“The library is a growing organism.” [Ranganathan, the fifth of “Five Laws of Library Science”]
Visit the new website of the Multnomah Law Library for your legal research adventures. Note that Saturday hours have returned, remote and in-library database access is expanding, and the online catalog will earn its keep as a time-saver.
And don’t forget the Oregon legal research databases I featured in last week’s blog posts, from the State Law Library and OSB.
Oregonians Rejoice: EBSCO Legal Information Reference Center has arrived. (Yes, thank the State of Oregon Law Librarian!)
This database contains NOLO Legal information books and much more.
This database is available to all Oregonians. (Other states, public libraries, and law libraries have their own access protocols.)
There is a lot of legal self-help you can do that really is DIY (do it yourself), but if there is a lot of money at stake, property, children, parents, dependents, your credit rating, your reputation, your heirs or inheritance, or anything else that matters to you, please be a smart legal self-helper by doing thorough legal research or consulting a lawyer. (Or both!)
You may need only to consult a lawyer or find one to coach you through your case. And you need to find the right lawyer, so take the time and read about how to find and work with lawyers.
But it’s worth taking the time to find that lawyer. You never know when you might need to consult a lawyer again, on a debt problem, a business start-up, a neighbor dispute, a landlord-tenant problem, an estate plan, or a family legal problem.
From the ABA Journal: “20 apps to help provide easier access to legal help,” by Joe Dysart, April 1, 2015.
Words to the Wise: DIY Lawyering can be risky – and expensive – if you have to pay a lawyer later to fix what you could have done correctly, and cost effectively, from the start. If you need to respond to a summons, draft a lease, a power of attorney, a contract, or a will, or take any legal action that requires you to know not only how to research the law, which rules of procedure to follow, and how the courts interpret the law, please consult an attorney. As a very wise lawyer/librarian says:
“If you read only what is written in the statutes, the cases, and the constitutions you will be absolutely wrong about what the law is.”
From the AALL (American Association of Law Libraries), LISP (Legal Information Services to the Public) special interest section:
“This is a toolkit meant to help public librarians understand the process of legal research, effectively develop and use the information located within their libraries, utilize information located outside their libraries, with the end goal of helping the patron locate the legal information they need ...”
“As Google abandons its past, Internet archivists step in to save our collective memory…“:
Visit the OJD Court Rules website to link to the February 1st, 2015, Supplementary Local Rules
Foreign and international law librarians know things we mere mortals don’t know (yet):
January 27, 2015 by Kelly Buchanan
The Oregon Attorney General’s 2014 Public Records and Meetings Manual is available for viewing and purchase. (The last edition was published in 2011.)
Please visit the ODOJ website for information on downloading and ordering options.
ABA launches online database of collateral consequences for each U.S. jurisdiction
“WASHINGTON , Dec. 16, 2014 — The American Bar Association Criminal Justice Section has completed the National Inventory of the Collateral Consequences of Conviction, an online database that identifies legal restrictions imposed upon individuals convicted of crimes that go beyond any sentence imposed by a court.
Available at www.abacollateralconsequences.org, the database lists federal and state laws and regulations that restrict employment, housing, and education benefits and other opportunities for people with convictions….” [Link to ABA article.]
Oregon Legal Research Blog