
Library & Legal Resources News

The Washington & Lee Law Library has recently updated its Law Journal Rankings to include data from 2012. The rankings take into account citations to journals during the last eight years, with the combined score looking at impact factor and total cites. …

Supreme Court Challenge
12 February 2013
Think your SCOTUS-prediction skills are top notch? Put them to the test in Bloomberg Law/SCOTUSblog's Supreme Court Challenge. The competition features teams of law students predicting the outcomes of six merits cases and six petitions for cert. Cash prizes go to the …

Litigation Practice Materials
11 February 2013
When you think about legal research, it's likely things like cases, statutes, and regulations come to mind. That's good because that's what we focus on in a basic legal research course in law school. Beyond those basics, however, there's much more to …

Nielson on Death of Law Clerk Hiring Plan
05 February 2013
Professor Aaron Nielson, our newest professor, has recently published an op-ed in the National Law Journal discussing the D.C. Circuit's recent announcement that they will no longer follow the Federal Judges Law Clerk Hiring Plan. The Volokh Conspiracy quotes a good chunk …

Picking Paper Topics
30 January 2013
About this time of year we begin getting requests for help developing topics for papers. While we have several different resources that can be helpful, one that I like to show first is BNA. BNA (now Bloomberg BNA) produces a number of …

New KIC Scanner
28 January 2013
As some of you may have noticed, the Law Library recently purchased and installed a new KIC Scanner near the 2nd floor reference desk. This state of the art, face-up scanner has already proved quite popular with students in the short time …

Unpublished Hearings
24 January 2013
The word "unpublished" can often be misleading in today's legal research environment. These days documents that are "unpublished" are now often published even though we still call them "unpublished." Confusing, I know. Take for example, unpublished hearings from Congress. Hearings can be …

History of SCOTUS Nominations
22 January 2013
Nominations to the Supreme Court of the United States are always a hot topic - especially in law school. With President Obama's reelection and the recent inauguration, the topic of potential SCOTUS picks is always lurking. While we can't predict the future, …

Preston on Infancy Doctrine
17 January 2013
Professor Cheryl Preston and co-author Brandon Crowther have posted their latest article, Minor Restrictions: Adolescence Across Legal Disciplines, the Infancy Doctrine, and the Restatement (Third) of Restitution and Unjust Enrichment, on SSRN. The article examines the adoption of a minority rule in …

Congressional Bills, 1789-2013
15 January 2013
From grade school we learn about bills and how they become law. Some bills die, some are amended, some become law. No matter what happens, bills are an essential part of the legislative process and researchers often want to get their hands …

Congress and the Courts
10 January 2013
The Law Library recently added a new HeinOnline library - Congress and the Courts. This library provides access to legislative materials dealing with the composition and structure of Article III courts. If you're doing any kind of research regarding federal courts, from …

Welcome Back and New Search Bar
08 January 2013
Welcome back! We hope you enjoyed your time off. I certainly did--enough so that I was nonexistent on this blog over the break. As you ease back into school, you may have noticed that our webpage looks slightly different--we have a new …

SL Trib Cites Baradaran Study
11 December 2012
Professor Shima Baradaran's study, Predicting Violence, was recently cited in a Salt Lake Tribune article about Utah's pretrial jail release program. Predicting Violence was published in the Texas Law Review earlier this year.

Law and the Multiverse
06 December 2012
Finals are underway and everyone's studying hard. But, all studiers need a break sometimes. If you want that break, but want to keep your mind in the legal realm you might want to check out Law and the Multiverse: Superheroes, Supervillains and …

Utah Recodifications
03 December 2012
From to time to time the Utah legislature reorganizes and renumbers certain titles in the Utah Code. This process is known as recodification. It's ultimate goal is to increase clarity and usability in a code title. However, recodification often throws researchers for …

The Fiscal Cliff and CRS Reports
29 November 2012
After hearing repeatedly about the "Fiscal Cliff" there comes a time when you may want more detailed information than what the news is providing. The Law Librarian Blog recently linked to a CRS Report called "The 'Fiscal Cliff': Macroeconomic Consequences of Tax …

ABA Blawg 100
26 November 2012
Each year the ABA Journal selects 100 of the best law blogs - aka blawgs - in its Blawg 100. The Blawg 100 is a great place to go to check out some of the blogs you might want to start following …

Jensen on Cyber Attacks
19 November 2012
Professor Eric Jensen has recently posted his newest paper, Cyber Attacks: Proportionality and Precautions in Attack, to SSRN. It will be published in the U.S. Naval War College's International Law Studies Series.