Library Tips for Solo Practitioners

How law librarians can help your research journey

You did it. Finished law school. Wore your robe, walked the stage, took your diploma with grateful hands. Posed for pictures with classmates, only some of which were silly (the pics, not the classmates).

Prepped like a fiend for the bar exam, then aced it. Got your law license. You’re official. Family expected you to join a big law firm, but you preferred solo practice, so you rented an office. Bought furniture. Hired an assistant. Your website says you specialize in family law and wills and estates, with a little criminal defense thrown in. Now it’s time to be a lawyer.

Just one question: How?

There are lots of resources that can help, of course. One you must not overlook is us librarians. Here are a few ways we can help.

 


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Historical Documents

If you are a connoisseur of Schoolhouse Rock!, then you have seen “I’m Just a Bill,” the cartoon describing the process (Committee➔House➔Senate➔President) by which U.S. laws are created. States have similar processes.

At each stage, documents are generated: reports, transcripts, presentations, bill drafts, and the like. These documents are called legislative history. Harold Leventhal, who served as a judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, once described attorneys’ reliance on legislative history as “the equivalent of entering a crowded cocktail party and looking over the heads of the guests for one’s friends” (a quip that hints at the problems with using this kind of information). Yet they are what attorneys ask me for the most. 

The thing to remember about legislative history is that there is often less of it than you assume. The U.S. Congress is diligent about documenting its actions. The Congressional Record, for instance, is a transcript of the daily goings-on in both the House and Senate. You can read it and know most of what was said in the chambers.

States publish the same sort of record, but they may be summaries, not word-for-word accounts. Same with the records of committee meetings. Most states now live stream such meetings, but the archived video and audio might not be available online, forcing researchers to rely on the written minutes, which, again, might not be transcripts.

This is where a librarian can help. For instance, in my state, North Carolina, we don’t publish meeting audio online, but we can deliver it to requesters on demand.

Attorneys who are litigators — i.e., who often try cases in court — may also want copies of documents filed in other, similar lawsuits. They use these documents to stay abreast in their field, to study the inclinations of certain judges, or to help them draft their own documents.

Again, states have differing abilities when making such documents available, and a call to a librarian can save you a lot of time and effort. We often have relationships with courthouse staff and can get copies of documents pretty easily. We also know where you might find documents online, such as this collection of North Carolina Supreme Court and Court of Appeals filings.

 


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Legal Research Databases

Being fresh out of law school, you are no doubt comfortable with using legal research services such as Westlaw and LexisNexis. Your law school passwords no longer work, so you decide to subscribe to one or both of these services for your budding business.

When you see what a subscription can cost for even a solo practitioner, however, you realize you need an alternative.

If you work near a public law library, you’re in luck, as these tend to offer scaled-down versions of Westlaw or Lexis to attorneys for a small fee (or maybe no fee). As such libraries are vanishing, however, you might need to keep looking.

Another option is Fastcase, a cheaper tool that can also be used as case management software. Moreover, it has partnerships with a number of state bar associations whose members can use it for free. 

One more is Casetext, which, though now owned by Thomson Reuters, the parent company of Westlaw, is still more cost-effective for solo practitioners.

 


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Public Libraries

I’ve already mentioned that if you have access to that increasingly rare bird — a public law library — you are ahead of the game. Same goes for law school libraries. Those that are not open to the public (this is typical of private universities) may offer access to licensed attorneys. They probably charge a fee for such access, but it will be nominal — a couple hundred dollars a year, at most.

And if you have access to no law library at all . . . you’re still in luck! Regular public libraries often have services that attorneys find valuable, such as medical or business databases. Public libraries can borrow books or retrieve articles (such as those from law journals) from anywhere in the world using interlibrary loan services. Some public libraries even offer free Westlaw access, such as the Cumberland County Library System in Pennsylvania.

Finally, there is the largest law library in the world: the Law Library of Congress. Don’t think that, because it is in Washington, DC, it can’t help you. The library website has a second-to-none collection of legal research guides, which will introduce you to fabulous sources you might not encounter otherwise.

Even better is the library’s Ask a Librarian service, which is the perfect place to start a daunting research project or to get a lead on obscure documents. 

Recently, I asked where I could find the original complaint and a pair of depositions from Island Trees v. Pico, the only school book ban case ever to be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court. I expected to be referred to a particular book or section of a database. Instead, I received the scanned documents by email.

¡Vivan los bibliotecarios!

 


 

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