C|M|LAW Library Blog

There will be a free yoga session in the Quiet Room in the Judy and Robert H. Rawson, Jr. Learning Commons on the second floor of the law library on Tuesday February 19th at 5pm.  Please bring your own mat or towel.

Come to the law library Tuesday, January 29 from 3:30-6:00pm for an Open House near the main entrance of the library. Pizza, pop, and cake will be provided.

This is a great chance to meet librarians and staff along with representatives from Lexis, Westlaw, the Cleveland Law Library, CSU Police, CSU Counseling Services, and the CSU Rec Center. Vendors will have handouts and giveaways. There will also be a drawing for students who visit every table at the event: A $50 Amazon gift card courtesy of the law library and two $25 gift cards courtesy of LexisNexis, along with 2000 Lexis points.

Following on the popularity of the Mental Health and Wellness books recently added to the law library collection, we are happy to announce that there will soon be a collection (also in the Ohio Room) dedicated to professional and soft skills. These items will be available for checkout and will cover topics including soft skills for lawyers, grit, productivity, drive, and writing.

Law Library Legal Research Seminars are for C|M|LAW students, including our MLS and LLM students.  The Seminars are continuously available online via the Westlaw TWEN platform.  You earn points for completing an online Seminar by correctly answering 3/4 of the questions on that Seminar’s quiz.  Your Seminar points are good for the entire time you are here at C|M|LAW.  When you earn 100 points, you are awarded a Law Library Legal Research Letter of Recognition and a Digital Badge, which you can post to your LinkedIn page.  You can earn multiple Letters and Digital Badges.  Here are the currently available online Law Library Legal Research Seminars:

• Starting Research with Secondary Sources – Why recreate the wheel? See how secondary sources explain and analyze “the law” for you, as well as cite primary authority. [17:02 mins; 12.5 points]
• Bluebooking – For faster legal drafting, review how to effectively apply citation and style rules, as well as abbreviation and jurisdiction tables. [38:47 mins; 25 points]
• Terms & Connectors Searching – Move beyond natural language searching and see the effectiveness of combining terms & phrases in search statements. [10:48 mins; 12.5 points]
• Lexis Advance Overview – Review key features of this legal research platform, including pre-filtering & post-filtering searches, using the Advanced Search template, document delivery, and using your search history. [21:11 mins; 12.5 points]
• Shepard’s – Review key “signals” of this citator service, and see how it can be used for case validation and research. [11:54 mins; 12.5 points]
• Westlaw Overview – Take a tour of key content on this legal research platform, including Ohio materials, Statutes & Court Rules, Dockets, Briefs, and News, as well as review pre-filtering and post-filtering searches. [20:03 mins; 12.5 points]
• KeyCite – See how to update and expand your research by using this citator service with cases, code sections, law review articles, and federal regulations. [10:16 mins; 12.5 points]
• Practical Law by Westlaw – Review the specialized practice areas, jurisdictional resources, and features of this unique Westlaw product. [13:44 mins; 12.5 points]
• Bloomberg Law Overview – Take a tour of key content on this legal research platform, including cases, state resources, transactional materials, litigation analytical materials, and secondary soruces. [ 25:39 mins; 12.5 points]
• Administrative Law – Break through the mysteries of agency rulemaking and case adjudication. Learn the key resources for finding Federal and Ohio agency regulations and decisions. [29:59 mins; 25 points]
• Cost Effective Federal Legislative History: Congress.gov & GPO.gov – Understand the importance of, and materials generated in, the federal legislative process. See how to find key materials in the freely-available Congress.gov and GPO.gov platforms. [17:33 mins; 12.5 points]
• Bioethics Resources & Scholarly Writing – Examine a wide array of bioethics resources, as well as learn how these resources can be used to select a paper topic and conduct effective research on that topic. [28:33 mins; 25 points]
• HeinOnline – Review the wide array of content (eg, law journals, session laws), date coverage, and unique features of this full-text “database of databases.” [16:49 mins.; 12.5 points]
• Ohio Legal Research “Crash Course” – Coming soon!

For more information on the Law Library Legal Research Seminars, contact Laura Ray, Outreach & Instructional Services Librarian.

Welcome back, students! With the spring semester set to begin Monday, you’ll be happy to know the lights in the library have been replaced.