As we get closer to summer, it’s time to start thinking about the jobs/externships you’ll be doing once school is out. One thing you’re guaranteed to be doing is legal research. I recently blogged about Lexis’s decision to make Lexis Advance available to students without restriction this summer. Another legal research system that is available to you without restriction is Bloomberg Law. Bloomberg Law is a newcomer to the legal research world, but is making a push to be a competitor to Westlaw and Lexis. While it has yet to be widely adopted by law firms, it does offer some intriguing benefits that might be of use to you this summer.
Dockets
Law student Bloomberg Law accounts have free access to federal court pleadings and other materials generally available through PACER. Bloomberg’s interface is a lot easier to use than PACER’s and students don’t have to pay PACER’s 10 cents per page download fee. These types of pleadings are accessed fairly often in firms and students would benefit from being familiar with this portion of Bloomberg Law.
Transactional Materials
Students working in transactional law will find that Bloomberg has many great resources. Bloomberg Law has a nice EDGAR search as well as many example documents and clauses through its DealMaker product. Because its Bloomberg, Bloomberg Law also has great company and news information that can be quite helpful in areas like mergers and acquisitions.
Secondary Sources
Bloomberg Law is also attempting to expand its collections of secondary sources and has recently acquired some products that could be quite helpful this summer. Bloomberg’s big acquisition was BNA and all its reports and information. BNA reports are great sources for firms to stay up to date in many different practice areas. Bloomberg Law has also recently added Practicing Law Institute materials. These resources are practitioner oriented and can be very helpful when you’re trying to figure out how something works in practice.
Representatives from Bloomberg Law will be here next week to offer some training on Bloomberg Law. Come take a closer look at Bloomberg Law on Tuesday, March 26 at 2:30 or Wednesday, March 27 at noon in the Moot Court Room. To get a Bloomberg Law ID, register here.