New Jersey Law Librarians Association (NJLLA)
A Chapter of the American Association of Law Libraries
Robert J. Ambrogi of Law.com’s Law Technology News provides a listing of legal blogs that run the gamut from stylish to substantial. Whether you’re interested in information or entertainment, you’ll likely find yourself adding one of these legal blogs to your RSS feed.
To check out the list, Click Here.
Some notes based on brief examination of New Jersey materials in Bloomberg Law in early August 2010: The Statutes, Pamphlet Laws, N.J.Admin.Code, Court Rules, and Administrative Directives appear to be the same as found in Loislaw. N.J.Admin Code was updated only through the June 7, 2010 N.J.R. Proposed Rulemaking was current through Aug.2, 2010, but without N.J.R. citations. Case law appears complete and current as to published cases, but there are very few unpublished opinions. The Bloomberg Law Digest, still under development, is heavily based on New York and federal cases; I could find only a few dozen New Jersey cases included in it. Out of a sample of twelve cases with negative treatment noted in Shepard’s and KeyCite, Bloomberg Law’s BCite noted the negative treatment on only five of them.
The recent Supreme Court and Appellate Division opinions on the New Jersey Judiciary web site, formerly presented on separate pages for the current week and the prior week, are now given on a single page with the opinions of the most recent 10 business days. This page contains published opinions only; the unpublished App.Div. opinions are given on different pages, also with just 10 business days’ opinions.
There is also now a page of Business Related Opinions, with selected opinions, both published and unpublished, from all three levels of courts, on business and contract disputes, business governance, and other business topics. These opinions are maintained for just six months.
Each week at a large East Coast law firm, LexisNexis and Westlaw representatives come in for 90 minutes or so to answer questions and let the lawyers and staffers use their research sites for free. “Everyone comes down, bringing all the research work they know their clients won’t pay for,” says the firm’s library director, who asked not to be identified. To her, it’s a simple way to mitigate — but not solve — a thorny problem: Research costs are high, and neither the firm nor many of its clients want to foot the bill. The little work-around isn’t exactly a trade secret. Says the library manager at another firm: “We teach [lawyers] that if it’s nonbillable, and you don’t think you can do it any other way, wait for training.”
For the full story in Law.com, Click Here.
EAGAN, Minn., July 12 /PRNewswire/ — WestlawNext®, the groundbreaking new legal research system from Thomson Reuters, along with WestlawNext Mobile and advanced litigation workflow integration tools are being showcased by Thomson Reuters at the 2010 AALL Annual Meeting and Conference, held July 10-13 in Denver.
To read the press release, Click Here.
The Global Legal Information Catalog includes information about publications which reprint the laws and regulations of multiple jurisdictions on a particular legal topic. The purpose of the database is to provide additional identifying information about titles, beyond that which is provided in the Library’s online catalog. The database works as an interface with the Library of Congress’s online catalog and is searchable by jurisdiction, title, subject and keyword.
To access this new database, Click Here.
Law firm management and attorneys have often overlooked an untapped resource: the library.
Law librarians bring skill, talent, creativity, and nonconventional resources to the firm, all of which greatly assist in serving the needs of clients and the firm. As the legal landscape has changed, by developing innovative ways to find and gather firm intelligence and information, law librarians have kept pace and provided a valuable resource to attorneys.
For the full story in Law.com, Click Here.
Not long ago, the law library was “a place”. It housed printed materials and staff and provided work space for research. Lawyers went there to use books and consult librarians to locate and complete assignments. Today, the notion of a modern law library is very different, shaped by the skills of specialized researchers and information managers rather than by bookshelves and bound volumes.
For the full article in LLRX, Click Here.
For the press release, Click Here.
The American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) has awarded its 2010 New Product of the Year Award to legal publisher Fastcase, Inc. for the company’s free legal research application for the iPhone. The Association will award the prize in Denver during the organization’s 103rd Annual Meeting this month.
For the complete press release, Click Here.