Law Libraries

Dewey B Strategic’s Jean O’Grady leads lawyers through the tech maze (podcast)

Most people see librarians as the quiet personification of technical obsolescence. Jean O’Grady is out to change that. Far from sitting in a dusty room full of outdated books and CD-ROMs and telling visitors to keep quiet, the senior director of research and knowledge at DLA Piper in Washington, D.C.,…

Sep 14, 2016 8:30 AM CDT

Digitization of Harvard case law library will show court patterns and trends

The Harvard Law School library has approximately 40 million pages of case law, which is currently being digitized and scanned so the public can view it for free. It’s the second-largest collection in the country, following the one at the Library of Congress. It includes civil and criminal case law…

Aug 30, 2016 1:15 PM CDT

As governments open access to data, law lags far behind

From municipalities to the White House, governments are launching open data projects—but the judicial branch is falling behind. Such was the opening, frustrated message of “Public Service Legal Technology in the Data.Gov Era,” a Thursday-morning panel at ABA Techshow. Adam Ziegler of Harvard Law School’s Library Innovation Lab hammered home…

Mar 17, 2016 4:30 PM CDT

Job-killing legal technologies? They only look that way

It is stunning how quickly technological advances become a ‘natural’ part of our landscape. In the mid 1990s, Richard Susskind was being labeled “dangerous” and “possibly insane.” His heresy? Susskind suggested that email would become the principal means of communication between lawyers and clients. His detractors asserted that he understood…

Mar 10, 2016 8:30 AM CST

ABA committee recommends tougher, simpler bar passage accreditation standard

An ABA committee has voted to recommend the adoption of a tougher but simpler bar passage requirement in the law school accreditation standards. Under the proposed new standard (PDF), approved Friday by the Section of Legal Education and Admission to the Bar’s Standards Review Committee, a law school would have…

Feb 16, 2016 3:25 PM CST

Outsourcing company will open office in law school library

Suffolk University Law School has found a use for some unused space in its law library. Legal outsourcing company Integreon will create an office there and pay students to work on projects such as due-diligence, e-discovery and document review, contract review and legal spending analytics, according to a story by…

Jan 27, 2016 6:15 AM CST

Former law librarian sues Texas school, alleging racial, gender discrimination

A former law librarian at South Texas College of Law is suing the Houston school for alleged racial and gender discrimination. Joseph Kelly Plumbar, who is black, claims that three white co-workers created a hostile work environment and eventually forced him out of his job, the National Law Journal reports.…

Jan 25, 2016 3:20 PM CST

Yale law librarians dispute ‘wildly erroneous’ claim on Bluebook’s origin

It’s ironic, according to Yale law librarians, that The Bluebook style manual fosters accurate legal citations while the tale of its origin is “wildly erroneous.” The librarians—Fred Shapiro and Julie Graves Krishnaswami—say the style manual can be traced to a citation guide by the Yale Law Journal, not the Harvard…

Dec 8, 2015 11:53 AM CST

ABA committee for third time proposes eliminating ban on academic credit for paid externships

For the third time in less than two years, an ABA committee has proposed lifting the ban in the law school accreditation standards on students receiving academic credit for paid externships. But the Standards Review Committee, which met Friday and Saturday in Atlanta, also agreed to forward such a proposal…

Sep 22, 2015 1:55 PM CDT

Fastcase acquires rival legal-research company Loislaw

Legal research company Fastcase has acquired the competing service Loislaw from Wolters Kluwer. In a Monday post on his blog LawSites, Bob Ambrogi reported that the transaction is an “assets-only deal” that includes the Loislaw brand and website, and will move Loislaw’s subscribers over to Fastcase. According to Ambrogi, Loislaw…

Sep 21, 2015 2:30 PM CDT

EEOC: Female law profs at the University of Denver are underpaid, violating the Equal Pay Act

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has determined that the University of Denver’s Sturm College of Law is violating the Equal Pay Act by paying its female professors less than males. The EEOC threatened suit over the gender pay gap in a letter sent to the university on Friday, report the…

Sep 1, 2015 10:21 AM CDT

Attorneys partner with public libraries to reach underserved clients

Libraries have evolved from their original function as repositories for books into full-fledged community centers. So it's not surprising that libraries have also become impromptu law offices where local residents can have access to legal services in a more convenient, less imposing setting than other book-lined sanctuaries.

Sep 1, 2015 4:45 AM CDT

Indiana Tech Law School denied provisional accreditation

Indiana Tech Law School has been denied its bid for provisional accreditation by the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar. The two-year-old school was notified of the decision Tuesday, according to a statement on the school’s website. The news was also posted (PDF) on the section’s…

Jun 10, 2015 4:30 PM CDT

ABA committee wants to end use of alternative law school admission tests

An ABA committee is recommending the elimination of a rule that allows most law schools to admit up to 10 percent of their entering classes with students who haven’t taken the Law School Admission Test. Barring that, the committee is proposing to make the rule applicable to all schools. The…

May 4, 2015 4:30 PM CDT

Good news for new lawyers: Fewer grads mean better job prospects, report shows

The job outlook for new lawyers is improving, recent figures show. That may have as much to do with fewer law school graduates looking for work than to any actual improvement in the job market for entry-level lawyers. Nearly 60 percent of all 2014 law school graduates were employed in…

Apr 29, 2015 4:30 PM CDT