Academic Law Libraries Score High Marks

Oh please
That is what law school is about looking up crap. I didn’t go in the States (Although I’ve read law overseas earned an LLB and been accepted to a local night school deal that will accept 2/3 of my foreign credit- that’s another story.) but it is the same everywhere law school involves a lot of resarch. It really is six months of new info and 1.5 years of rehtoric, and 1 year of research methods. Law school is not any harder than library school. (I wonder why the pay disparity?)

Lets stop looking at law school libraries which are all going to be rated quite well and look at law libraries operated with the public dime. Each Circuit or County has a law library that you can use. It is an amazing place staffed often with skilled librarians (mostly with JDs -the gent near me has an LLM as well.) who can offer guidance but not of course legal advice even though they may be lawyers they are not your lawyer and therefor can’t offer advice.

All State schools offer access to their law libraries after all you paid for it, and some private schools will let non-students use their libraries. However most Courts have their own libary that you can most certainly use because you pay for it.

In the county where I live there are superb self help resources, online access to many databases including LexisNexis, and even free telephone calls. Few people that are not lawyers avail themselves of the law libraries open to them but certainly more should. If not to use the dictionaries, and books containing state and local laws, then for the Martindale directory (well that is online but I live for print).

Sure the libraian can explain what 327 U.S. 106 is or 33 USC 2101, or even 671 P.2d 1085 mean (I pulled those out of thin air but they are some tax case and some maratime law and something permitting a private marina). They have things called 2nd Federal Reporter and Alabama Reporter that are just the most fascinating reading.

I know that most people don’t find law libraries exciting, but randomly grab any reporter and read from where it falls open. It beats any fiction any day because these are real people with real problems.

Use the law library resources that are availble to you, you pay for them. Use the Court’s library, use the taxpayer funded law school libraries, and if you are fortunate enough to be able to use a private school’s library ( including Cornell’s online LII drop them a few dollars when their foundation asks for a donation.

Re:Oh please
You probably went to a better law school than I. It is not that hard though.