Law Library News

Law Library News Archive

May 29, 2006.
Kristy Moon, editor.

• Bridge the Legal Research Gap at UW
• Summer Access to LexisNexis & Westlaw
• Lost & Found
• Blogs, Blogs Everywhere . . . But How Do I Find One on Point?

Bridge the Legal Research Gap at UW

If you’ll be in Seattle this summer, don’t forget to attend the 11^th Annual Bridge the Legal Research Gap. It’s a great way to brush up on your legal research skills and socialize with law students from UW and other schools who’ll be working in Seattle this summer. This is a popular program, so register early.

Summer Access to LexisNexis & Westlaw

Please see the article in the May 15, 2006 Law Library News.

Lost & Found

Did you lose or misplace something in or around Gates Hall?

Then check with the Lost & Found at the Circulation Desk in the Law Library, which is the official collector of unclaimed items for the Law School. After a while, all unclaimed items are taken to the campus-wide Lost & Found located at the Information Desk in the Husky Union Building (HUB) (hours and location at http://depts.washington.edu/sauf/hub/infodesk.php).

Blogs, Blogs Everywhere….But How Do I Find One on Point?

by Jocelyn Kennedy, Law Library Intern

Way back when I started law school (that would be in the early 2000s) legal blogs – also known as "blawgs" - were the wave of the future. Six years later, blawgs (and blogs) are common place.

Legal blogs, like nonlegal blogs, cover a wide spectrum of content. Some blogs are places for displaying a particular point of view (check out Judge Posner’s blog, http://www.becker-posner-blog.com, to read his views on gasoline price spikes). Others serve as resources on current trends in a particular area of law (such as UW Law School’s Trial Ad Notes, http://trialadnotes.blogspot.com, focusing on news items and resources on trial advocacy primarily for Washington State). Blogs can be useful to law students, professors, attorneys, and judges for conducting research, discovering world views, and finding general information.

But how do you find a legal blog that is most helpful for you? I suppose you could Google "legal blog". This will give you about 217,000,000 hits. You could scroll and click through the list and hope to find something useful. In the library world, if you find something on point with that approach, we call that serendipity – but if you don’t find anything, it is just plain frustrating.

Ian Best, a 3L at Ohio State University, created 3L Epiphany as an independent study project. That’s right, he received credit for blogging. To meet the requirements of the independent study, Mr. Best developed a classification system and an index for legal blogs.

At 3L Epiphany, you will find a subject index to legal blogs of all forms and functions. Categories include blogs by legal subject (many are run by lawyers or law firms with a legal practice in that specialty); blogs by jurisdiction; blogs by topics…..the list goes on. Be warned, however, that the index is not comprehensive – with over 200 million Google hits on legal blogs, how could it be?

Blogs come and go (and Ian – like many of you - is graduating any day now). I can’t guarantee that 3L Epiphany will stay active in the future. However, I do believe that, should 3L Epiphany fade away, the index Mr. Best has created will live on. Check out 3L Epiphany at http://3LEpiphany.typepad.com.

3L Epiphany is also a great place for students to explore the world of legal blogging in general. Who knows, you may even decide to start your own blog.

Have a Great Summer!