Category Archives: Uncategorized

Prepare to Practice: Crash Course on Legal Research

Have a job? Need to brush up on your legal research skills? The Law Library is offering a Crash Course on Legal Research focused on the practice skills you need to get you started on your first assignments. Come by after work for handy tips, expert advice, and useful handouts. 1Ls, 2Ls and recent graduates welcome.  May 15, 5:30 – 7:00 PM in Classroom K of the 198 Building.

Unlimited Summer Access to Lexis Advance

LexisNexis has announced that law students will be allowed unlimited use of their Lexis Advance ID this summer.  For the months of June, July and August, students will be able to use Lexis Advance whether working in a firm, government agency, court, or non-profit organization.  If you’re already a registered Lexis Advance user, you don’t need to do anything else to get summer access. Your current ID is all you need. If you aren’t a registered Lexis Advance user yet (or aren’t sure), contact our Lexis representative, Alicia Luchetti, at alicia.luchetti@lexisnexis.com. 

New and Improved California Legislative History Website

Leginfo.ca.gov has long been a go-to source for free California legislative information, including the legislative calendar, legislative history information, bill updates, as-enacted statutes, and up-to-date California codes.  A new version of the website is now available at http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov.  The new site includes some great new features, including a “Today’s Law as Amended” feature that identifies textual differences between existing law and proposed law, new search functionality for bill and code searches, cross-referencing between code sections and chaptered bills, and an improved bill subscription service that allows you to track bills throughout the legislative session. To date, it only includes bill information since 1999, so to find legislative history information for bills going back to 1993, you’ll need to use the old site.

Learn How to Compile a Federal Legislative History

What’s a committee print? How do I find one?

Join the librarians in classroom 640 on Tuesday, March 5th, from noon to 12:45 PM, as they demonstrate how to compile a federal legislative history. They’ll explain which documents are important in determining legislative intent and show you how to locate them. RSVP to hardcast@uchastings.edu.

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Brown Bag Research Series: Bloomberg Law (Sept. 18)

Join us in the Rusty Dobbs classroom on Tuesday, Sept. 18, from noon to 12:40, for the inaugural program in our Brown Bag Research series! The series will include 40-minute classes on specialized research topics presented by the Law Library throughout the academic year.  This first program will focus on Bloomberg Law, which is positioning itself as a third high-end legal research service beside Westlaw and LexisNexis. Bloomberg Law offers comprehensive legal content, court dockets, SEC filings, and a wealth of current awareness tools, including BNA.  Best of all, it’s free to UC Hastings students and faculty! Come get tips from the UC Hastings librarians on how to use this powerful new tool.  RSVP to hardcast@uchastings.edu. 

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Welcome Class of 2015!

Welcome to UC Hastings! The Law Library staff is eager to help you make your law school experience a success.  Please feel free to drop by the Reference Desk anytime we’re open – we’re happy to answer all your questions concerning library resources and legal research.  As a special service to 1Ls, we will be extending our Reference Desk hours to make ourselves available to you as you research your first LW&R memo.  In addition to our regular Saturday hours, we will be staffing the Reference Desk on two Sundays early in the semester – August 26th and September 2nd – from 11 AM until 7 PM.  Please stop by if you’re having any difficulties with your LW&R assignments.  We can point you to the right resources and show you how to use them.

Also, when you get a chance, check out the First Year Legal Research Resources page on the library’s website.

We look forward to meeting you all!

Westlaw, Lexis, & BloombergLaw Summer Access

WESTLAW:

Current UC Hastings students may register for full Westlaw summer access to support:

  • Summer law school classes
  • Law review and journal work
  • Projects for a professor
  • Moot court
  • Unpaid non-profit public interest internship/externship or pro bono work required for graduation

Your law school password MAY NOT be used for law firms, government agencies, corporations, or any entity that is paying you to conduct research or passing the costs of your research to a third party. If you have questions, contact our Westlaw Representative.

Graduating students’ passwords expire on May 31, 2012, but can be extended for bar preparation.

LEXISNEXIS:

If you have already registered your Lexis Advance password, you don’t need to do anything to continue access over the summer.  If you haven’t registered yet, click here to register.  For summer access to “classic” Lexis, click here.  You may only use Lexis Advance and classic Lexis for education uses, which include:

  • Summer course preparation and assignments
  • Research associated with moot court, law review, or law journal
  • Research associated with pursuing a grant or scholarship
  • Services as a research assistant to a professor, whether paid or unpaid
  • An internship, externship or clinic position for school credit or graduation requirement
  • Study for the bar exam
  • Research skill improvement for educational purposes

See LexisNexis’ Policy on Use of Law School Education IDs for more information, or contact our LexisNexis Representative.  Students and graduates who provide public service, paid or unpaid, for credit or not-for-credit, may apply for the LexisNexis ASPIRE program and gain full access to Lexis Advance.  Contact our LexisNexis Representative for more information.

BLOOMBERGLAW:

There are no restrictions on your BloombergLaw account over the summer.  If your workplace has its own BloombergLaw account, however, you are expected to use it.  To sign up for a BloombergLaw account, just email a request to our BloombergLaw representative, Tracey Broadhead Frith at tbroadheadfr@bloomberg.net.

Trouble Downloading from Westlaw?

Have you had difficulty downloading documents from Westlaw?  When you click on the “Download” icon in the top right corner, does nothing happen?  The security settings on your internet browser probably need to be changed.  Here’s what to do*:

For Internet Explorer

  1. Click on Tools and select Internet Options
  2. Click on the Security Tab
  3. Select Trusted Sites (assuming you’ve added westlaw.com as a trusted site already)
  4. Click on Custom Level
  5. Scroll down to the Scripting section (a little more than 3/4 of the way down the list)
  6. Under Allow Programmatic clipboard access, select enable and click on OK
  7. Click OK, next screen also click OK.

For Mozilla Firefox

  1. Click Tools on the menu bar and select Options.
  2. Click the Content Tab and check the box Block pop-up windows.
  3. Click Exceptions to the right of Block pop-up windows.
  4. Type print.westlaw.com under Address of web site.  Click Allow.
  5. Type web2.westlaw.com under Address of web site.  Click Allow.  Click Close.  Click Okay.

For Google Chrome

  1. Go to Options.
  2. Click the Under the Hood tab.
  3. Click Content settings, select “Pop-Ups”.
  4. Click on Exceptions button and add web2.westlaw.com
  5. Refresh the page

 

*Thank you to the Seattle University Law Library for providing this information!

Reserve a Study Room in the Library

Study rooms are now available in the library for groups of three or more UC Hastings students during exams.   You can reserve a room for your group by following the directions on the SIC office website .

During the exam period, Study Room 412 is available on a first-come-first-served basis when it is not reserved for Dog Therapy sessions.  Dog Therapy sessions are Monday through Friday, 10:30am – Noon and 2:00pm – 3:30pm; Room 412 is cleaned M-F 5:00pm – 5:30pm.