On Wednesday, May 26, 2021 (just in time for the start of the summer semester), the Law Library launched its new database list tool aptly titled “Law Library Databases A-Z.”
For the most part, students might not even notice or experience much of a change. The new service should look remarkably familiar for a couple of reasons. Namely, it shares the same platform with the Law Library’s existing Research Guides. Further, the University Library also uses the same tool to host its database list.
As such, we do not expect students to have too many issues accessing the databases they rely on for research. That said, the new platform presents a number of new features and potential integrations with other systems.
The new database list offers a powerful interface to browse, sort, search and share the law library’s licensed databases. Users can still browse databases alphabetically, by subject, access type, and vendor, as well as search the entire collection. We retired the obscure and confusing access codes (GSU, GSR, LL, COL, etc.) for more descriptive access types such as College of Law only, All GSU, and Law Library workstations. Did you really ever know the difference between a GSU and GSR database?
New features include “Popular Law Student Databases” and “New and Trial Databases” lists located on the website’s right rail. These features offer easy access to commonly used law school resources and new library acquisitions, respectively. The new database list also allows for the simple sharing of resources –by this, we mean sharing with yourself for later use or sharing with your fellow students. After each database, there is a share icon that will allow users to email the database name, description, and link to themselves or another user. The “Top Resource” feature allows librarians to tag a database as a preferred or suggested resource and spotlight it in the browsable subject list display. Finally and arguably most important, now that the Law Library’s database list shares a platform with Research Guides, databases can be better leveraged and integrated into the research guides.
This is all good news, but it is somewhat bittersweet sunsetting our old Database List. This was a clever in-house application built by a handful of intelligent people (other than myself). The administrative side of the database list also managed Law Library’s proxy server. Pretty cool, right? While I cannot identify the actual launch date, the Wayback Machine suggests the database list served the College of Law Library and its patrons for at least fifteen years. That is a long life for a web application. So it is with a heavy heart that I say goodbye to the old and hello to the new.
The new database list can be found at https://libguides.law.gsu.edu/az.php. All links on the Law Library webpage will direct researchers to the new service. The look of our research guides and Law Library Databases A-Z may change in the coming months as the Law Library moves to a new website presence more in line with the College of Law’s website. That said, the functionality will remain the same.
Graduation is always an exciting time with much to reflect on: the three-plus years of hard work, the upcoming bar exam (and final part of your journey to becoming a practicing attorney), and many other reflective thoughts. So, as we celebrate in the law library, we want to congratulate all of the graduates on overcoming and achieving an important milestone in your life!
We thank each of you that supported the law library in various ways throughout the years. Whether it was filling out a survey, dropping by the reference desk to check-in, or giving your suggestions to improve student life, it was all appreciated. We also want to especially thank the members of the Law Library Student Advisory Council. The advisory council’s graduating members spent three to four years of their time serving the GSU student community.
The Student Advisory Council started in Spring 2011 to give law students a formal voice in library decisions. We met multiple times each semester and discussed ideas involving the library. These are just a few of the ideas implemented based on feedback from the Advisory Council: installing full-length mirrors in the library’s bathrooms, adding a hot water dispenser, and making the 6th floor of the library the “quiet floor” (and including elevator buttons to indicate as much.)
The following Student Advisory Council members are graduating this year:
Luke Hoover
Ellen Min
Valentina Poe
Maria Tellez (Graduated in December 2020)
Arlissa Williams Jennings
For a list of all of our members, and more information about the council, see our web page.
Graduates, good luck with everything. We wish you much success in the future. Remember that we are always available to assist you, even as practicing members! We’re only a chat or phone call away.
Lexis and Westlaw have historically altered their access policy for students and recent graduates during the summer. The Law Library has recently received an update from both Sue Moore at Westlaw and Brittany Conklin at Lexis. They will provide summer access as described below.
Access and Restrictions for Rising 2Ls and 3Ls
Lexis
Law students will automatically have free unlimited use of their law school Lexis ID this summer. No registration is required.
Westlaw
You do not have to do anything to gain access to Westlaw over the summer. However, there are use restrictions.
You may only use Westlaw over the summer for non-commercial research. You can turn to these resources to gain understanding and build confidence in your research skills, but you cannot use them in situations where you are billing a specific client at a law firm. Examples of permissible uses for your academic password include the following but are not limited to:
Summer coursework or any type of academic research
Research Assistant assignments
Law Review or Journal research
Moot Court or any trial competition research
Non-Profit work
Clinical work
Externship/Internship sponsored by the school
Practicing your research skills
Access for Graduating 3Ls
Lexis
Graduates may access Lexis for free through December 31st, 2021. No registration is required.
Westlaw
You must register for Graduate access.
May 2021 Graduates will see grad access information when they sign on to lawschool.tr.com – their access is “normal” until May 31st. Starting June 1st – November 30th, they will have 60 hours of usage per month for six months. The direct link to extend for grad access is https://lawschool.westlaw.com/authentication/gradelite.
If you have any questions about Westlaw grad access, please email Sue at sue.moore@tr.com.
Another tough semester almost complete! We wanted to remind you of some of the resources available to help you prepare for exams, get research assistance from the librarians, or take a break from studying! As a reminder, we will be open to the GSU Law community for normal Spring 2021 hours through the end of the exam period, May 12th. Keep an eye out on our Facebook and Twitter pages for exam and graduation-related messages and videos.
The Study Aid Finder guide provides easy access to a compilation of digital, physical, and multimedia study aids grouped according to the traditional GSU College of Law curriculum (with recommended electives being subjects tested on the bar exam but are not required subjects of the J.D. curriculum). The current Spring ’21 classes are displayed towards the top of each respective page.
Stress Buster LibGuide:
The Stress Busters guide is available via the private link sent to you in the most recent personal librarian email. We hope that it serves as an outlet during final exams. When you take the time to de-stress, you’ll recharge and be able to focus when you return to your studies. The GSU Law Library has gathered a variety of stress relief activities for you to enjoy.
Pet Pics Display:
Pictures of students, faculty, staff, and their pets are displayed via the private link sent to you in the most recent personal librarian email. Please reach out to us if you need access to it. These images are also being displayed on the law library digital signage. You can still get your pet added to the display by emailing Gerard Fowke at gfowke@gsu.edu.
Blog posts with helpful information from the library to help you with finals, including:
As finals approach, study aids are again in high demand. It’s easy to see why. Although study aids make a poor replacement for casebooks and other required materials, they can be a tremendously helpful tool for exam-prep purposes. They provide concise and highly organized reviews of topics covered in the typical law school course on the subject. The best ones also give students some valuable practice for their analytical skills. But with so many study aids out there, featuring differing formats and uses and often featuring very stark differences in quality, how can you know you’re choosing the best one?
Let’s try to answer this question while looking at a few of the best study aids for this semester’s 1L offerings. We’ll talk about what makes them worthy and how you might use them. This will also give us a nice opportunity to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the various study aid formats and series you’ll encounter.
The E&E series provides an accessible course overview while also foregrounding the important skill of legal analysis. It does this by structuring the entire discussion around the titular examples, a format that proves to be especially well-suited for explaining future estates and other similarly knotty concepts from Property Law. Indeed, this title’s analysis of these hypotheticals evokes the common law methods of legal analysis at the heart of this core doctrinal course. This helps to make the supplement truly feel like an extension of the classroom discussion.
The author’s CivPro E&E (online/physical) is an absolute classic, but don’t sleep on this one either. Glannon Guides have a similar focus on analysis and application, but here it’s in the form of multiple-choice questions. After each one, Professor Glannon patiently explains the right (and wrong) answers in conversational prose that helps demystify this oft-convoluted area of law. The overall format works especially well for the more FRCP-driven aspects of Civil Procedure.
Principles of Contract Law (Concise Hornbook Series) (online/physical)
If you’re chiefly after a bird’s eye view of the course, there are many study aids designed with just that in mind. However, in my experience, Nutshells, Short & Happy Guides, and the like don’t provide enough detail or nuance to be truly useful. They can help you learn basic concepts and doctrines quickly, but that’s about it.
The Concise Hornbook Series provides a nice (if less concise) alternative. Like other titles in the series, Principles of Contract Law provides an overview of the major course topics. However, it keeps many of the doctrinal subtleties intact. Believe me, those subtleties will come in quite handy when asked to apply those doctrines to a novel fact pattern on an exam.
Audio study aids like the Sum & Substance series are a convenient resource for busy law students. It’s easy to multitask with these, to simply put them on in the background during a commute or while housekeeping, and efficiently absorb a tidy little overview of one of your law school courses.
Here, Professor Dressler endeavors to be your “tour guide” for Criminal Law, splitting the lectures into a series of audio tracks that are mostly quite short and easy to digest. His overall presentation is a bit dry but always very clear. This study aid is also a solid choice because it makes a great companion for Dressler’s well-regarded hornbook, Understanding Criminal Law (physical).
Summing It Up
My overall advice is to choose study aids that emphasize analysis and application, such as the E&E series and the Glannon Guides. This ensures that you’re practicing the skills that you will be tested on in your exams. Even if you end up opting for a hornbook-style overview, consider supplementing it with some CALI lessons since the included quizzes provide a nice opportunity to test your grasp on the material. There are high-quality lessons covering many of the topics taught in CivPro, Contracts, Criminal Law, and Property.
Thanks to your tech fee funds, Study Aids are more accessible than ever, with most of the major series available for use online through the Wolters Kluwer and West Academic platforms. These resources try to recreate the format and the feel of their print counterparts, making them a breeze to use.
What are your favorite study aids? What do you look for when you’re trying to choose one to prep for an exam? Let us know in the comments!
For C.P.A.’s, accountants, and tax procrastinators of all kinds, April 15 is the anti-holiday of anti-holidays. While the official tax “due date” was recently moved to May 17, April 15 will probably always exist as one of the more dreaded days for Americans. In the spirit of tax day, we here at the Georgia State College of Law Library thought it would be fun, relatively speaking, to give the most basic of basic primers on tax law. Unless you are well versed in tax law, even the lingo can be a little confusing. So, without further ado, let us begin the non-tax person’s primer on tax law research.
Where is it?
The tax code is officially codified in Title 26 of the United States Code, or 26 U.S.C. § 1 et. seq. It spans from 26 U.S.C. §§ 1-9834. While it’s not the longest, and doesn’t contain the most words, 9834 sections is quite lengthy for a title containing only one topic. For comparison, Title 42 – Public Health and Welfare is the longest but includes a number of sub-topics like housing, child welfare, energy, etc[1].
Citation is one point of constant confusion. While you may cite the codification in the U.S. Code, you can also cite the Internal Revenue Code itself. For example, 26 U.S.C. § 1 and I.R.C. § 1 cite to the same text, with the latter being favored by practitioners for brevity.
The tax code also creates and enables many Federal Regulations, Agencies (the I.R.S.), and administrative documents. Title 26 of the Code of Federal Regulations contains most tax regulations. Moreover, the Internal Revenue Service writes a number of advisory documents. These non-binding writings try to offer some interpretation of the tax statutes, regulations, and administrative decisions. While non-binding, they do offer some predictions as to what the I.R.S. might do or how they might interpret certain situations. Most are available on Westlaw, Lexis, or the I.R.S. Website. The I.R.S. website describes them this way:
“For anyone not familiar with the inner workings of tax administration, the array of I.R.S. guidance may seem, well, a little puzzling at first glance. To take a little of the mystery away, here’s a brief look at … the most common forms of guidance.
In its role in administering the tax laws enacted by the Congress, the I.R.S. must take the specifics of these laws and translate them into detailed regulations, rules and procedures. The Office of Chief Counsel fills this crucial role by producing several different kinds of documents and publications that provide guidance to taxpayers, firms and charitable groups.”
Some of the most common guidance documents are: [2]
Revenue Ruling
An official interpretation by the I.R.S. of the Internal Revenue Code, related statutes, tax treaties and regulations. It is the conclusion of the I.R.S. on how the law is applied to a specific set of facts.
Revenue Procedure
An official statement of a procedure that affects the rights or duties of taxpayers or other members of the public under the Internal Revenue Code, related statutes, tax treaties and regulations and that should be a matter of public knowledge. While a revenue ruling generally states an I.R.S. position, a revenue procedure provides return filing or other instructions concerning an I.R.S. position
Private Letter Ruling
A written statement issued to a taxpayer that interprets and applies tax laws to the taxpayer’s specific set of facts. A PLR is issued to establish with certainty the federal tax consequences of a particular transaction before the transaction is consummated or before the taxpayer’s return is filed.
Technical Advice Memorandum
Guidance furnished by the Office of Chief Counsel upon the request of an I.R.S. director or an area director, appeals, in response to technical or procedural questions that develop during a proceeding. Technical Advice Memoranda are issued only on closed transactions and provide the interpretation of proper application of tax laws, tax treaties, regulations, revenue rulings or other precedents. The advice rendered represents a final determination of the position of the I.R.S., but only with respect to the specific issue in the specific case in which the advice is issued. Technical Advice Memoranda are generally made public after all information has been removed that could identify the taxpayer whose circumstances triggered a specific memorandum.
Notice
A public pronouncement that may contain guidance that involves substantive interpretations of the Internal Revenue Code or other provisions of the law. For example, notices can be used to relate what regulations will say in situations where the regulations may not be published in the immediate future.
Announcement
An announcement is a public pronouncement that has only immediate or short-term value. For example, announcements can be used to summarize the law or regulations without making any substantive interpretation; to state what regulations will say when they are certain to be published in the immediate future; or to notify taxpayers of the existence of an approaching deadline.
Quick Federal Tax Research Tips
While navigating the seemingly endless statutes, regulations, cases, and guidance documents may seem impossible, there are sources available here at Georgia State that can help make quick sense of your tax law research question. In particular, they allow you to do three main tasks: Research by I.R.C. citation, research by tax topic, and quickly pull I.R.S. guidance documents.
Research by I.R.C. Citation
This method works exactly like it sounds – If you have an I.R.C. citation, you can find associated secondary material, editorial content, and plain language explanations about the topics contained in this citation. Historically, several sources have been organized around the I.R.C., but maybe the easiest for GSU students is United States Tax Reporter by R.I.A. in Westlaw. If you have a citation, say I.R.C. § 1, all you have to do is open the corresponding dropdown menu, find the section, and the reporter will provide you with the text of the section, historical context, legislative history material, and editorial analysis.
Research by Tax Topic
If you don’t already know the I.R.C. code section dealing with your issue, you can also research by topic using the Lexis Tax Advisor. You can search the entire publication, but the most powerful tool is the index. Not only can you find the topic you’re looking for, it will also give you some ideas for other sub-topics. For instance, if you’re looking for information on accounting standards and look up “accounting,” you’ll see that one of the sub-topics is S Corporations. A novice researcher may not have known that S corporations have their own unique tax accounting topics, but by using the index, they can discover these types of things.
Retrieving Advisory Documents
Finally, the Westlaw Tax Find and Keycite page will allow you to retrieve the guidance documents listed above. Just visit the page, select “rulings and releases,” choose the document you’re looking for, and enter the numeric part of the citation. It’s as easy as that.
Conclusion
While tax is often seen as one of the more challenging law school classes, tax research is surprisingly accessible because of the powerful research tools made available to tax students and practitioners alike. So long as you have a topic, I.R.C. section, or guidance document citation, you should be able to quickly and efficiently use the tools above to get started on your research. Also, remember, if you run into difficulties, never hesitate to reach out to the librarians here at the Georgia State College of Law Library. We’re available by our individual emails, the reference email address lawreference@gsu.edu, or by our reference chat available at http://lawlibrary.gsu.edu .
During the spring and fall semesters of this year, we are highlighting our Personal Librarian program by featuring one of our Law Librarians.
The Personal Librarian program is another way that the GSU Law Library connects to students. In this program, students are paired with a Librarian, and through communications, they stay up to date on library services and ask questions that they may have during their time at the Georgia State University College of Law.
This month we are featuring Meg Butler, our Associate Director for Public Services. She has been at the GSU Law Library for 10 years!
The following is a little Q&A from Meg:
What do you do? In the library, I am the Associate Director for Public Services, and that means that I work to make sure that the library is doing what it needs to do to fulfill the needs of our patrons–faculty, students, and citizens.
Did you always want to be a librarian? Sometimes. When I was little, in elementary school, I “worked” in the library. And middle school. And high school. And somehow I didn’t manage to become a professional librarian until later.
Favorite movie? This is a very difficult question to answer. I have enjoyed a bunch of serious movies. But the movies that I love to watch over and over again are Addams Family Values and The Pirate Movie. I like them because they make me laugh.
Favorite legal resource? The Bluebook. Who doesn’t love something so easy to complain about?
Favorite place in Atlanta? I enjoy working in my front yard. So maybe my front yard? I can chat with neighbors, enjoy the weather, and watch my kids ride bikes or scooters.
You can learn more things about Meg, like her favorite class and lunch spot near the law school, as well as about the personal librarian program at this link.
Friday, March 19, the Chief Justice’s Commission on Professionalism presented The Necessity of Unparalleled Unity, a program focusing on the ways that attorneys can serve the public and the common good by using the tools of professionalism and “lead our fellow Americans in bridging our divisions despite our differences” (Program Materials, p. 1).
The panelists represented a variety of perspectives and experiences, including judges and practicing attorneys with significant leadership experience. The panelists shared their thoughts and suggestions for attorneys to build bridges. Several panelists commented upon the need to build connection by developing relationships—talking and listening (not just waiting to talk again) with each other.
If you missed the program—moderated by Professor Tanya Washington—and wish to learn more, you may visit the website and read the speakers’ prepared materials, related articles from the August 2020 Georgia Bar Journal issue addressing the subject, and also review materials related to the Chief Justice’s Commission on Professionalism.
Several speakers recommended books that are available in the law library. Here are their suggestions. Books may be available as ebooks through GSU Libraries, as indicated below. Some are available for delivery to the College of Law to GSU students, faculty, and staff who log in to their library accounts and request the items, as described below.
If you want to read any of these books, you can sign in to your library account (there is a link on the upper right). If you want to request delivery of the print version, you can select delivery to the library of your choice and either pick it up in person from the law library or arrange for curbside Express Pickup from one of the other university libraries.
Law schools across the country have responded to the mass protests of the past year with renewed efforts to better integrate issues of race and racism into the law school curriculum. To this end, the GSU College of Law Library has published Racial Justice Resources, a new research guide dedicated to furthering discussions of race in the law school classroom.
GSU Law’s Center for Access to Justice worked with the law library to create this valuable resource. It is meant to help law faculty incorporate race into their teaching, filling a major gap in legal education. As A2J Assistant Director Darcy Meals explained, “law faculty are often race-avoidant in teaching, despite the role race has played in the construction and maintenance of the legal system in the United States.” By placing materials that highlight this critical role at their fingertips, the guide encourages faculty to engage students in conversations about race across the law school curriculum.
So far, it appears to be succeeding in this endeavor. In a short period of time, Racial Justice Resources has become one of the law library’s most frequently used research guides. Law faculty across the country have also praised the guide. Writing for the Best Practices for Legal Education blog, Penn State Professor of Clinical Law Jill Engle called it “a true gem” and described how the guide introduced her to materials that facilitated the creation of a popular new course.
The guide collects a wide range of resources that address race and legal pedagogy. They fit into two overarching categories, one focused on specific courses and the other on anti-racism materials with more general applicability. Within each category, the guide offers a curated list of teaching guides, podcasts, legal scholarship, and more. And whether it’s a scholarly article that develops a pedagogical framework, an assessment tool that gauges implicit bias, or a seminal essay that shaped the zeitgeist, each resource was specifically chosen for its capacity to help law faculty incorporate issues of race and racism into their courses.
While the guide is primarily designed for law teachers, other audiences will also find that it contains much that is of interest. For some researchers, the guide’s practical orientation will complement other resources dedicated to specific schools, theories, and ideas. For law students, in particular, the materials could broaden their understanding of how race has shaped the legal doctrines they are learning, preparing them for their role in these important classroom conversations.
If you want to know the story of a case, the best place to start is with the case docket. It is a chronological listing of all the events in a case, including filings and proceedings. E-filing makes it even easier for attorneys and others to access and monitor dockets.
The information in dockets is useful to attorneys for a bunch of reasons. Attorneys may review filings to review underlying documents that other attorneys have filed. These may be helpful in drafting their own filings. They may also help attorneys evaluate the arguments to make before judges.
Georgia is a super special place for docket searching. Dockets are maintained by the courts, which means that each court in Georgia—and remember, we have 159 counties each with their own trial courts—has its own docket system.
PeachCourt, a portal for civil and criminal e-filing documents, allows for searching multiple Georgia counties at once. Even non-attorneys can search in PeachCourt. You do need to create an account in order to search the dockets for the participating courts.
Unfortunately, not all metro-Atlanta counties participate in PeachCourt. To be sure that you’re checking all the places you mean to check, it’s worth verifying whether PeachCourt coverage includes the court you’re interested in searching by checking the map of courts they serve. If you’re interested in Gwinnett County trial court docket information, for example, you would need to separately check the Clerk of Superior, State, Magistrate, & Juvenile Courts County of Gwinnett website and follow the instructions to search.
The Court of Appeals of Georgia and the Supreme Court of Georgia each make some of their own docket information available. The Court of Appeals provides a search tool that can be searched by party name or by docket number. Their system does not include the Emergency Motions docket. Although the docket information retrieves some cases docketed with the Court of Appeals of Georgia as early as 1999, the final decisions are only available from more recent opinions.
The Supreme Court of Georgia also uses a computerized docketing system, and it can be searched by the Supreme Court case number, attorney name, or party name. Interesting, you can see from the docket number of Supreme Court cases an indication of the type of matter being appealed. If you want to see whether an attorney has had recent cases before the Supreme Court of Georgia, it’s really easy to do an attorney name search.
If you have questions about docket searching, please chat with us from the library home page. We are happy to help!
The Blackacre Times 
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