Want an early introduction to first-year legal concepts and foundational skills?
The Center for Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction (a law school consortium known as CALI) assembled a free collection of CALI Lessons for pre-law students. Tenured law school professors or other educational experts authored these interactive lessons.
Complete 10 lessons in line with CALI’s guidelines to fulfill the 2023 CALI Summer Challenge, gain skills to enter law school better prepared, and earn an online certificate of completion for your efforts. (The time to complete a lesson varies between 20-45 minutes.)
This new resource highlights current editions of BLS Library’s casebooks, study aids and guides for law school courses and bar exams. It describes sources on: Doing Well & Being Well; Preparing for Law School Exams & Bar Exams;Administrative Law; Civil Practice & Procedure; Conflict of Laws; Constitutional Law; Contracts; Corporations & Other Business Associations; Criminal Law & Procedure; Evidence; Family Law; Professional Responsibility; Property; Sales; Secured Transactions; Torts; & Wills, Trusts & Estates. Sources are categorized by type and are listed “newest to oldest.” The home screen also includes BLS Library’s hours of access for BLS students.
TIPS: Our librarians continue to develop this research guide and Brooklyn Law School Library’s collection. When you access this guide in future, please reload the web page. If you need help accessing e-resources like CALI casebooks/exercises or study aids in the Understanding and Q&A series, please email us at askthelibrary@brooklaw.edu or text us at 718-734-2432.
Current editions of print casebooks adopted by BLS faculty and many print study aids are in BLS Library’s first-floor Reservecollection. Students can request these sources at BLS Library’s first-floor Circulation desk. These sources circulate for two hours. Many sources in BLS Library’s Cellar-level Main collection circulate for the semester.
Good luck completing end-of-term work and preparing for exams!
Questions & Answers, Torts by Prof. Anita Bernstein
In its first-floor Reserve collection, BLS Library provides current editions of casebooks/textbooks that are required for classes. There also are current editions of many treatises, hornbooks and other study aids in the Reserve collection. Note: Study aids are only supplements to required course readings. These print books circulate for two hours. You can search for a specific source by title, author or keywords in SARA catalog. Feel free to email askthelibrary@brooklaw.eduor to text (718) 734-2432 if you have questions about finding or accessing specific sources.
BLS Library’s guide 1L Resources, Tips and Tools highlights 1L casebooks and study aids available through BLS Library in both print and digital formats. The top-level guide tab: 1L Course Study Aids provides a pull-down menu of subjects. Click a subject, like: Civil Procedure. There are “quick links” to boxes highlighting:
Selected CALI Lessons (online lessons on specific legal topics created by law professors/librarians – these lessons include review questions)
Casebooks
Treatises & Hornbooks
Study Aids Containing Multiple-Choice Questions
Additional Study Aids
In the 1L guide, sources in a box appear in reverse chronological order (“newest first”). Guide pages also include a search feature (top right). Recently, vendor EBSCO began supporting BLS Library’s desire to circulate Reserve copies of ebooks for two hours. So, EBSCO ebooks like Mastering Multiple Choice for Federal Civil Procedure and A Short & Happy Guide to Torts circulate for two hours. BLS Library’s e-copies of study aids in the Q&A,Understanding and Gilbert Law Summaries series (available through Lexis Digital Library) circulate for three days.
Additionally, the 1L guide identifies print sources and online tools to support legal research and writing. Top-level guide tab: Research, Writing & Citation provides a pull-down menu of resource pages on:
Legal Research
Legal Writing & Analysis
Legal Citation
Please reload the 1L guide’s web page when you visit this guide – BLS Library frequently adds new sources. Reference librarians are happy to help you identify BLS Library’s sources!
It’s that time of year! As exam season approaches, there are several resources that the library offers to assist you in your studying. The library’s 1L Resources, Tips and Tools: Library Information Guide has links to study aids and other resources to help you succeed on your law school exams. Both 1L and upper-class students may want to check out the Nutshell series of study guides or the Examples & Explanations study guides.
If you are not on campus, you can access several digital resources such as the Lexis Digital Library which includes the Understanding study aid series. As you can see below, this series contains study aids for both first year and upper-level courses.
Keep in mind, that if you want to access digital resources off-campus, you will need to install the proxy server. If you would like to study in the library, you will need to reserve a seat beforehand. Remember that you will need to submit a negative COVID test and abide by the law school’s safety procedures in order to enter and use the library.
Finally, if you have any questions, please reach out to us at askthelibrary@brooklaw.edu or use the chat feature on the library’s homepage.
If you are writing a note, seminar paper, or you are interested in a particular area of law, you will want to be apprised of the latest publications on that topic. An easy way to stay up-to-date on new journal articles is to set up an alert that will inform you of any new publications in the topic areas of your choice.
HeinOnline recently introduced SmartCILP, a weekly publication that alerts you to the latest articles indexed in the Current Index of Legal Periodicals, also known as CILP. CILP indexes by subject heading, the most recent issues of primarily American law journals and includes more than 650 legal publications organized within 104 relevant subject headings. The University of Washington Marian Gould Gallagher Law Library has maintained CILP and sent out weekly updates to subscribers for nearly 90 years. Now users can subscribe directly to these updates through HeinOnline.
Then, enter a BLS email address, and choose the topics, subjects and/or specific legal journals of interest. Remember that if you are off-campus, you will need to have the proxy installed (https://www.brooklaw.edu/Library/Proxy-Server).
Note that you likely would receive your first SmartCILP email on a Monday. This email could be caught in Mimecast, so please check Mimecast and click “Permit” to allow future SmartCILP notifications to appear in your “Inbox.”If you have any problems or questions, email askthelibrary@brooklaw.edu.
It’s that time of year! As exam season approaches, there are several resources that the library offers to assist you in your studying. The library’s 1L Resources, Tips and Tools: Library Information Guide has links to study aids and other resources to help you succeed on your law school exams. For upper-level students, the library has created several research guides to aid you in your research: Library Research Guides.
If you are not on campus, you can access several digital resources such as the Lexis Digital Library which includes the Understanding study aid series in first year and upper level courses.
To access digital resources off-campus, make sure you install the proxy server. If you would like to study in the library, you will need to reserve a seat beforehand. Remember that you will need to submit a negative COVID test and abide by the law school’s safety procedures in order to enter and use the library.
Finally, if you have any questions, please reach out to us at askthelibrary@brooklaw.edu or use the chat feature on the library’s homepage.
Stay safe this holiday season and good luck with the remainder of the semester!
Need a little extra help with your classes? The library has a robust collection of study aids to assist with your mid-semester cramming. Check out the following resources:
“Understanding” Series from LexisNexis Check out the LexisNexis e-Book library at the link above for practice guides and study aids, including the “Understanding” series which covers a range of topics including Administrative Law, Contracts, Criminal Law, Civil Procedure, Torts, Evidence, Property, International Law, and the First Amendment.
1Ls: Remember to refer to the 1L Research Guide for links to study aids and library resources. And remember you can always stop by the reference desk for assistance in finding study aids to help you get through the semester.
The BLS Library staff welcomes new and returning
students to school for the 2019-2020 academic year. We are here to help
in whatever way we can with your print and electronic use of the Library.
You may borrow reserve and circulating books from the first floor Circulation Desk and you can ask for reference and research assistance at the first floor Reference Desk. Also, we want to let you know that there are now more ways than ever to reach the Reference Librarians. You can visit us at the Reference Desk, call us, text us, or email us. See above for Reference Librarian contact information and reference hours.
We also invite you to use our chat function. Visit the library homepage and click on our chat icon (see below) – you’ll be chatting with a friendly librarian in no time!
Good Luck in the fall semester! We look
forward to seeing you in the Library!
If you stopped by the law school over the summer, you would have noticed that the first floor of the library was closed for renovations. What was going on behind those closed doors? What was all of that hammering and drilling for?
Good news: the first floor of the library is now open for business! The circulation desk, which was temporarily located on the third floor for the summer, is back on the first floor. Stop by if you need to borrow a textbook or other materials in the Reserve collection. The reference desk is also back on the first floor, and you can consult with a reference librarian if you need research assistance or a pass to another law library.
Enjoy the brand new, comfortable furniture and the new space!
