Articles Posted in General Legal Research Resources

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Not as obscure as you might think – and definitely in the public interest:

Final Incorporation by Reference Rule Implements Recommendation 2011-5 (from Legal Research Plus, with links to Fed Register)

“Today, the Office of the Federal Register (OFR) published its final rule on incorporation by reference. See Incorporation by Reference, 79 Fed. Reg. 66,267 (Nov. 7, 2014). The Freedom of Information Act allows agencies to incorporate by reference into federal regulations extrinsic materials that are “reasonably available to the class of persons affected.” 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(1). ….

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I recently asked law librarians for alternate, non-proprietary, ways of saying “Shepard’s” or “KeyCite” (or Shepardizing or KeyCiting). Below you’ll find a short list and a long list of responses, and not a few “namemushs.”

We focused primarily on case citators, but keep in mind you can cite-check a lot of things, including law review articles, court rules, statutes, and regulations (to name only 4).

What’s a citator? We like this concise description of Online Citators, from the University of Washington Law School librarians.

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No, Virginia, you can’t believe anything you read “on the Internet,” except of course that there is a Santa Claus.

Yogi Berra is still alive.

And, from the Net for Lawyers blog: “The ‘Death’ of Judd Nelson, Eddie Murphy, Jeff Goldblum, et al: The Importance of Verifying Sources on the Internet”

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Just because landlord-tenant law is state-specific and local law for most of us mere mortals doesn’t mean there aren’t some excellent treatises and resources on the subject for those times we need to read about multi-state landlord-tenant practices and policies. If that is where your research is taking you, mosey over to the LLLoC blog post:

Landlord-Tenant Law: A Beginner’s Guide

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“Free Public Access to Federal Materials on Guide to Law Online

October 14, 2014 by Donna Sokol

This is a guest post by Ann Hemmens, legal reference librarian at the Law Library of Congress.

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About once a quarter we’re asked where to find IRS Private Letter Rulings and other IRS documents that used to be tough to find outside a law library that subscribed to expensive tax databases and treatises.

You can still find these documents in the usual fee-based resources, Lexis, Westlaw, and (maybe) Bloomberg (we don’t subscribe to Bloomberg, so I don’t know).

But there are also some free sources. One of those is Legalbitstream: “Your Source for Free Federal Tax Law Research, Comprehensive and timely updated databases.”

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The dance of legislation has more steps and rules (and foot and toe stomping opportunities) than a few words defined, but learning the Language of Congress is a good place to start:

“Sessions, Adjournments, and Recesses of Congress,“ by Richard S. Beth, Specialist on Congress and the Legislative Process, and Jessica Tollestrup, Analyst on Congress and the Legislative Process, February 27, 2013:

“The House and Senate use the terms session, adjournment, and recess in both informal and more formal ways, but the concepts apply in parallel ways to both the daily and the annual activities of Congress. A session begins when the chamber convenes and ends when it adjourns. A recess, by contrast, does not terminate a session, but only suspends it temporarily…. [Link to full CRS Report

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The Washington Post reports today that the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts has a plan to restore online access to the PACER documents that were removed. Link to the full article.

Hat tip to AALL (American Association of Law Libraries) for their action on this important issue.

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From HeinOnline: “The Universal Citation Guide, 3rd ed. recognizes the current practices of legal researchers who often consult an electronic research tool without ever seeing a print volume of a reporter or code sitting on a library shelf.”

“…. As states publish primary documents on their own web sites and researchers utilize a wide variety of options to access legal materials, it is necessary to have a universal system of citation that helps users locate information across all formats, platforms, and publishers….” [Link to HeinOnline blog post and order information.]

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