The Ginger (Law) Librarian

This morning I instructed on free or low cost legal-research databases. Databases like Casemaker , Fastcase , Google Scholar , Loislaw , and VersusLaw to name a few. When doing this type of instruction, I always try to reiterate to the students that each of the databases have nuanced search functionality, and the students should always look at the search tips from the respective database to maximize searching. Most of the databases allow for boolean searching , but it may not be the same type of boolean searching that you can do on WEXBERG. The search tips will generally tell you which proximity connectors to use in the particular database. Also, most databases provide a comprehensive user guide: Casemaker User Guide Fastcase User Guide Loislaw User Guide In addition to user guides, most of the databases also provide blogs or websites offering search tips: Fastcase Legal Research Blog Loislaw Expert Search Tips  or LoislawConnect Quick Tips Because many state bar...

Check out my latest post on the RIPS Law Librarian Blog discussing the importance of legal research skills for practice.

Law librarians generally spend a lot of time in front of classes instructing on legal research. To that end, we have to be jacks of all trades paying attention to our teaching styles. The Chronicle of Higher Education recently listed 4 properties of powerful teachers :  1. Personality:   Great teachers tend to be good-natured and approachable, as opposed to sour or foreboding; professional without being aloof; funny (even if they’re not stand-up comedians), perhaps because they don’t take themselves or their subject matter too seriously; demanding without being unkind; comfortable in their own skin (without being in love with the sound of their own voices); natural (they make teaching look easy even though we all know it isn’t); and tremendously creative, and always willing to entertain new ideas or try new things, sometimes even on the fly. 2. Presence:   The best teachers, as Lang concluded, are always "present" — fully in the moment, connecting w...

The Legislative Research Special Interest Section of the Law Librarians’ Society of Washington, D.C., Inc. (llsdc.org) is pleased to announce the availability of a new website entitled “ Federal Administrative Law: A Brief Overview. ” The site, which had been available only in PDF, has been substantially revised and its subheadings, each with numerous links, include the following: 1) A Brief Explanation of Federal Administrative Law, 2) Current Major Federal Government Regulatory Agencies, 3) General Federal Agency Directories, 4) Major Federal Administrative and Rulemaking Laws, 5) Some Other Federal Administrative Laws, 6) Types of Agency Rules and Notices Published in the Federal Register, 7) Federal Rules, Non-Rules and Other Terminology 8) Researching Federal Agency Orders, Decisions, Interpretations, and Letters 9) Selected Administrative Law Treatises 10) Selected Supreme Court Opinions on Federal Administrative Law 11) Selected Web Sites on Federal Administrative La...

Inc.com recently listed 10 improper (but common) phrases that can make you look bad. Of the list, I think that 5 are particularly common: Must of, should of, would of, and could of All those "of"s should be "have." As one reader points out, the proper versions were corrupted by contractions such as "must've." Worse comes to worse Another reader points out this should be "when worse comes to worst," which indicates something has degraded from one negative plane to the lowest possible. Unthaw Think about this one for a minute. How exactly is it possible to un-thaw something? Putting the item in the freezer would work, but probably won't produce the results you intended, which is to "thaw" it. (Someone) and I You probably know to use the other person's name first when it comes at the beginning of a sentence, such as "Brandon and I put the presentation together." But many people don't understand that wh...

After the kerfuffle created last summer when the scores of the July test-takers showed a dramatic decrease nationwide, "[s]ome states, including Arizona, Iowa and New Hampshire, are exploring or have adopted other options, questioning the wisdom of relying on a single written test as the gateway to legal practice." The NYTimes notes that last November, about 80 law school deans "jointly asked, for the first time anyone remembers, for details on how test questions were chosen and scored. The situation was already touchy after remarks made the previous month by a top bar exam official, who defended the [July] results as indisputably correct, and then, in what the deans viewed as verbal dynamite, labeled the test takers as 'less able' than their predecessors." This is just the latest criticism of the bar exam, as "critics have long questioned not only the expense and time devoted to taking the exam but also whether clients benefit from an admissions ...

When it comes to foreign, comparative, and international law (FCIL) research, you can't beat Globalex . From Globalex's website: GlobaLex is committed to the dissemination of high-level international, foreign, and comparative law research tools in order to accommodate the needs of an increasingly global educational and practicing legal world. The information and articles published by GlobaLex represent both research and teaching resources used by legal academics, practitioners and other specialists around the world who are active either in foreign, international, and comparative law research or those focusing on their own domestic law. The guides and articles published are written by scholars well known in their respective fields and are recommended as a legal resource by universities, library schools, and legal training courses. The tools available in GlobaLex will continue to expand to cover international law topics, countries and legal systems thus providing a coherent an...