BLS Library Blog

The library has recently added a helpful research resource that BLS alumni can use: Westlaw Patron Access. This is a version of Westlaw that can be accessed on one of the computer terminals located past the circulation desk on the library’s first floor. There are two adjoining terminals, and the one with Westlaw Patron Access is on the right side. 

Westlaw Patron Access includes many resources that could be useful to practitioners, including both federal and state case law (with KeyCite), and federal and state statutes and regulations. In addition to primary law, users can access a wealth of secondary sources such as:

General Secondary Sources

• American Law Reports
• Restatements of the Law
• American Jurisprudence 
• Law Reviews and Journals
• 50 State Surveys 

New York Secondary Sources

• New York Jurisprudence
• NY Practice Series 
• Carmody-Wait 2d NY Practice with Forms
• Siegel’s New York Practice

Secondary Sources by Practice Area

Many areas of law are covered, with the following being just a few examples:

• Employment Law
• Immigration Law
• Securities Law
• Criminal Law

A few tips for users of the Westlaw Patron Access terminal: 

• User Guide & Training Videos: A laminated print copy of the user guide to Westlaw Patron Access can be found next to the terminal. A pdf of the guide is also saved on the computer terminal, next to the icon used for access. In addition, you can find Westlaw’s training videos and materials for Westlaw Patron Access here.

• Navigation to Secondary Sources:  Westlaw Patron Access includes access to many secondary sources. If you are looking for secondary sources in a particular area of law, we suggest navigating first to the link for secondary sources and then to the topic of interest (e.g. immigration law). We have found that this order of navigation may provide more results than clicking on the area of law first and then trying to find secondary sources within that field. 

• “Out of Plan” Resources: Please note that some of the resources listed in the Westlaw Patron Access interface may not be available to our patrons. Typically there will be an “Out of Plan” notation for such resources.  

• Saving Your Results:  You can email documents to yourself, or download them if you bring your own USB drive. At this time, there is no option to print from the terminal. 

• Privacy and Confidentiality:  Be sure to sign off when you have finished your session by navigating to the user icon, and clicking on the “Sign Off” tab (see screenshot below). Doing so will delete your search history and results, and ensure privacy and confidentiality. 

BLS Library may limit the amount of time a patron uses the terminal, at our discretion. Our current policy is that use of the Westlaw Patron Access terminal is limited to 30 minutes if another user is waiting.

The Westlaw Patron Access Terminal is not the only dedicated research platform available to alumni. BLS alumni are also welcome to use the library’s Bloomberg Terminal for their research needs. The Bloomberg Terminal is located in the library’s cellar, immediately to the left of the entrance doors when entering the International Collection.  

The Bloomberg Terminal has a wealth of real-time and historical financial data on companies and markets worldwide. News articles and analytics can also be accessed on the terminal. For new users, the Bloomberg YouTube channel includes many training videos, and there is also a print guide designed to help new users of the terminal in an academic setting. If you wish to access the Bloomberg Terminal at BLS Library, stop by the circulation desk to obtain the username and password for our account.  

If you have any questions about these terminals, please let a librarian know at askthelibrary@brooklaw.edu  BLS alumni, we hope to see you at the library making use of these helpful research resources! 

If you use Google Scholar for research, you may have noticed that not all materials in your search results are freely available online – you might frequently hit paywalls or only have access to a portion of a resource you need. However, Google Scholar also allows you to link BLS Library's electronic resources, so that our full-text materials will display in your search results. No more frustrating research dead ends!

Follow these steps to link Google Scholar to BLS Library:

1. Navigate to https://scholar.google.com.
2. From the menu bar (three horizontal lines) in the upper left corner, select Settings.
3. Click Library links.
4. In the search bar, type Brooklyn Law School, then click the blue magnifying glass.
5. Tick the box next to Brooklyn Law School, then click Save.

To view full-text materials from BLS Library, click any hyperlink that reads “Full-Text @ BLS Library”.

Please reach out to hannah.freeman@brooklaw.edu if you run into any issues. Happy searching!

If you want to say hello while fixing a pumpkin spice coffee, register for prizes, learn about free newspaper subscriptions and/or need help with research: visit BLS librarians and vendor representatives at today's LIBRARYFEST!    

Occurred on December 5 @ 12 pm

We understand that some students will be working remotely during the BLS Winter Recess (Dec. 22 – Jan. 2). We recorded our BLS Library presentation on how to prepare to access digital books, encyclopedias and databases from remote locations. The recording of this presentation is now available in Canvas (within BLSConnect). The Canvas “course” is: Librarians’ Research Presentations > see module: Material From Librarians’ Alcove Academy Presentations > click link: Librarians’ Presentation: “Preparing for Remote Research During Winter Recess.” A key point was: email: askthelibrary@brooklaw.edu or text: (718) 734-2432 soon for help identifying and collecting sources to use during Winter Recess.

During the presentation, we noted that there is now a new BLS research guide: Constitutional Law Research. We recently enhanced the guide: United States Supreme Court Research. We also stated that during the next month, librarians and Library Fellows will be editing guides that support spring 2024 courses, such as Animal Law and Researching Mass Incarceration and Prison Abolition.

Thank you to those who attended! We always appreciate your feedback on the library/our services, and we look forward to providing you with research suggestions.

Featuring: BLS Book Talk/Discussion (Oct. 30 @ 6 pm) & New BLS Library Display

The American Law Institute describes itself as “the leading independent organization in the United States producing scholarly work to clarify, modernize, and improve the law.” From the bedrock Restatements on contracts, property and torts to the influential Uniform Commercial Code to the current project on Children and the Law, ALI’s legal experts have crafted (and continue to develop) key documents to aid courts, legislatures, agencies and law teachers/students. As ALI celebrates one hundred years of codifying and developing law, BLS librarians are proud to note that ALI’s history is Brooklyn Law School’s history. Many BLS current and emeritus faculty are ALI members: William D. Araiza, Miriam H. Baer (Vice-Dean), Anita Bernstein, Dana Brakman Reiser, Neil B. Cohen, James A. Fanto, Marsha Garrison, Andrew Gold, William E. Hellerstein, Alexis J. Hoag-Fordjour, Edward J. Janger, Beryl R. Jones-Woodin, Roberta S. Karmel, Brian A. Lee, David D. Meyer (President and Dean), Samuel K. Murumba, Norman S. Poser, David Reiss, Alice Ristroph, Elizabeth M. Schneider, Winnie F. Taylor, Aaron D. Twerski and Joan G. Wexler (Dean and President Emerita). We invite you to view a display highlighting ALI and BLS faculty’s work on noted ALI texts and projects in the third-floor Nash reading room.

BLS patrons also can review the texts featured in this display through HeinOnline’s American Law Institute Library (a subscription database accessible on campus through the BLS network or off campus through a web browser that communicates with the BLS proxy server). 

On Monday at 6 pm, BLS Professor Andrew Gold and his co-editor Robert W. Gordon (Professor of Law Emeritus, Stanford Law School) will lead a book talk and discussion in the BLS Subotnick Center on their new work: The American Law Institute: A Centennial History. As noted in its introduction, this book is a collection of essays on certain ALI undertakings. Essay authors include a number of current and former Reporters involved in Restatement projects. The chapters raise questions like: What does it really mean to “restate” the law? How does a Restatement change the direction of law? Chapter 5 has the intriguing title: “Canon and Fireworks: Reliance in the Restatements of Contracts and Reliance on Them.” BLS patrons can access a digital version of this book on campus or off campus through the BLS proxy server.

Check out their new books on the first floor of Brooklyn Law School Library.

Brooklyn Law School Library is featuring our faculty’s new books in a rotating display at the first-floor circulation desk. All of these books are available for BLS patrons to check out. Many of these sources also are accessible digitally. 

The first display showcases (in alphabetical order by author):

Miriam Baer, Vice Dean and Centennial Professor of Law, author of: 

Myths and Misunderstandings in White-Collar Crime (Cambridge University Press, 2023) 

For digital access, click: here > in the library’s catalog record, click: ACCESS ONLINE VERSION – CAMBRIDGE. Remote access requires implementation of the BLS proxy server instructions. Call number and location of the circulating print copies: KF9350 .B34 2023 in cellar-level Main collection. Also, there is a copy on first-floor Reserve. 

Upcoming event: Book discussion featuring Vice Dean Baer – more details coming soon. 

Date/location: Oct. 17, 2023, Brooklyn Law School, 250 Joralemon Street, Brooklyn NY

Cambridge University Press book description:

“Myths and Misunderstandings in White Collar Crime uses real world examples to explore the pathologies that hamper our ability to understand and redress white-collar crime. The book argues that several misinterpretations about white-collar crime continue to impede its enforcement, including: its failure to be classified according to degrees of severity in many jurisdictions; its failure to statutorily parse groups of defendants into major and minor players; and the failure of statutes to effectively define crimes, leading to the prosecution of ‘unwritten’ crimes. Miriam Baer offers a step-by-step framework, informed by theories of institutional design and behavioral psychology, for redressing these misunderstandings through ‘code design,’ or paying greater attention to how we write, frame, and lay out our federal criminal code, as a roadmap to more coherent and useful laws. A clearer, subdivided criminal code paves the way for a discussion of white-collar crime unmarred by myths and misunderstandings.”

Andrew Gold, Professor of Law and Associate Director of the Center for the Study of Business Law and Regulation, co-editor (with Robert Gordon) of: 

The American Law Institute: A Centennial History (Oxford University Press, 2023) 

For digital access, click: here > in the library’s catalog record, click: ACCESS ONLINE VERSION – OXFORD. Remote access requires implementation of the BLS proxy server instructions. Call number and location of the circulating print copy: KF294.A5 A513 2023 in cellar-level Main collection. 

Related discussion of select topics in this book, featuring Professor Gold on this panel: 100th Anniversary Program: The American Law Institute – A Centennial History, 2023 Annual Meeting

Oxford University Press book abstract:

“This book collects together a series of original essays in honor of the American Law Institute’s (ALI’s) Centennial. The essays are authored by leading experts in their fields, often including current and former Restatement Reporters. The essays also provide a wide range of perspectives on both methodology and the law. The volume coverage focuses on specific ALI undertakings, including some of the more important Restatements and Codes; several leading Principles projects; statutory projects such as the Model Penal Code and the Uniform Commercial Code; themes that cut across substantive fields of law (such as Restatements and codification or Restatements and the common law); and the ALI’s institutional history over the past century. The resulting book is a unique and compelling contribution to its fields of study.”

Coming in October 2023: A BLS Library display commemorating American Law Institute’s 100th year anniversary and highlighting BLS faculty’s key contributions to ALI’s Projects.

Susan Herman, Centennial Professor of Law and former President of the American Civil Liberties Union, author of: 

Advanced Introduction to US Civil Liberties (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2023) 

Call number and location of the circulating print copy: JC599.U5 H47 2023 in cellar-level Main collection. Also, there is a copy on first-floor Reserve. 

Upcoming event: Civil Liberties: The Next Hundred Years (in-person/virtual (via Zoom) panel discussion featuring Professor Herman and other civil libertarians) 

Date/time/location: Oct. 13, 2023, 5:00 pm ET, Brooklyn Law School, Subotnick Center, 250 Joralemon Street, Brooklyn NY

Edward Elgar Publishing book description: 

“This insightful Advanced Introduction provides a kaleidoscopic overview of key US civil liberties, including freedom of speech, press, assembly, and religion, limitations on search and seizure, due process in criminal proceedings, autonomy rights, rights of equality, and democratic participation.” 

Jocelyn Simonson, Professor of Law and Associate Dean for Research and Scholarship, author of: 

Radical Acts of Justice: How Ordinary People are Dismantling Incarceration (The New Press, 2023) 

For digital access, click: here > in the library’s catalog record, click: ACCESS ONLINE VERSION – EBSCO. Remote access requires implementation of the BLS proxy server instructions. Call number and location of the circulating print book: KF9632 .S56 2023 in cellar-level Main collection. Also, there is a copy on first-floor Reserve.

Upcoming event: Jocelyn Simonson on Radical Acts of Justice at the Center for Brooklyn History

Date/time/location: Oct. 23, 2023, 6:30 pm ET, Center for Brooklyn History, 128 Pierrepont Street, Brooklyn NY

The New Press book description: 

“From reading books on mass incarceration, one might conclude that the way out of our overly punitive, racially disparate criminal system is to put things in the hands of experts, technocrats able to think their way out of the problem. But, as Jocelyn Simonson points out in her groundbreaking new book, the problems posed by the American carceral state are not just technical puzzles; they present profound moral questions for our time.

Radical Acts of Justice tells the stories of ordinary people joining together in collective acts of resistance: paying bail for a stranger, using social media to let the public know what everyday courtroom proceedings are like, making a video about someone’s life for a criminal court judge, presenting a budget proposal to the city council. When people join together to contest received ideas of justice and safety, they challenge the ideas that prosecutions and prisons make us safer; that public officials charged with maintaining “law and order” are carrying out the will of the people; and that justice requires putting people in cages. Through collective action, these groups live out new and more radical ideas of what justice can look like.

In a book that will be essential reading for those who believe our current systems of policing, criminal law, and prisons are untenable, Jocelyn Simonson shows how to shift power away from the elite actors at the front of the courtroom and toward the swelling collective in the back.”

Feel free to email askthelibrary@brooklaw.edu, text (718) 734-2432, or visit the circulation desk for help accessing these new books.

BLS librarians have created 40+ publicly-accessible legal research guides. Tips: A BLS student can email askthelibrary@brooklaw.edu, text (718) 734-2432 or chat with us for help determining whether there is a guide to support research on a specific topic. Off-campus use of many subscription databases described in BLS research guides requires implementation of the BLS proxy server instructions.

Also, your librarians serve as liaisons to the BLS full-time faculty–we can tell you which librarian works most closely with a particular professor. A librarian liaison might have created research links in the Canvas page for a paper-writing course or other material to support students’ research. Note: BLS librarians can highlight resources to support any type of law student paper, article or presentation.

A useful starting point for many types of paper research is the guide: Selecting & Developing Your Seminar Paper Topic. This guide’s home page includes videos on: selecting/researching a topic; developing a thesis for a seminar paper topic; and avoiding plagiarism. Guide tab: Selecting a Topic links to: indexes of legal blogs; legal news sources; and selected legal journals and newsletters. All of these sources highlight new and developing legal topics. Guide tab: Developing an Argument through Commentary links to both full-text sources of articles and indexes of articles. Guide tab: Developing an Argument through Grey Literature includes sources to find material published by think tanks, NGOs and interested organizations.

Moreover, there are BLS guides to international law research. The broadest two guides are: Paper Topic Selection: International (highlights news/legal news sources) and Paper Topic Development: International (highlights sources of articles and primary law). If you need to find a topic for a “Rule of Law/Law of War” seminar, you could access the Paper Topic Selection guide > tab: Pull-down Menu of News: Specific Topics and choose sub-tab: Law of War. The English Legal Sources guide includes links to newly available resources in Westlaw Edge UK.

Additionally, there are many subject-focused BLS research guides. If you need to develop a topic in the “Art Law” seminar, the Art Law guide > tab: Other Resources links to websites of organizations and the searchable ArThemis database of news/case notes on art and cultural property disputes. If you need to conduct research for the “Topics in White Collar Crime” seminar, you could link to many resources through guide: White Collar Crime Research. If you are writing in the “Civil Practice Workshop,” the New York Civil Practice guide might be helpful. (This is a guide BLS librarians like to highlight to all BLS students who might wish to become litigators.) If you are writing on a tax topic, see: Federal Tax Research Guide and International Tax Research Guide. These guides include instructions to access BLS subscription databases to support tax research.

COMING IN EARLY OCTOBER: A presentation for students on selecting a paper topic and avoiding plagiarism. We will provide the date/time soon!

If you are struggling with selecting a topic, researching that topic, or developing a thesis on that topic, take a deep breath because help is out there. Professor Betsy Fajans and Librarian Kathy Darvil have created online video tutorials on four topics: developing your thesis, plagiarism, selecting a topic, and researching that topic. You can access the videos at guides.brooklaw.edu/seminarpaper.

From the guide’s main page, you can access the video tutorials, Professor Fajans’ slideshow on how to write your seminar paper, and Kathy Darvil’s online presentation on how to research your seminar paper. Also, included on the online guide are descriptions and links to a variety of the library’s resources that can help you either select your paper topic or research it. If you should need further help selecting or researching your topic, please email the reference desk at askthelibrary@brooklaw.edu.

On Thursday January 30, Prof. Fajans and Librarian Kathy Darvil are holding their semi-annual workshop on how to research and write a seminar paper in Room 700. The workshop is from 4-5:30 PM. 

Topics covered include sources for selecting your topic, sources for researching your topic, and strategies for effectively organizing and writing your paper.  If you are unable to attend the workshop, you can access an online research guide which contains a recording of the workshop, links to and descriptions of all the research sources discussed, and the writing and research presentations.  The online guide is available at guides.brooklaw.edu/seminarpaper.  From the guide’s main page, you can access the recording of the presentation, Professor Fajans’ slideshow on how to write your seminar paper, and Kathy Darvil’s online presentation on how to research your seminar paper.  If you should need further help selecting or researching your topic, please stop by the reference desk for assistance.