
Library & Legal Resources News

BYU Law Library is excited to announce the launch of LexisNexis Digital Library Attorney Access for Utah attorneys, paralegals, and BYU Law School alumni. LexisNexis Digital Library contains easy-to-use e-book versions of many popular legal treatises that are accessible from anywhere! Titles …

How To Do a Preemption Check
What’s a preemption check? A preemption check is a careful background check of your topic to see if anyone else has used your thesis or argument in a paper before. You don’t want to go to all the trouble of writing your …

Research Consultations with Law Librarians
BYU Law Students: Are you doing your substantial writing requirement this semester? Or are you writing an academic paper for a class this semester? Or do you just want to write a new academic paper for fun to try to submit for …

Fastcase and Casemaker Merge; ROSS Intelligence Closes Its Doors
Big changes in the legal research industry are underway. Last week two of the largest legal research alternatives to Lexis and Westlaw, Fastcase and Casemaker, announced their merger. This news comes on the heels of ROSS Intelligence announcing it would shut down …

The 125th Anniversary of Utah Statehood
January 4th, 2021 marks the 125th anniversary of Utah being admitted as a state to the United States of America. Utah took a complicated journey en route to statehood. Check out ProQuest Congressional - Legislative & Executive Publications in the Law Library's …

Press Coverage of Prof. Nielson @ SCOTUS
If you were too busy with finals yesterday to catch Professor Aaron Nielson's performance at SCOTUS oral arguments, don't fret. You can still listen to the recording on supremecourt.gov or CSPAN, or read the transcript. Oral arguments lasted for an hour and forty-five …

Hear Professor Nielson Argue at SCOTUS Next Week
Last August Justice Alito appointed BYU Law Professor Aaron Nielson, a former Alito clerk and of counsel at Kirkland & Ellis, an amicus curiae in Collins v. Mnuchin to argue that the structure of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) is constitutional. …

Chat With Us!
As the holidays and finals are approaching, and you may be traveling home, remember that you can always chat with a law librarian! We strive to offer our chat services 9am to 5pm Monday through Friday. Just head on over to our …

Enter the International Law & Technology Writing Competition
Update: The deadline has been extended to December 7th, 2020. Submit your entry to the 2021 International Law & Technology Writing Competition for current law students by December 7, 2020. There is not much time left but entries are short: 1,000 words …

Exam Prep: How to Write Law School Essay Exams
You are probably a pretty good writer already, but writing law school essay exams is a distinct skill. A well-written exam essay will be organized and easy to grade. Law professors read lots of exams, often during the holidays, so making your …

Researching Newspapers
Sometimes your research requires you to look at newspaper articles--sometimes newspaper articles that are more recent (even the week-of) and sometimes newspaper articles that are more historical. For example, a newspaper article from the 1970s from the day after a major event …

New HeinOnline Content: Electoral College
HeinOnline has added a subsection to its U.S. Presidential Library devoted to the electoral college, how it works, and efforts to reform or abolish it. Click "U.S. Presidential Library" from the HeinOnline home page, then select "Electoral College" from the dropdown menu. …

Cybersecurity Threat: Silent Librarian
Generally speaking, librarians are awesome, service-oriented professionals committed to providing library patrons with the resources they need. Silent Librarian, however, is not awesome. Silent Librarian is a phishing campaign that targets students and staff at universities worldwide in an effort to obtain …

Judge Griffith Pens Essay on Religion and Judicial Decision-making for U.S. Law Week
Recently retired D.C. Circuit judge, BYU alum and former BYU General Counsel Thomas B. Griffith published a piece yesterday in United States Law Week on the role religion should play in the work of a judge. Read the article on Bloomberg Law. …

Researching Court Documents
You may need to research court documents for an RA project or for a paper or externship. Court documents are any documents that are filed in case proceedings, sometimes by the attorneys, other times they are documents filed by the judge. All …

Historical Utah Codes
The BYU Law Library keeps previous versions of the Utah Code, so we've built up quite an extensive collection of historical Utah Codes. We have from 1855 to the present. We also have all the Utah Session Laws (all Utah laws compiled …

It’s Newspaper Time! Student Access to the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post
Fall (and a lot of smoke) is in the air, meaning it's newspaper time at BYU Law! As a BYU Law student, you have digital access to several major newspapers. I encourage you to take advantage of them to become a better …

Beginner’s Bluebook Guide
Introduction An important aspect of Legal Research and Writing is knowing how to use the Bluebook. You may be familiar with citation styles, such as MLA, APA, or Chicago. The Bluebook is the citation format of the law, and it is all …