01 August 2011
New U.S. Code Site
Last week, Robert Ambrogi reported that the Office of Law Revision Council, who has responsiblity for preparing and publishing the U.S. Code, recently released a new official site for the U.S. Code. The site is currently in …
20 July 2011
History of International Law
HeinOnline is one of our favorite resources here in the law library. Most law students know it as the place to get pdf versions of law reviews and journals, but it's much more than …
13 July 2011
Subject Guides
There is so much information out there (legal and otherwise) that it's nice to get some tips on where to start. That's where librarians come in. Here at the BYU law library, we …
05 July 2011
Crime Statistics
One of the great things about being a law librarian is discovering new and useful information. Recently, while researching some criminal law and procedure issues, I came across the FBI's Uniform Crime Reports. The …
24 June 2011
Vendor-neutral Citation
I can't say I love legal citation. I understand why we have it and it's useful to me when I want to look up what's being cited, but some of the rules frustrate …
20 June 2011
Summer Research Success
Law students are now well into their summer jobs and externships and we hope it's going well. Don't forget the law library is still around to help if you get stuck, so don't …
14 June 2011
Dead Precedents
The ABA Journal had an interesting article last month discussing the Supreme Court's practice of stealth overruling. This is a practice in which the justices avoid expressly overruling precedent, but in effect do overrule it by …
04 May 2011
50 State Surveys
One of the most daunting and painful research projects asked of research assistants is the 50 state survey. In short, this requires you to find the law on a particular topic in all …
28 April 2011
25 April 2011
Summer Research Help – 2011
Classes are done. Finals are over. But, in law school there's always work to do, even if it is of a different sort. We wish luck to all of you working on the …
19 April 2011
Alternatives to Westlaw/Lexis
My last post laid out Westlaw and Lexis policies for summer access for law students. There may be times during the summer where you won't qualify for student access and you may be looking for some free sources …
07 April 2011
Changes to Reserve Room
If you've looked for something recently in the Reserve Room (the enclosed room across from the Reference Desk), you've likely noticed things have changed a bit. In an attempt to provide better access …
06 April 2011
The Search For Legislative Intent
Legislative history research is a skill all aspiring lawyers should gain. Because this type of research doesn't come up as often as statutory or case law research, it can be difficult to remember how …
21 March 2011
State Secrets
If you're interested in researching the state secrets privilege, you may be interested in a new State Secrets Archive from the Georgetown Law School. The archive has case law, litigation documents, executive branch materials, news …
11 March 2011
Topic Bank
Trying to come up with a topic can be one of the hardest parts of researching and writing a paper. To help, the Litigation Section of the Utah State Bar has recently initiated a topic bank focused …
17 February 2011
Historical Utah Senate Bills
State legislative history can be a beast, especially when you have to go beyond the 1990s. Luckily, the Utah State Archives is working to make things a bit easier for Utah legislative history …
10 February 2011
Legislative Process
Understanding what happens on the floor of the House or Senate can be complicated. You've heard about filibusters and cloture, but there are a number of other particular rules and procedures followed on …
02 February 2011
Google Scholar Legal Opinions by Court
It's been over a year now since Google Scholar's addition of free, searchable legal opinions. This is a great option for law students and attorneys looking to do some cheap searching to find …
