “real world”

Thursday, April 10th

Room 105 at 12:15pm

**Cookies and Starbucks coffee provided **

Kaitlyn Redfield Ortiz ‘12, will discuss her research experiences as a Judicial Clerk (U.S. Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit) and as a current Associate at Lubin & Enoch

Masha Shmukler ‘11, will discuss her research experiences as an Associate at Greenberg Traurig LLP (corporate and securities law)

- Ask questions and get answers about “real world” legal research – prepare for your upcoming externship, summer … Continue Reading

At some point in any research project you will need to stop researching and get to work synthesizing all of the information you have found.  Knowing when to stop can be difficult, however, and many researchers worry that by concluding their searching they may miss some key article or case.  Here are some tips for knowing when to stop:

• You are seeing the same search results over and over – you have searched multiple resources and used a variety of search terms, but you are repeatedly seeing the same … Continue Reading
  

Starting your research with secondary sources will save you a lot of time – instead of you spending hours first searching for the cases, statutes, and regulations relevant to your topic, and then toiling to decipher overarching legal principles from those laws, by cracking open a relevant secondary source you will often find citations to the core primary sources for your topic as well as clear explanations and expert analysis of the issue(s).  Which secondary source you choose will depend on your research needs.  To quickly learn about an unfamiliar area of law and … Continue Reading

While statutory law and case law get plenty of attention in legal research and writing, the third area of law, administrative or regulatory law, is often overlooked.  It is just as binding as case and statutory law, however, and thus just as important; conducting research in this area of law is essential for any legal research project.

About administrative law
Administrative law is composed of the rules and regulations created and enforced by administrative agencies. The primary sources for federal administrative rulemaking are the Federal Register (FR) and … Continue Reading

It is important to keep abreast of changes in the legal world that pertain to your paper topic; statutes are amended, new cases are decided, and novel issues arise, all which can affect the validity of your research.  Below we have provided information on three legal news sources you can utilize to stay up-to-date on your topic, as well as linked to two research guides that detail other legal current awareness resources.

BNA reports
BNA is a subscription resource for legal and business news that provides daily reports as well as topical libraries that cover the full range of … Continue Reading

We know that it is the time of the semester in which many 2L and 3L students are working on research papers and 1L students are preparing memos for their Legal Research & Writing class, so over the next week we will be providing research tips on the Law Library blog.

Research Tip #1: Conduct a pre-emption check
Before starting to write on your chosen topic you need to determine whether that topic has already been covered, or preempted, by another author. If your topic has not been addressed you can safely pursue your research and writing. If your topic has been addressed you … Continue Reading

The Law Library will be open during Spring Break.  Have a fun and safe break!

Spring Break: March 7 – 16, 2014

• Friday, March 7,  7:00 am -  5:00 pm
• Saturday, March 8,  8:00 am -  5:00 pm
• Sunday, March 9,  8:00 am -  8:00 pm
• Monday – Thursday, March 10 – 13,  8:00 am -  8:00 pm
• Friday, March 14,  8:00 am -  5:00 pm
• Saturday, March 15,  8:00 am -  5:00 pm
• Sunday, March 16,  8:00 am -  11:00 pm

The importance of good grammar, particularly for legal practitioners, cannot be emphasized enough.  Good grammar is the foundation of good writing, and good writing is essential to both high achievement in law school and success in legal practice.   With that in mind (and in celebration of National Grammar Day today) we have provided a few resources below which you can use to increase your grammatical mastery.  Since words are the tools of the legal profession, time spent brushing up on your grammar is never wasted.

• Professor Tamara Herrera’s “Legal Writing” column in the … Continue Reading