Ross-Blakley Law Library Blog

Westlaw recently announced that access to Westlaw Classic for academic users will end July 1, 2014.  If you use WestlawNext exclusively this change will likely not affect you, but if you conduct any research on Westlaw Classic please take note of the July 1st cutoff.  WestlawNext will still “bridge” users into Westlaw Classic databases that are not available on the new interface, and non-academic users (firms, courts, etc…) will continue to have access to Westlaw Classic for a while longer.

If you have questions about the change or need help utilizing WestlawNext please contact … Continue Reading

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, nonprofit public-interest internship/externship pro bono work required for graduation

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 … Continue Reading

West Study Aids are now available online to all Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law students. Gilbert Law Summaries, Concise Hornbooks, Nutshells, Sum & Substance Quick Reviews, Exam Pro Series, and others covering more than 350 areas of law are available as an add-on to Westlaw.  The Law Library has entered into a one year trial subscription to the collection

To access, go to http://lawschool.westlaw.com  and after logging on using your OnePass, click on “MY ePRODUCTS” at the top of the screen.  A direct link to the study aids is also available under the Services for Law Students section of the Law … Continue Reading

Westlaw and LexisNexis have been publishing publicly filed legal briefs and motions, and charging their subscription users to access them online, for years.  Two attorneys, Oklahoma lawyer Edward White and New York city lawyer Kenneth Elan, plan to put a stop to it.   White and Elan recently filed a class action lawsuit against Westlaw and LexisNexis, claiming copyright infringement of the aforementioned legal documents.   They seek to represent both lawyers who have copyrighted their work and those who have not, and claim that the two publishing companies have engaged in “unabashed wholesale copying of thousands of copyright-protected works created by, … Continue Reading

One of the most often asked questions this time of year is about digests and how to use them. The digest system is designed by West Publishing. West organizes the law into over 400 subjects and assigns those subjects “topic numbers.” Within those topics are subtopics which West has assigned key numbers. It is organized like an outline, with points and sub-points. It is no more complicated than that other than how many key numbers the editors manage to include! The idea is that once you have a topic number and a key number you can access another west digest … Continue Reading