Congratulations, you made it! You finished finals, and we, at the Library, hope you are looking forward to your summer employment. This summer, if you need to use Westlaw, Lexis or Bloomberg, you can! Summer access to these platforms is automatic and you can use them for both schoolwork and your summer employment. *There is a caveat for Westlaw. You cannot use Westlaw in situations where you are billing a client. Examples of permissible uses for your academic password include the following:
- Summer coursework
- Research assistant assignments
- Law Review or Journal research
- Moot Court research
- Non-Profit work
- Clinical work
- Externship sponsored by the school
Graduate Access
Graduates have extended access to these platforms for a limited time. You can access Bloomberg Law six months after graduation. As for Lexis, the Graduate Program gives extended access to Lexis+ to spring graduates via their law school IDs through December 31, 2023. This grants them access to the Graduate Home Page and gives them a graduation gift. The transition from a regular law school ID to a graduate ID happens on July 10, 2023. Lastly, because Brooklyn Law School participates in Westlaw’s Grad Elite program, you have access to Westlaw for 18 months after graduation. Listed below are details for how to register for the program and what is included in it.
Westlaw’s Grad Elite Program Details:
You can use Thomson Reuters products, including Westlaw and Practical Law, for 18-months after graduation. Your “Grad Elite” access gives you 60-hours of usage per month, with no restrictions against using them for professional purposes.
These tools include:
- Westlaw
- Practical Law
- Practical Law Connect
- Drafting Assistant Essential
- Doc and Form Builder
- ProView
- West LegalEdCenter -one-year, no CLE
- Knowledge Center eLearnings and Tutorials
YOU MUST OPT IN TO THE GRAD ELITE PROGRAM:
1) Go to www.lawschool.tr.com; Log in; Use the drop-down menu by your name to go to Grad Elite Status
2) Or Click on this link: https://lawschool.westlaw.com/authentication/gradelite
One final resource that recent grads should also check out is the library’s Affordable Legal Resources research guide.
This past January the Library began a library school fellowship program. The fellowship program is designed to provide current library students with opportunities to perform foundational work in public services, reference, archives, and digital collections.
The Brooklyn Law School Fellows this year were Hannah Freeman of Pratt’s School of Information and Grace Wagner Wilson of Long Island University’s Palmer School of Library & Information Science. Hannah and Grace provided invaluable service to the library assisting patrons at the circulation desk and working on special projects. Both Hannah and Grace worked in the archives, which was recently hastily moved to a new space because of a flood. As a result, the collection was in disarray. They restored the library’s archival collection to its original order, making it easily accessible to researchers. In addition, Hannah worked on preserving fragile archival materials and identified future steps the Library can make to ensure the collection is preserved. Lastly, Hannah created a digital collection on the Internet Archives of the law school’s yearbooks. Grace, who previously practiced trusts and estates law, created a detailed research guide on wills, trusts, and estates for Brooklyn Law School students and faculty. The guide identifies casebooks, study aids, treatises, news sources, key primary sources and student writing competitions on wills, trusts and estate law. We thank them both for all their help and are looking forward to continuing this program in September.