BLS Library Blog

In recent years, the Law Library Association of New York (LLAGNY) has focused on developing CLE programming tailored to small and medium-sized law firms, attorney networking groups and solo practitioners. The programs typically include presentations by both a practicing attorney and a research librarian who identifies and discusses important research resources on the chosen topic.

On March 19, 2025, Brooklyn Law School librarian Jean Davis presented in the CLE program 60 Days In: Unpacking the Trump Administration’s Rapid Overhaul of U.S. Immigration Policy and Forecasting the Road Ahead, organized by the "Deliberate Solos" attorney group and LLAGNY. Jean discussed immigration law resources that complemented practitioner Michael Carbone's presentation, including resources on tracking recent executive actions affecting immigration, ICE raids and "know your rights" documents, and litigation challenging recent executive actions of the Trump administration.  

In her presentation, Jean highlighted the work of Professors Faiza Sayed, Stacy Caplow and Susan Hazeldean both as scholars and as directors of BLS clinics. She talked about how BLS students gain invaluable skills through the Safe Harbor Clinic as they help clients in gaining immigration status and in asylum proceedings. She also discussed how BLS students in the LGBTQ Advocacy Clinic assist clients in asylum cases who are escaping from anti-gay or anti-trans persecution in their home countries. Jean’s program bibliography spotlighted a variety of resources on immigration law, many of them freely available, including the scholarship of Professor Maryellen Fullerton.

Participants left the event with helpful information on how to keep abreast of, and respond to the recent rapid changes to immigration law and policy.  If you are looking for guidance with your own immigration law research project, be sure to check out Jean’s immigration law research guide.

What began as a local celebration of Women’s History Week in Santa Rosa, California in 1978, has since evolved into a nationally observed Women’s History Month. The theme for 2025, chosen by the National Women’s History Alliance, is “Moving Forward Together! Women Educating & Inspiring Generations.”  

We would like to highlight the following events and resources at BLS Library in celebration of Women’s History Month:

Alcove Academy - Reading and Research with Jean: Wednesday, March 5, 12:45 pm at the 1st Floor Library Alcove. Join Librarian Jean Davis to explore library resources on gender and the law, that can help with your seminar papers or your submissions to writing competitions. More information about this event below: 

Book Display:  We invite you to explore the array of books on women and the law in our collection, that are on display on the library’s first floor.

Digital Display: Please look through our library’s digital display for Women's History Month at https://guides.brooklaw.edu/digital_book_displays/women_history_month. The display include books by and about members of the BLS community; titles about women judges, law professors and practitioners; and books covering key topics on women and the law. 

Finally, if you are attending the IBL Lecture: Women's Property Rights Under CEDAW on Monday, March 3, at 5:30 PM (Subotnick, 10th Floor), BLS Library has multiple digital copies of the book co-authored by speaker Professor José E. Alvarez. You can access the book at https://sara.brooklaw.edu/cgi-bin/koha/opac-detail.pl?biblionumber=492581 or use the QR code below.

Seeking your next great read?  Convo with thought-provoking authors?  Fun projects and performances for kids?  Grab a “Smashing Pumpkin” from Gregory’s Coffee on Court St. and visit the 2024 Brooklyn Book Festival!  A digital guide to this weeklong Festival (Sept. 22 – 30, 2024) will be available through the free Bloomberg Connects arts and culture app.

Everyone can be a part of Virtual Festival Day on Sunday, Sept. 22, 2024 (noon – 5 pm).  Whether you seek a new food book (panel: Memory & Flavor: An Expansive Vision of Food & Recipe Writing) or a recent book from an international author (program: Who? New! International), there will be a virtual program to engage you.

Brooklyn Law School will host one of the Festival’s Bookend Events on Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2024: Protect Your People: Challenging Mass Incarceration Together (RSVP required for this free event.) 

• This event will highlight the recent book Protect Your People: How Ordinary Families Are Using Participatory Defense to Challenge Mass Incarceration (The New Press, 2024).  

• The event will feature: Raj Jayadev, the book's author and a MacArthur Fellow, Heather Lewis, Executive Director of the Reuniting Family Bail Fund, and Justine “Taz” Moore, Director of Training at the National Council for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls.  These speakers will converse with Brooklyn Law School Professor & Associate Dean Jocelyn Simonson, author of Radical Acts of Justice: How Ordinary People are Dismantling Mass Incarceration (The New Press, 2023). As noted here, this program will highlight “the innovative storytelling techniques of groups of people who have changed the outcomes of criminal cases by intervening collectively through ‘participatory defense.’”  Brooklyn Law School's Center for Criminal Justice is a sponsor of this event.

  • Date & Time: Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2024, 6:00 pm - 7:30 pm  
  • Place:  Brooklyn Law School, 250 Joralemon St., Brooklyn, NY

This Festival’s Children’s Day will be on Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024 from 10 am – 4 pm in Brooklyn Commons (= MetroTech in downtown Brooklyn). 

• Activities will include: 

  • Goosebumps & Beyond: A Spooky Conversation with R.L. Stine

  •  Mad Libs: Graphic Novel Edition!

  • Puppet Making Workshop with writer Vojtěch Mašek

  • A gameshow, Are You Smarter than an Author?, in which participants can test their skills against middle grade novelists.

Festival Day & Literary Marketplace will be on Sunday, Sept. 29, 2024 from 10 am - 6 pm.  It features local, national and international authors, publishers and vendors. Many of these programs will occur in Brooklyn Law School and in our “front yard”: Brooklyn Borough Hall.   Click here to view the many authors participating in Festival Day.  

These are two of many Sept. 29, 2024 Festival Day events that will occur at Brooklyn Law School (w/ links to entries for the authors' books in BLS Library's catalog):  

Dreaming of Freedom: How We Move Beyond an Expanding Police State 

• Brooklyn Book Festival's program description: "With 'robot dogs' at the border, automated surveillance, and arbitrary decisions controlling probation and parole, a system of policing and punishment seems less concerned with fairness or safety than with social control. What does it all have to do with justice?"  Program participants will be: sociologist Ruha Benjamin (author of Imagination: A Manifesto), journalist Ben Austen (Correction: Parole, Prison, and the Possibility of Change), and lawyer and anthropologist Petra Molnar (The Walls Have Eyes: Surviving Migration in the Age of Artificial Intelligence). The moderator will be Vincent Schiraldi, former Probation Commissioner of New York City and author of Mass Supervision: Probation, Parole, and the Illusion of Safety and Freedom. 

  • Date & Time: Sunday, Sept. 29, 2024, 4 pm 
  • Place:  Brooklyn Law School, Moot Court Room, 250 Joralemon St., Brooklyn, NY 

Debt, Solidarity, and Economic Justice presented by Brooklyn Law School 

• Brooklyn Book Festival's program description: "A conversation about the legal, political, and economic forces shaping debt markets and horizons for change and the abolition of debt featuring: Luke Messac (Your Money or Your Life: Debt Collection in American Medicine), Chrystin Ondersma (Dignity Not Debt: An Abolitionist Approach to Economic Justice), Melissa Jacoby (Unjust Debts: How Our Bankruptcy System Makes America More Unequal) and Astra Taylor (co-author of Solidarity: The Past, Present, And Future Of A World-Changing Idea and founder of the Debt Collective).  Moderated by Vijay Raghavan, Associate Professor of Law, Brooklyn Law School."
  • Date & Time: Sunday, Sept. 29, 2024, 5 pm 
  • Place:  Brooklyn Law School, Moot Court Room, 250 Joralemon St., Brooklyn, NY

See you at the Festival!

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.

On September 16, 2018, as part of the Brooklyn Book Festival, C-SPAN’s Book TV came to  the Brooklyn Law School Library.  

Book TV aired from 10 AM to 6 PM from the Phyllis & Bernard Nash ‘66 Reading Room on the third floor of the library, covering eight lively author panels that debated the panelists’ works on immigration, innovation, the squeezing of the middle class, and other timely topics.  BLS Interim Dean Maryellen Fullerton kicked off the programming in the morning, welcoming participants and noting that Brooklyn Law School has long been an integral part of the Brooklyn Book Festival.  The Nash Reading Room was filled to capacity for many of the panels, including War on Truth and Journalism, featuring Linda Greenhouse, April Ryan, and Eli Saslow, and moderated by BLS Professor and President of the ACLU, Susan Herman.  Brooklyn Law School also hosted panels in the student lounge and in Room 401, and an estimated 2,500 visitors came to BLS for the festival. 

Getting to engage with authors while snagging Book TV tote bags and other swag? Not a bad way to spend part of the weekend!

BLS Interim Dean Maryellen Fullerton kicking off Book TV programming 

Capacity crowd in Nash Reading Room for the “War on Truth and Journalism” panel 

Brooklyn Law School booth featured faculty authors like Vice Dean Steven Dean 

“In the Face of Fear” panel Lee Martin, Bernice McFadden, Terry McMillan, & Kevin Holohan in Room 401 

Putting Book TV tote bags to good use 

Brooklyn Law School’s Professor Alex Stein gained appointment to the Israeli Supreme Court. Stein, a foremost expert on torts, medical malpractice, evidence, and general legal theory, was appointed along with Israeli District Court Judge Ofer Grosskopf to fill two open Supreme Court positions that were vacated by retiring justices. Stein’s nomination was unanimously approved by the Judicial Appointments Committee. There are 15 justices on the Israeli Supreme Court.

“Professor Stein is one of the world’s brilliant legal minds,” said Nick Allard, President and Dean of Brooklyn Law School. “In the short time he has been with us, he has made an enormous positive impact on the Brooklyn Law School community—as a teacher, a scholar, and a wonderfully energetic and engaged colleague and friend. We could not be prouder of his well-deserved appointment to the Israeli Supreme Court, where we know he will make important and lasting contributions as a jurist—as he has as a law professor and practicing lawyer.”

Born and raised in the former Soviet Union, Stein immigrated with his parents to Israel, where he finished high school, served in the military, and studied law. Following his marriage, he has lived in the United States for the last 14 years and joined the Law School faculty in 2016. While in the United States, he continued his involvement in the Israeli legal academy and practice. Stein has been recognized as one of the most highly cited scholars in the field of Evidence. His books include An Analytical Approach to Evidence: Text, Cases and Problems, (Call Number KF8935 .A83 2016). The book is a problem-based Evidence casebook that presents the Federal Rules of Evidence in context, illuminates the rules, and provides a fully updated and systematic account of the law. Lively discussion and interesting problems (rather than numerous appellate case excerpts) engage students in understanding the principles, policies, and debates that surround evidence law. He received his law degree from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and his Ph.D. from the University of London.

Listen to this episode on BrooklynWorks. 

Brooklyn Law School Library’s New Books List for November 1, 2017 has 40 print titles and 36 eBook titles. Subjects cover a wide range including Alexander Hamilton, administrative agencies, bar examinations, Christian lawyers, deportation, Donald Trump, Sharia law, technology and the law, and more.

One title stands out: The Introverted Lawyer: A Seven Step Journey Toward Authentically Empowered Advocacy (Call No. KF300.B75 2017) by Heidi K. Brown, Associate Professor of Law and Director of the Legal Writing Program at Brooklyn Law School. The book explains the differences among introversion, shyness, and social anxiety and how each manifest in the legal context. It describes how the extrovert bias in law school and practice detrimentally can impact quiet individuals, fueling enhanced anxiety in a vocation already fraught with mental health issues. It also explores how quiet law students and lawyers offer greatly needed proficiency to the legal profession and presents a seven-step process to help introverted, shy, and socially anxious individuals amplify their authentic lawyer voices, capitalize on their natural strengths, and diminish unwarranted stress.

Professor Brown joins us today in a conversation that describes her journey as an attorney who did not fit the mold of the domineering litigator. She discusses her own introversion and her struggles with shyness and social anxiety. In addition to offering specific techniques for embracing the power of introversion, the episode begins with a frank discussion about depression and goes on to show how even extroverted lawyers can benefit from her tips to the introvert.

Listen to this episode on BrooklynWorks. 

This conversation with Brooklyn Law School Professor David Reiss focuses on his recent article Gorsuch, CFPB and Future of the Administrative State. Prof. Reiss talks about the impact that U.S. Supreme Court nominee Judge Neil Gorsuch would have on the future of administrative law and, in particular, on federal consumer protection enforcement if he is confirmed. Prof. Reiss reviews the case PHH v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau which the United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit decided last year. It is likely the case will be appealed to the Supreme Court. If so, Justice Gorsuch may vote to curtail the independence of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and limit its enforcement powers. More generally, Prof. Reiss believes that, given previous rulings by Judge Gorsuch in cases dealing with administrative law, a Justice Gorsuch will be a skeptic of agency action and will support greater judicial review of agency actions.