Category «Online Legal Research Services»

Locating Foreign Civil Codes

Lyonette Louis-Jacques expertly guides us with this pathfinder on the research required to comprehensively address the frequently asked foreign and comparative law research question – how do I to find a country’s civil code?. A researcher might not know they need a civil code, but they often do. A civil code is the key to accessing all types of private law for many civil law jurisdictions. Modeled after the Code Napoléon or Code civil des Français (1804), a civil code usually contains laws relating to personal status, contracts, torts, “delict”, “obligations”, real and personal property, inheritance and succession, marriage, divorce, family, parent and child, private international law (conflict of laws/choice of law).

Subjects: American Association of Law Libraries, Comparative/Foreign Law, Government Resources, Legal Research, Online Legal Research Services

Should Colorado court documents be free on public library computers?

Jeff Roberts of the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition raises the question of expanding free public access to court documents in Colorado. Specifically, he identifies the only location where a non-lawyer can view and request copies of all civil court documents from ICCES, the Integrated Colorado Courts E-Filing System. This location is the Colorado Supreme Court’s law library in the Ralph L. Carr Judicial Center in downtown Denver. Fees and access to PACER have been the topic of discussion in the legal community for many years. The urgency of this discussion and a resolution that ensures free public access to court filings is critically dependent upon the future of court law libraries.

Subjects: Court Resources, Courts & Technology, E-Government, Electronic Court Filing, Government Resources, Legal Technology, Online Legal Research Services

Legal Research at Your Fingertips: Lexis Views, Bestlaw, and Google for Lawyers?

Ashley Ahlbrand is the Educational Technology at Librarian Indiana University’s Maurer School of Law. Her expert teaching and training skills offer readers insights into the role of Google as well as integrative browser add-ons like Lexis Views in preparing students to effectively and comprehensively complete research assignments.

Subjects: Internet Resources - Web Links, Internet Trends, Law Librarians, Legal Research, Legal Research Training, LEXIS, News Resources, Online Legal Research Services, Open Source, Technology Trends

State Legal Information Census: An Analysis of Primary State Legal Information

This report by Sarah Glassmeyer presents findings from a survey of state level primary legal information. Primary legal information includes code (codified statutes passed by state legislatures), regulations (codified collections of rules passed by administrative agencies) and case law (appellate court decisions). This survey was done with the goal of reviewing the free and open status of this legal information.

Subjects: Government Resources, Law Librarians, Online Legal Research Services, Reference Resources

Competitive Intelligence – A Selective Resource Guide 2015

Sabrina I. Pacifici’s comprehensive current awareness guide focuses on leveraging a selected but wide range of reliable, topical, predominantly free websites and resources. The goal is to support an effective research process to search, discover, access, monitor, analyze and review current and historical data, news, reports, statistics and profiles on companies, markets, countries, people and issues, from a national and a global perspective. Sabrina’s guide is a “best of the Web” resource that encompasses search engines, portals, government sponsored open source databases, alerts, data archives, publisher specific services and applications. All of her recommendations are accompanied by links to trusted content targeted sources that are produced by top media and publishing companies, business, government, academe, IGOs and NGOs.

Subjects: Blogs, Competitive Intelligence, Internet Trends, Legal Technology, Libraries & Librarians, News Resources, Online Legal Research Services, Search Engines, Search Strategies, Technology Trends

A Matter of Trust: Why the Time is Right to Adopt the Uniform Electronic Legal Materials Act (UELMA) in Florida

In this article, Law Librarian Patricia Morgan brings our attention to a group of prominently related issues on electronic legal research whose application are critical for attorneys, librarians and courts. In an era where cost-cutting has become increasingly important, there already exists an untapped resource related to legal research. More and more resources exist online (some exclusively). It has been a long time since the introduction of the Internet, but it is finally going to prove instrumental in reducing the cost of legal research. It is time to come to terms with the fact that most legal material should be readily available electronically and that there must be a way to verify that the material is authentic. As Morgan queries and answers – Uniform Law, Anyone?

Subjects: Government Resources, Legal Education, Legal Research, Legal Technology, LEXIS, Online Legal Research Services, Westlaw

Library Research Guides: Best Practices

Many librarians have a set of research guides that they are responsible for keeping up to date, but finding time to devote to this important task can be extremely difficult. As libraries migrate to LibGuides 2.0, many are using this opportunity to study their users’ preferences, implement new policies, and completely refresh their research guide collection. If your library is going through this process, or you are simply planning on using the (relatively) calm summer months to update your research guides, here are ten best practice tips to keep in mind – by Kara Dunn, D`Angelo Law Library.

Subjects: Legal Research Training, Libraries & Librarians, Library Marketing, Library Software & Technology, Mobile Technology, News Resources, Online Legal Research Services, Reference Resources, Reference Services, Search Strategies

Journalism Resources on the Internet

Marcus P. Zillman’s new guide is a selective, comprehensive bibliography of reliable, subject specific and actionable sources of journalism resources and sites for researchers in all sectors. This guide will support your goal to discover new sources, refresh your acquaintance with sources you know but that have evolved, and provide additional strategic methods to locate and leverage information in your work.

Subjects: Business Research, Competitive Intelligence, Internet Resources, Online Legal Research Services, Open Source, Search Engines, Search Strategies, Social Media, Technology Trends

Legal Loop: Lawyers, technology and a light at the end of the tunnel

Lawyer and legal tech expert Nicole Black highlights how federal court judges are leveraging research and current awareness sources and services provided to professionals and the public via their respective court websites, as well as actively using mobile tools and apps in their daily work flow.

Subjects: Case Management, Court Resources, Courts & Technology, Gadgets, Gadgets/Gizmos, Online Legal Research Services, Portals, Public Records

Conclusions from the National Inventory of Legal Materials

Hays Butler and Emily Feltren document the process and successful implementation of dynamic, extensive project conducted over the past three years by the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) working with law librarian volunteers around the country to build the first-ever National Inventory of Legal Materials, an inventory of print and electronic legal materials at all levels of government. More than 350 volunteers have added nearly 8,000 legal titles to the inventory so far.

Subjects: American Association of Law Libraries, Features, Law Librarians, Law Library Management, Legal Research, Legal Technology, Libraries & Librarians, Library Software & Technology, Online Legal Research Services, Surveys