Here are some suggestions on how to make your trip to the law library for effective and more efficient.<\/p>\n
Bring the paperwork with you.<\/strong><\/p>\n Patrons often come to the library to seek help because they’ve been sued or charged with a crime.\u00a0 When a statute is involved, we really need to know what statute in order to help you.\u00a0 Even if no statute is involved, we need to know what the cause of action is.\u00a0 If you have paperwork, bring it with you.\u00a0 We won’t read every word but it will help if we see precisely what statute or issue is involved.<\/p>\n Spare us the intimate details.<\/strong><\/p>\n Please don’t launch into a detailed story about what someone did to you and why they did it.\u00a0 Just give us the gist of the matter and if we need more information, we’ll ask for it.\u00a0 This is partly to save time but it is also because people tell us some pretty intimate things that we don’t need to know in order to help.\u00a0 I really don’t want to know more about your personal life than I do about my best friend’s!<\/p>\n For example, just tell me that your ex-wife won’t let you see your kids and you want to know what to do about it.\u00a0 I don’t need to know all the details about what a horrible mother your ex-wife is and how nasty her new boyfriend is, and how your ex-mother-in-law hates you.<\/p>\n Also, please try to stay calm while relating your problem.\u00a0 We know these issues can be emotional, but remember that we didn’t have anything to do with the creation of your problem.\u00a0 If you start getting angry or agitated, we will take a step further into professional detachment and probably be less effective in helping you.\u00a0 If you really go over the top, we will have to call for security.<\/p>\n Understand that we can’t give legal advice, even if we’re lawyers.<\/strong><\/p>\n I’m licensed in Maryland and Tennessee, but I work as an academic law librarian in California.\u00a0 I didn’t study California law in my Pennsylvania law school, and I’ve never even taken the California bar, let alone passed it.\u00a0 I haven’t practiced since 1988 and unless you’re dealing with a construction law problem, a real estate development issue, or a matter involving a cable TV franchise contract, your issue is probably something I’ve never handled before.<\/p>\n Most law librarians probably have a history like mine.\u00a0 Some have law degrees; some don’t.\u00a0 Some who have law degrees took and passed a bar exam and were admitted to practice; others did not.\u00a0 Some have experience in practice; some don’t.\u00a0 Our expertise is legal research, not any particular area of the law of the state where we work.<\/p>\n When you ask us a question that we’re not permitted to answer, we will tell you, “I’m sorry, but I can’t give you legal advice.”\u00a0 Your response should not be, “I don’t want legal advice; I just want to know X.”\u00a0 Trust us, we’ve already evaluated your question, and to tell you X would require us to give legal advice.<\/p>\n We can’t tell you what the statute of limitations is for your matter.\u00a0 We can show you how to use the resources so you can try to determine for yourself.\u00a0 We can’t tell you whether the Americans with Disabilities Act applies to your situation.\u00a0 We can get you the Act and help you find secondary sources that might enable you to answer your question.\u00a0 We can’t tell you what document or pleading you need, or tell you which form to use.\u00a0 We can’t tell you how to fill-out a form.<\/p>\n Realize that the court clerk isn’t always right.<\/strong><\/p>\n Patrons frequently tell us that the court clerk’s office told them they could get forms at the law library.\u00a0 That’s both true and not true.<\/p>\n Patrons usually think of a form as something like their tax return.\u00a0 All they have to do is fill in the blanks.\u00a0 Some libraries will have forms like this because they’ve been created by the state court system or some other organization such as legal aid.\u00a0 There might be forms like this for some matters but not for others.\u00a0 We usually won’t have copies of the forms you can take with you.\u00a0 We might have a book with these forms and you can make photocopies.\u00a0 If an outside organization has created forms and helpful information, we might have a packet you can take.\u00a0 (I’m thinking of the useful “simple divorce” packets that we had at the University of Nebraska law library, but they were prepared by a task force that included legal aid and the state court system, if I remember correctly.)<\/p>\n More likely, what we have is “form books.”\u00a0 These are books for lawyers which contain samples of language used in different types of documents.\u00a0 Lawyers use them to piece together a completed document.\u00a0 They have to determine which pieces to use and how to use them.\u00a0 They’re not intended to be used blindly without adjustment.\u00a0 They can get you started and give you a framework that you can work with.\u00a0 I can’t help you pick out the pieces you need and revise them to fit your circumstances.<\/p>\n Please don’t get angry with us because the court clerk told you we would have something that we don’t.<\/p>\n Remember that you might not be our priority.<\/strong><\/p>\n If you go to an academic law library (one that is part of a law school), please remember that our priority is our students and faculty.\u00a0 We often teach, so we might have to leave for class and hand you off to another librarian if one is available.\u00a0 We might have to leave your side while we help students.\u00a0 We’ll give you as much time as we can, but our students, faculty, and preparing for classes are our priorities.<\/p>\n And lastly, some advice from the best law librarian I know, Sharon Blackburn at Texas Tech University School of Law:<\/p>\n Understand that it isn’t easy and it’s going to take some time.<\/strong><\/p>\n Lawyers get college degrees and then spend three years in law school learning substantive and procedural law.\u00a0 Don’t expect to master your problem in mere hours.<\/p>\n Sharon tells the story of a patron who wanted to research federal income tax laws regarding charitable giving.\u00a0 And he wanted it all in 30 minutes!<\/p>\n Don’t wait until the day before your answer is due or the criminal trial is scheduled to come to the law library.\u00a0 If you know what you’re doing, expect to spend hours, if not days, preparing.\u00a0 If you don’t know what you’re doing, plan to spend weeks, if not months.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Here are some suggestions on how to make your trip to the law library for effective and more efficient. Bring the paperwork with you. Patrons often come to the library to seek help because they’ve been sued or charged with a crime.\u00a0 When a statute is involved, we really need to know what statute in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1367,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[900],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-viewpoint"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shlep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shlep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shlep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shlep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1367"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shlep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=669"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shlep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":681,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shlep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669\/revisions\/681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shlep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shlep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shlep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}