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What Do The Librarians Use? Reliable Internet Legal Information Resources |
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The law librarians receive patron questions face to face at the reference desk, by telephone, and by e-mail or live internet chat. Not all of these questions require research in the sophisticated subscription databases that are the subject of this month's Law Library News column. Below are some Internet sites that we routinely use to help legal researchers of all stripes find their information in the public domain. You will recognize some of them. We cover several of these sources in depth in our well-attended Legal Research on the Internet class. (3 MCLE credits, Friday, March 9, 2:00 - 5:00.) THE BASICS Case Finding Back to 1850 www.Findlaw.com/cacases/index.html Back to 1934 Courts www.courtinfo.ca.gov/courts/trialcourts Handy directory of links to all the other Superior Courts' websites, their rules, fees, local forms, and any other resources they might provide to the public. Current Codes and Bill Histories Back to 1993 Scroll down to find the inconveniently-placed major links at the bottom of the page. Legislative History http://www.lrihistory.com/internetlinks.htm This commercial website provides practical and insightful free content for the researcher, including a link to archived full-text .PDF files of California's Chapter Laws, Legislative Journals, and Final Histories back to the 1800s. Regulations Vastly improved! Search by topic, citation or agency, or browse. State Government Agencies and Officers http://www.ca.gov/state/portal/myca_homepage.jsp Scroll down the right margin to Quick Hits to find Agency and Staff Directories that provide direct contact numbers. THE PUBLIC These sites may be less well known to the busy professional who has a well-established research path within his or her area of practice. This is the very impressive award-winning section of our state Judicial Branch website. With one click, you can also get it in Spanish. A partnership between Probono.net and state courts, "LawHelp helps low and moderate income people find answers to questions about their legal rights." The content comes in many languages. Users can choose from Legal Research tutorials, links to self-help web-sites, a directory of county law libraries, or they can connect to our Law Librarian chat service. LIBRARIAN'S TOOLS The law librarians review these gold mines of authoritative, practitioner-crafted source materials in order to increase our knowledge base as we work with the public. http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/programs/equ alaccess/ The resources behind the Instructional Materials link provide "basic legal information and explanation about the court processes from several superior courts" that we sometimes consult for information that is transferable to our Sacramento patrons. Membership must be requested and approved to allow entry into the document libraries. A deep well of intelligently designed approaches to helping people help themselves. January/February 2007 |