This Week in the Law Library …

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This week in the Law Library, we look at five more resources to help you prepare for the Bar Exam, summer legal research tips on researching statutes, more resources on Juneteenth, and continue celebrating Pride Month.

Bar Exam Preparation

The Bar Exam is not a sprint, it’s a marathon so pace yourself! Check out this week’s Bar Exam Resource highlights below.

Acing the Bar Exam by Suzanne Darrow-Kleinhaus

Available through the West Academic study aid subscription, Acing the Bar Exam provides candidates with a complete guide to the bar exam — from pre-planning considerations through bar review and sitting for the exam. It features comprehensive coverage of the Uniform Bar Exam, including an explanation of each component and how to prepare for it. Every aspect of the process is explained in detail and by example. The bar exam is de-constructed, section by section, where candidates are led through the steps they need to follow to succeed. Approaches for learning the black letter law, setting study schedules, and answering essay and multiple-choice questions are combined to maximize the likelihood of success. Each of these tasks is then configured into checklist format to help candidates navigate each step.

The Bar Exam in a Nutshell by Suzanne Darrow-Kleinhaus

Available through the West Academic study aid subscription, this edition walks you through the entire bar preparation process from getting a head start during your last year of law school to taking the exam. It features comprehensive coverage of the Uniform Bar Exam, including an explanation of each component and how to prepare for it, to the larger question of what “portability” really means for the bar candidate. This edition also provides guidelines for selecting a bar review course, bar planner checklists, advice on how to manage the material you cover in bar review courses, and advice on how to learn the law so you can remember it and use it to answer exam questions. It identifies the basic skills the exam tests and the precise manner in which these skills are tested, showing you how to target your study efforts to maximize results. An Appendix provides practice materials for the MPT and essays, including the MEEs, with “answer de-constructions” to explain why bar examiners chose those answers as “better than average.”

Bar Exam Success by Sara J. Berman

Available through the West Academic study aid subscription. Whether taking a UBE or a state-specific bar, students need to not only master the material but to train and prepare for one of the toughest high-stakes exam experiences around. This book will more than prepare you to pass the bar exam; the author’s words will motivate you to do what it takes to succeed in law school, on the bar exam, and in the legal profession. Particular chapters will help you to:

  • Reduce Distractions, Increase Focus, and Manage and Protect Your Time
  • Employ Powerfully Effective Learning Strategies
  • Develop and Stick to Your Schedule
  • Practice and Hone Skills for Success on MBEs, Essays, and MPTs
  • Cope with Stress and Pressure, and Help Your Friends and Family to Help You Succeed
  • Enhance your Positive Growth Mindset, Personal Wellness, and Sense of Belonging
  • Transition with Confidence from Law Student to Professional

 

Pass the Bar! by Denise Riebe & Michael H. Schwartz

Available through the LexisNexis Digital Library study aid subscription, Pass the Bar! provides a comprehensive overview of the pre-bar review, bar review, and bar exam process. The authors demystify the bar exam process and take readers through the steps they need in order to succeed.Readers are given specific checklists, exercises, reflection questions; information about what to do during the year before their bar reviews begin; how to set the stage to succeed with their bar exams; how to study and approach practice questions; sample exam questions, and answers; and what additional study methods can maximize their chances of passing their bar exams. Written in a straightforward and practical style, the authors’ strategies are communicated in an informal, reader-friendly way. Their recommendations are grounded in educational and psychological research as well as their personal experiences in designing programs and working with students preparing to take bar exams. The Foreword is written by Professor Ruth Ann McKinney, Director of the Writing and Learning Resources Center at the University of North Carolina School of Law.

The Essential Rules for Bar Exam Success by Steven Friedland & Jeffery Scott Shapiro

Available through the West Academic study aid subscription, this text covers topics including learning to study actively rather than passively; choosing study partners who will help, not hinder, your studying; learning to think, read, and write critically; dissecting multistate exam questions; coping with pressure; making the most of the weeks before the bar exam; and preparing for the day of the exam.

Summer Legal Research Tips

Last week we looked at doing background research about your issue, finding good secondary sources, and how to use secondary sources. This week we’re going to look at what to do when you discover that you’re issue is statutory. Your secondary sources and background research should tell you if your issue is statutory or common law or both. If your issue is statutory, your next step should be to consult the annotated code.

Why Use an Annotated Code?

A code is a subject arrangement of the laws of a jurisdiction. The advantages of using a code for research include:

  1. the fact that codes collate original laws with later amendments,
  2. they bring all laws on the same subject together, and
  3. they eliminate repealed, superseded, or expired laws.

In addition to the statutes, many codes contain constitutions and court rules.The big advantages to using an annotated code are that they are often more up-to-date than an official code and they include the editorial enhancements that can help with your research. These enhancements include references to secondary sources; cross-references to related statutes and regulations; and case summaries that interpret the statute and are selected by the code editors as being particularly important to the interpretation of the statute.

Tips to Using the Annotated Code

Your secondary source hopefully will have given you a citation to at least one applicable statutory section for your issue. A great way to discover additional relevant sections is to use the table of contents. One important statutory section that many students overlook is a definitions section. Always check for definitions to determine whether a term has a special meaning for the purpose of the statute! In addition to the table of contents, you may also want to use the index to find relevant sections. The index is a way to find statutes by subject.

If you have the name of the statute but not a citation, use the popular Names Table to find the citation. An example of a popular name is the ADA.

More Help on Researching in Annotated Codes

For more in-depth information on researching statutes using annotated codes, check out the resources below:

Researching Statutes Guide: Codes

This guide is designed to give you an introduction to researching statutes.

Researching Statutes: Organization of Constitutions & Codes (Video 6:31 min.)

This video describes what a statute is, what a code is, and how constitutions and codes are organized.

Researching Statutes: Annotated Codes on Lexis & Westlaw (Video 5:01 min.)

This video covers the format of annotated codes on Lexis and Westlaw and discusses navigation aids within each statutory section such as the table of contents, as well as editorial enhancements such as the case annotations, research references, and more.

Introduction to State and Federal Statutes (CALI Lesson)

This is an introductory lesson on federal and state statutes, to acquaint first-year law students with this important form of law. The lesson focuses on the basic structure of statutes and the sources in which they appear. It doesn’t describe how to research statutes, but you’ll learn statutory research much more easily if you learn this material first.

Finding Statutes (CALI Lesson)

This lesson is intended to teach you the basic approaches to finding statutes. It is assumed that you are already familiar with the forms of statutory publication when you run this lesson. See the lessons “Introduction to State and Federal Statutes” or “Forms of Federal Statutory Publication” or “Codification” if you need to review these matters first.

Juneteenth

Last Saturday was Juneteenth. Juneteenth marks the day when federal troops arrived in Galveston, TX in 1865 to take control of the state and ensure that all enslaved people in Texas were free. Troops did not arrive until two and a half years after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation! Forty-seven states and the District of Columbia now celebrate Juneteenth to honor the end to slavery in the United States. Below are additional resources to learn more about Juneteenth.

Dr. Shennette Garrett-Scott, History of Juneteenth (YouTube)

Presented by Dr. Shennette Garrett-Scott Wednesday, June 19, 2013, at the Allen Public Library. Her program traces the history of Juneteenth events from the late nineteenth century freedmen colonys” and settlements’ celebrations to the present community events.

National Museum of African American History and Culture: Juneteenth

A virtual exhibit providing access to historical records, resources, activities, and more.

Juneteenth Reading List

Discover more about the history of Juneteenth and African American cultural traditions with a summer reading list curated by the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

PBS, Juneteenth Jamborie

The first African slave in Texas arrived in 1528 with a shipwrecked party of Spanish Conquistadors, but it took until the 19th of June in 1865 to bring slavery’s end to Texas. It took all of 1865 to end all slavery in the United States. Texas (and much of the U.S.) commemorates Emancipation Day as Juneteenth. This series delves into the history of the holiday, and celebrates black culture and art.

UC Alumni who Fought for Civil Rights, UC Magazine (June 2013)

In honor of Juneteenth, UC highlights alumni who have spent their lives overcoming and combating racial inequalities.

June Is Pride Month!

Pride Flag

About Pride Month

Pride Month is commemorated each year in the month of June to honor the 1969 Stonewall uprising in New York City. The Stonewall Inn was a popular gay bar that police raided on Jun 28, 1969. The raid resulted in days of protest and the uprising is often cited as a catalyst for LGBTQ+ activism.

5 More Pride Month Resources

Learn more about Pride Month and LGBTQ+ issues by checking out the resources below!

Michael Bronski, A Queer History of the United States (e-book – requires UC authentication)

A Queer History of the United States abounds with startling examples of unknown or often ignored aspects of American history-the ineffectiveness of sodomy laws in the colonies, the prevalence of cross-dressing women soldiers in the Civil War, the impact of new technologies on LGBT life in the nineteenth century, and how rock music and popular culture were, in large part, responsible for the devastating backlash against gay rights in the late 1970s. Most striking, Bronski documents how, over centuries, various incarnations of social purity movements have consistently attempted to regulate all sexuality, including fantasies, masturbation, and queer sex. Resisting these efforts, same-sex desire flourished and helped make America what it is today

David Eisenbach, Gay Power: An American Revolution (e-book – requires UC authentication)

While stiff opposition still resists granting LGBTQ+ people equal rights, the American political and social sea change embracing much of the gay rights agenda began four decades ago when a few brave activists set out to challenge a vast anti-homosexual matrix of stereotypical media images, discriminatory laws, and repressive social mores. Gay Power explores the history of this American revolution.

Martha C. Nussbaum, From Disgust to Humanity : Sexual Orientation and Constitutional Law (e-book – requires UC authentication)

A distinguished professor of law and philosophy at the University of Chicago, a prolific writer and award-winning thinker, Martha Nussbaum stands as one of our foremost authorities on law, justice, freedom, morality, and emotion. In From Disgust to Humanity, Nussbaum aims her considerable intellectual firepower at the bulwark of opposition to gay equality: the politics of disgust. Nussbaum argues that disgust has long been among the fundamental motivations of those who are fighting for legal discrimination against lesbian and gay citizens. When confronted with same-sex acts and relationships, she writes, they experience “a deep aversion akin to that inspired by bodily wastes, slimy insects, and spoiled food–and then cite that very reaction to justify a range of legal restrictions, from sodomy laws to bans on same-sex marriage.” Nussbaum believes that the politics of disgust must be confronted directly, for it contradicts the basic principle of the equality of all citizens under the law. In its place she offers a “politics of humanity,” based not merely on respect, but something akin to love, an uplifting imaginative engagement with others, an active effort to see the world from their perspectives, as fellow human beings. Combining rigorous analysis of the leading constitutional cases with philosophical reflection about underlying concepts of privacy, respect, discrimination, and liberty, Nussbaum discusses issues ranging from non-discrimination and same-sex marriage to “public sex.”

Yvonne Zylan, States of Passion: Law, Identity, and Social Construction of Desire (e-book — requires UC authentication)

This book explores the role of legal discourse in shaping sexual experience, sexual expression, and sexual identity. The book focuses on three topics: anti-gay hate crime laws, same-sex sexual harassment, and same-sex marriage, examining how sexuality is socially constructed through the institutionally-specific production of legal discourse. The book argues that the law’s power to authorize specific discourses and practices of love, desire, hatred, fear, and vulnerability remain grounded in the powerful discourses and institutional practices that mark law as dispassionate, cerebral, and fundamentally procedural. The book contends that those states of passion we experience in our daily lives as particularly significant—to our sense of self, to our collective and social identities, and to our ideas about the body and its dictates—increasingly have as much to do with the state as they do with passion.

C. Riley Snorton, Black on Both Sides : A Racial History of Trans Identity (e-book — requires UC authentication)

The story of Christine Jorgensen, America’s first prominent transsexual, famously narrated trans embodiment in the postwar era. Her celebrity, however, has obscured other mid-century trans narratives–ones lived by African Americans such as Lucy Hicks Anderson and James McHarris. Their erasure from trans history masks the profound ways race has figured prominently in the construction and representation of transgender subjects. In Black on Both Sides, C. Riley Snorton identifies multiple intersections between blackness and transness from the mid-nineteenth century to present-day anti-black and anti-trans legislation and violence. Drawing on a deep and varied archive of materials–early sexological texts, fugitive slave narratives, Afro-modernist literature, sensationalist journalism, Hollywood films–Snorton attends to how slavery and the production of racialized gender provided the foundations for an understanding of gender as mutable. In tracing the twinned genealogies of blackness and transness, Snorton follows multiple trajectories, from the medical experiments conducted on enslaved black women by J. Marion Sims, the “father of American gynecology,” to the negation of blackness that makes transnormativity possible. Revealing instances of personal sovereignty among blacks living in the antebellum North that were mapped in terms of “cross dressing” and canonical black literary works that express black men’s access to the “female within,” Black on Both Sides concludes with a reading of the fate of Phillip DeVine, who was murdered alongside Brandon Teena in 1993, a fact omitted from the film Boys Don’t Cry out of narrative convenience. Reconstructing these theoretical and historical trajectories furthers our imaginative capacities to conceive more livable black and trans worlds.

 

This Week in the Law Library …

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This week in the Law Library, we look at five more resources to help you prepare for the Bar Exam, summer legal research tips, resources on Juneteenth, and continue celebrating Pride Month.

Bar Exam Preparation

The Bar Exam is not a sprint, it’s a marathon so pace yourself! Check out this week’s Bar Exam Resource highlights below.

The National Jurist – Bar Exam Articles

The National Jurist has published many articles on the bar exam.

Heather Varanini, The Bar Exam Taught Me Something! Or How Bar Prep Advice Helps Me Manage Life in Lockdown

Includes tips for studying for the bar exam.

Nelson Pierce Miller, Nelson Douglas Johnson, Preparing for the Bar Exam: A Comprehensive Guide to Plans, Programs, Content, Conditions, and Skills (September 1, 2015)

This book helps law students and law school graduates prepare to take and pass a state bar exam for licensure to practice law. The authors, an award-winning law school professor and an expert instructional designer, offer a comprehensive guide to the resources, programs, and practices necessary to improve bar-taking skills and increase probability of passing what has become in many jurisdictions a very demanding test.

AccessLex Institute, Analyzing First-Time Bar Exam Passage on the UBE in New York State

A survey of law graduates who took the New York bar exam in the years before the COVID-19 pandemic has identified six factors that contribute to success. No time to read the full study? Read the ABA Journal article about the study: Debra Cassens Weiss, These Factors Help Predict whether a Law Grad Will Pass the Bar on the First or Second Try, Study Says, A.B.A. J. (May 24, 2021)

Chicago Kent Guide to Studying for the Bar Exam

The first step to bar success is to learn all about the exam. Forewarned is forearmed. The second step is to make a study plan well before summer begins. The third step is to execute that plan, adjusting as needed, until exam time. This Guide has something to say about each of these steps.

Summer Legal Research Tips

Last week we looked at initial steps to take when you get a summer research project. Once you’ve identified the resources available to you at your place of summer employment and asked questions, you may need to do background research about your issue before jumping into primary sources such as statutes and case law. A good secondary source can explain the law around your issue and cite you to primary sources. It can save you a lot of time and effort!

Finding Good Secondary Sources

Start with a Research Guide

Yes, you can google but google smartly! Start by searching for a research guide on a subject. Law librarians write guides on researching specific areas of law that will identify good secondary sources, as well as relevant primary sources in that subject area. Here at the Robert S. Marx Law Library, we have over 80 research guides that can help you with a summer project! These guides are available 24/7. If one of our guides doesn’t have the information you’re looking for, type in your legal subject and the terms +research +guide.

Secondary Source Types

A good research guide will lead you to relevant secondary sources written by experts or practitioners in the field. Some secondary sources types to which you might be referred:

  • Legal Encyclopedias
  • Practice Guides and Handbooks
  • Treatises
  • Law Review Articles
  • American Law Reports
  • Restatements

Use Google Scholar

Google scholar allows you to search law review articles (and case law). Many law review articles are available for free on SSRN, law school scholarly repositories, BePress, or LawArXiv or you can find them using HeinOnline.

Search Firm Websites and Legal Blogs

Many law firm attorneys and law professors write short articles on the topics in which they practice. These articles may be on a firm website or a legal blog. In addition to general search engines such as Google, try Fee Fie Foe Firm.  Fee Fie Foe Firm is a search engine that focuses on the websites of US law firms. You can also look at legal article aggregators such as Lexology and HR.org. To find relevant legal blogs, you can look at the ABA Blawg Directory, a directory of over 4,000 law blogs, or the Law Professors Blog Network, a network of legal blogs edited by over 100 law professors, deans, and lawyers.

Learn more about researching in secondary sources in our Researching Secondary Sources Guide or watch our videos on finding and searching within the various secondary source types.

Juneteenth

Juneteenth marks the day when federal troops arrived in Galveston, TX in 1865 to take control of the state and ensure that all enslaved people in Texas were free. Troops did not arrive until two and a half years after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation! Forty-seven states and the District of Columbia now celebrate Juneteenth to honor the end to slavery in the United States. Below are some resources to learn more about Juneteenth.

Juneteenth Resources

Honoring the History of Juneteenth: One Family’s Journey to Freedom

This program will tell the story of one family’s journey to freedom and the bigger connection to American history in traveling to their journey of freedom. The special guest presenters for the Juneteenth Celebration Webinar are Bettye Kearse, the award-winning author of The Other Madisons: The Lost History of a President’s Black Family; Eduardo Montes-Bradley, the award-winning documentarian who helped capture the visual component of Bettye’s work in the documentary film, The Other Madisons, and Christian Cotz, the CEO of First Amendment Museum in Augusta, ME who spent nearly two decades working at President James Madison’s Montpelier home. The panelists will join a moderated discussion by Hon. Adrienne Nelson, Chair of the ABA Diversity and Inclusion Center and Diversity and Inclusion Advisory Council, on how the themes of the film, especially from a legal lens, connect to broader civil rights issues and the continued importance and relevance of Juneteenth.

  • ABA Civil Rights & Social Justice
  • June 17, 2021 4:00pm
  • Registration

Neely Tucker, The Birth of Juneteenth; Voices of the Enslaved (June 19, 2020)

This blog post from the Law Library of Congress summarizes the origins of celebration and profiles materials in the Library of Congress’s collections related to the emancipation and the voices of those enslaved.

On Juneteenth (YouTube)

In On Juneteenth, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Annette Gordon-Reed tells the sweeping story of Juneteenth’s integral importance to American history and provides a historian’s view of the country’s long road to Juneteenth, recounting both its origins in Texas and the enormous hardships that African-Americans have endured in the century since, from Reconstruction through Jim Crow and beyond. Joining Aneette Gordon-Reed in conversation will be Roy Young, CEO of James Madison’s Montpelier.

Texas Institute for the Preservation of History and Culture, Juneteenth – A Celebration of Freedom (YouTube)

This 3-part series is a historical documentary that captures the spirit of the Juneteenth experience and explains the origin and evolution of this important date in the history of our country.

Congressional Research Service, Juneteenth: Fact Sheet (PDF)

This fact sheet assists congressional offices with work related to Juneteenth. It contains sample speeches and remarks from the Congressional Record, presidential proclamations and remarks, and selected historical and cultural resources.

Cincinnati Juneteenth Celebration

Juneteenth Cincinnati has produced two video concerts that will air on Channel 19 on June 20 as well as on Community cable, YouTube & Vimeo.

June Is Pride Month!

Pride Month 2021 Text Across Pride Flag

 

About Pride Month

Pride Month is commemorated each year in the month of June to honor the 1969 Stonewall uprising in New York City. The Stonewall Inn was a popular gay bar that police raided on Jun 28, 1969. The raid resulted in days of protest and the uprising is often cited as a catalyst for LGBTQ+ activism.

5 More Pride Month Resources

Learn more about Pride Month and LGBTQ+ issues by checking out the resources below!

Cincinnati Pride Month Community Calendar

Cincinnati Pride was born spring of 1973 in Cincinnati and annually celebrates the first public pride celebration in Greater Cincinnati held in April 6 – 8, 1973. Join the celebration at these events!

Films on Demand — Featured This Month (must authenticate to access)

This month’s featured films on Films on Demand highlight LGBTQ+ issues.

Lesbian Herstory Archives

The Lesbian Herstory collects material by and about all Lesbians, acknowledging changing concepts of Lesbian identities. All expressions of Lesbian identities, desires and practices are important, welcomed and included. The goal is to document the widest range of Lesbian experience from all geographic, cultural, political and economic backgrounds and historical contexts, not just the lives of the famous or the published.

Library of Congress, LGBTQ+ Resources in Business and the Workplace, Data and Statistics

The following external websites, subscription databases, and books provide information on demographics, statistics, and other data related to the LGBTQ+ community.

Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender (GLBT) Historical Society Archives Digital Collections

Search thousands of photographs, audiovisual recordings, documents and periodicals.

June Oral Arguments at the Ohio Supreme Court

You can view the live stream of oral arguments on the Court’s website or see them after the arguments take place in the Ohio Channel archives.

Ohio Supreme Court Chamber

Tuesday, June 14, 2021

Wednesday, June 15, 2021

This Week in the Law Library …

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This week in the law library we look at five more resources to help you prepare for the Bar Exam, summer legal research tips, and celebrate Pride Month.

Bar Exam Preparation

The Bar Exam is not a sprint, it’s a marathon so pace yourself! Check out this week’s Bar Exam Resource highlights below.

Passing the Bar: A Quick Reference Guide For Today’s Law Student

This e-book, available from CALI, is designed to provide guidance to law students as they prepare to embark upon bar study. It covers topics such as how to make a study plan, strategies for successful bar study, tips for attacking each portion of the exam, taking care of your mental health, and preparing your loved ones for bar study. The book also provides weekly tips for use during the bar study period, and for exam day itself. The quick reference format allows students to easily access advice for whatever is most pressing to them at a particular moment.

Multiple-Choice Questions: Wrong Answer Pathology

This CALI Lesson teaches you how to select the right answer in a multiple-choice question by better understanding how to identify wrong answers, based on nine specific types of wrong answers.

A Methodical Approach to Improve Multiple Choice Performance

This CALI Lesson teaches a methodical approach for all law school multiple choice questions. The step-by-step approach provides a framework to work through questions so students can more easily eliminate distractor answer choices. The lesson will thoroughly explore each step in this analytical approach.

Assessing Your Own Work

Although this CALI Lesson references law school exams, students studying for the bar exam will find it useful. Throughout law school, students will be asked to assess their own essays by comparing them to a model or sample student answer provided by their professor. It can often be difficult to distinguish one’s work from the model. Sometimes it is hard to distinguish what a student knows, from what they wrote down. Experienced legal writers understand that subtle differentiation in language changes the meaning of what was written. This lesson will provide students with strategies for self-assessment, so that they can become critical judges of their work, and consequently precise legal writers.

Metacognition

This lesson focuses upon the concept of metacognition and teaches you how to enhance your understanding about how you learn to better improve your study, organizational, test-taking and self-assessment skills with the goal of improving your performance in law school. The lesson should help you better understand your individual learning process and show you how to use this information to develop study and test-taking skills needed for success.

Summer Legal Research Tips

Get Up to Speed on What Resources Are Available

  1. To what resources does your employer subscribe and what are you allowed to access?
  2. Does your employer have a library and a law librarian?
  3. What internal resources such as document templates, document management systems, and brief banks are available?
  4. What citation style is used?
  5. Have the vendor help numbers ready to access

 

Ask Questions & Ask for Help

Don’t be afraid to ask questions or to ask for help if you need it. Among the questions to ask:

  • When is it due?
  • Are there any cost or resource restrictions?
  • Who else know about or is working on the project?
  • Is there a client ID or billing code that should be used?
  • What type of information would be most useful?
  • How much information is wanted or needed?
  • How is the information going to be used?
  • How much time should you spend on it?
  • What format should the final product be in?

If you have access to a law librarian at your place of employment, ask for help when you get stuck! You can also ask local law librarians, most Ohio counties have a law library, and we can help you out too! Often the vendors for products are helpful resources. For example, Lexis and Westlaw have reference attorneys on staff who can help with searching.

June Is Pride Month!

Pride Month Flag

About Pride Month

Pride Month is commemorated each year in the month of June to honor the 1969 Stonewall uprising in New York City. The Stonewall Inn was a popular gay bar that police raided on Jun 28, 1969. The raid resulted in days of protest and the uprising is often cited as a catalyst for LGBTQ+ activism.

5 Pride Month Resources

Learn more about Pride Month and LGBTQ+ issues by checking out the resources below!

ABA 21 Day Pride Month Challenge

The ABA Diversity and Inclusion Advisory Council invites you to participate in their 21 Day Pride Month Challenge, during which we will immerse ourselves in resources to help support building habits toward Pride learning. Sign up page

ABA Commission on Sexual Orientation & Gender Identity LGBTQ+ Webinars

The ABA Commission on Sexual Orientation & Gender Identity presents four webinars on LGBTQ+ issues:

  1. Allyship to Trans People in the Legal Profession
  2. Combatting LGBT Implicit Bias in the Legal Profession
  3. Sexual Orientation: The Legal Case for Coverage Under Title VII
  4. Title VII US Supreme Court Decision: A Discussion and Analysis

 

PBS American Experience, Stonewall Uprising: The Year that Changed America

This PBS film explores the dramatic event that launched a worldwide rights movement. Told by those who took part, from drag queens and street hustlers to police detectives, journalists and a former mayor of New York, and featuring a rich trove of archival footage, this film revisits a time when homosexual acts were illegal throughout America, and homosexuality itself was seen as a form of mental illness. When police raided Stonewall on June 28, 1969, gay men and women did something they had not done before: they fought back. As the streets of New York erupted into violent protests and street demonstrations, the collective anger announced that the gay rights movement had arrived.

Marc Stein, The Stonewall Riots: A Documentary History (UC e-book — must authenticate to access)

Across 200 documents, Marc Stein presents a unique record of the lessons and legacies of Stonewall. Drawing from sources that include mainstream, alternative, and LGBTQ media, gay-bar guide listings, state court decisions, political fliers, first-person accounts, song lyrics, and photographs, Stein paints an indelible portrait of this pivotal moment in the LGBT movement. In The Stonewall Riots, Stein does not construct a neatly quilted, streamlined narrative of Greenwich Village, its people, and its protests; instead, he allows multiple truths to find their voices and speak to one another, much like the conversations you’d expect to overhear in your neighborhood bar.

After Stonewall: America’s LGBT Movement / First-Run Features (Firm) (Films on Demand — must authenticate to access)

Narrated by Melissa Etheridge. In 1969 the police raided the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York City’s Greenwich Village, leading to three nights of rioting by the city’s gay community. With this outpouring of courage and unity the Gay Liberation Movement had begun. After Stonewall, chronicles the history of lesbian and gay life from the riots at Stonewall to the end of the century. It captures the hard work, struggles, tragic defeats and exciting victories experienced since them. It explores how AIDS literally changed the direction of the movement.

 

 

 

This Week in the Law Library …

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This week in the Law Library we’re providing summer access information, preparing for the bar exam, and celebrating Asian Pacific American Heritage Month.

Summer Access & Hours

The Law Library and College of Law building will be available to law students the following hours:

  • Monday — Friday 8:30am – 5:00pm
  • Saturday & Sunday 9:00am – 5:00pm
The College of Law building and the Law Library physical spaces will be closed May 31.

Accessing Other UC Libraries

To enter library facilities, all UC students must display a ‘Green’ pass to security guards on the UC COVID Check App. Faculty, staff and visitors may also use the UC COVID Check App in order to secure a green pass or will be asked screening questions to gain entry to all locations. For more information on the UC COVID app, please visit https://www.uc.edu/publichealth/return-to-campus-guide/covid-check-app.html. With limited exceptions, there is no browsing of library materials in the stacks. The Click & Collect retrieval and pickup service allows UC users to request printed library materials in the Library Catalog for pickup at designated locations. Requests made daily Monday-Friday are typically available the next business day. Users should wait for an e-mail pickup notice before coming to the library to pick up requested items. There is a limit of 10 items per request/25 a week. Pickup location details are available on the Libraries Click & Collect webpage.

Some campus buildings or library locations require a UC i.d. for entry, so it is advised to be prepared and always have your i.d. while on campus.

Accessing Databases During the Summer

You can still access Law Library and University e-resources 24/7 this summer! Lexis summer access is unlimited for any purpose and you don’t need to take any special steps for your access. Bloomberg Law also is allowing unlimited summer access but if your employer has a Bloomberg Law account, you should use that one for summer work. Westlaw provides limited summer access. You can only use it for noncommercial research, so nothing where a client might be billed. You will also continue to have 24/7 access to databases such as HeinOnline, ProQuest Legislative Insight, Cheetah, and Hannah. UC Libraries provides access to over 800 databases. Visit the A-Z Database List to discover some of these great resources! You’ll just need to authenticate using your UC credentials. For more information about authenticating in order to use Law Library and University Library e-resources, visit our Accessing Databases & E-Resources page on the Law Student Guide to the Law Library.

Bar Exam Preparation

The Bar Exam is not a sprint, it’s a marathon so pace yourself! Check out this week’s Bar Exam Resource highlights below.

National Conference of Bar Examiners COVID-19 Updates

ABA Young Lawyer’s Division Webinar: Bar Exam Prep: 30 Tips to Survive the Marathon Study Schedule

Brazitte Poole, Ten Tips for Preparing for the Bar Exam, ABA Student Lawyer (Jan. 22, 2021)

Ashley Heidemann, How to Effectively Prepare for the Bar Exam, The National Jurist (Dec. 10, 2018)

Bar Exam Success by Sara J. Berman (West Academic study aid subscription)

May Is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month!

Asian Pacific American Heritage Month

This month we’re continuing to celebrate Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month!

More Resources to Learn More About Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders:

ABA Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month 2021 Webinar Series

Intersection of Identities: Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity, and the Asian American and Pacific Islander Experience

May 24, 1:00 p.m.

Being LGBTQ+ and Asian American and Pacific Islander has its own unique challenges. While there are an estimated 324,600 LGBTQ+ Asian American and Pacific Islander adults in the United States, it can be difficult for many to find other similarly situated individuals, especially in the legal community. Our panel of legal experts, justices, academics, and activists will examine this unique intersection of identities and offer their personal perspectives and journeys on issues such as: the historical contexts of attitudes toward AAPI LGBTQ+ individuals; the role of specific AAPI cultural values, norms or traditions in the development and expression of AAPI LGBTQ+ individuals identity; and the unique risks faced by AAPI LGBTQ+ individuals through the lens of multiple minority stress or stigma.

Dignity Rights in Asia: Humanitarian Toll of Economic Sanctions

May 25, 12:00 p.m.

Dignity Rights emphasizes the foundational role of human dignity in actualizing a robust and just rule of law. A panel of legal experts, academics, and activists address the nexus of international human rights, social justice, and economic sanctions. In the past decade, companies in the Asia Pacific region have faced higher risk of primary and secondary sanctions. This shift has occurred due to the companies’ foray into Western markets, where primary sanctions jurisdiction is most likely to exist, and the disbalanced efforts by Western governments to investigate and prosecute activities alleged to threaten their security or foreign policy objectives. Compliance with foreign sanctions is often the only commercially reasonable choice for companies that desire continued access to Western markets. This panel will discuss the humanitarian impact of sanctions in the context of Iran, Yemen, and Palestine.

A Literary Guide to Combat Anti-Asian Racism in America

Asian Pacific American Heritage Month Exhibits & Collections

NAPABA’s Hate Crimes Resources

AAPI Data

 

This Week in the Law Library …

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Congratulations Graduates!

Overhead view of Cincinnatil Law graduation caps

A heartfelt congratulations to all of our graduates! You’ve done an awesome job under difficult circumstances. We’re so proud of you and excited for your journey ahead!

Access to Lexis, Westlaw, & Bloomberg Law for Summer or After Graduation

Post Graduation Access

Lexis

When you graduate, you’ll automatically have seamless Lexis+ access for 6 months, excluding public records. Continue to use your law school username and password while you prepare for the bar exam and employment. Plus, access exclusive resources and a Rewards program for graduates.

Lexis Aspire Program

Any graduating student who has verifiable employment with a non-profit organization can apply via Lexis ASPIRE program for 12 months of free Lexis access. Students can visit http://www.lexisnexis.com/grad-access for details on either of these offers.You’ll also have access to exclusive resources related to the transition from law school to employment and a Graduate Rewards Program.

Westlaw

May 2021 Graduates will see grad access info when they sign on to the Westlaw Law School Portal. Access is “normal” until May 31st. Starting June 1-Nov 30th graduates will have 60 hours of usage per month for 6 months. Direct link to extend for grad access is https://lawschool.westlaw.com/authentication/gradelite

All graduates will also automatically retain access to a number of job searching databases for 18-months following graduation for 1-hour a month. Please contact the Westlaw Representative for more information.

B-Law (Bloomberg Law)

2021 Graduating students will have unlimited and unrestricted Bloomberg access until Nov. 30, 2021.

Summer 2021 Access

Lexis

If you’re already registered for Lexis, you don’t need to do anything else to get Summer Access. Access is unlimited for any purpose.

Westlaw

You can 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 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

B-Law (Bloomberg Law)

If your workplace has a Bloomberg Law account, you are expected to use that, but there are no restrictions on your student Bloomberg accounts over the summer.

Bar Exam Study Resources

Congratulations! You have made it through law school but now the bar exam looms. Don’t worry, the Law Library’s got your back. When you’ve caught your breath and you’re ready to start your bar studying, we have resources that can help. Check out our Bar Exam Research Guide.

May Is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month!

Asian Pacific American Heritage Month

This month we’re continuing to celebrate Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month!

5 More Resources to Learn More About Asian American and Pacific Islanders in/and the Law:

ABA Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month 2021 Webinar Series

  • Invisible Apartheid: What You Need to Know to Be an Ally in The Fight Against Caste Discrimination
    • May 18, 1:00 p.m.
    • What is caste? What is caste discrimination? In her book “Caste,” Isabel Wilkerson powerfully writes that looking at caste is like holding society’s X-ray up to the light. But what happens when you don’t know what to look for? The challenge with caste discrimination is that, sometimes, even those who perpetuate it can’t explain what it is or how it works. As is becoming increasingly clear through California’s recent litigation against Cisco Systems for its role in perpetuation of caste-based discrimination, caste perpetuates itself nonetheless, in India and at home in the United States–whether we know what it is or not. The question that remains is how do attorneys respond to the challenge of caste, how do institutions account for and protect against caste discrimination, and how (if at all) does U.S. law learn to recognize, prohibit and punish caste discrimination. Speakers will cover the current activism around caste discrimination in the United States and provide some insights into the ongoing caste discrimination litigation against Cisco Systems in California.
  • Native Hawaiian Identity, Rights and Policy Issues
    • May 20, 1:00 p.m
    • Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders are often viewed together as one indistinguishable culture or ethnicity. Though inclusive, this categorization has the unintended consequence of obfuscating the distinct identity of the Native Hawaiian community and similar Pacific indigenous peoples. Much of the Native Hawaiian experience has been dominated by interactions with the United States and the relationship with settlers from Asia and Europe, resulting in a unique history that is rarely discussed thoroughly. This webinar seeks to explore the past, present, and future of the Native Hawaiian identity. Our panel will discuss the status and realities of this community, along with measures to uplift the voices of Native Hawaiians in the Asian American and Pacific Islander activist movement.

Asian Pacific American Heritage Month – PBS

A collection of documentaries by PBS that explore the history, traditions and culture of Asians and Pacific Islanders in the United States

Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center

The Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center is a migratory museum that brings history, art and culture to you through innovative community-focused experiences. Below are two digital programs available from the Center but there are many more!
  • A Day in the Queer Life of Asian Pacific America
    • A Day in the Queer Life of Asian Pacific America (ADQLAPA) is a new digital exhibition by the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center (APAC) documenting queer life in Asian American and Pacific Islander communities throughout the country.
  • We Are American and We Stand Together: Asian American Resilience & Belonging
    • This digital program brings the stories and insights of the nation’s pre-eminent scholars and activists together with treasures from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History to engage a broad audience in a deeper exploration of the past, present, and future of Asians in America. Over 23 million in number, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders are now the fastest-growing racial group in the United States. But AAPI individuals, families, communities, and businesses have been disproportionately impacted, harmed, and even killed by the cascading crises of the global pandemic and the legacies of entrenched anti-Asian racism and discrimination. In this time of increasing fear and violence, we will celebrate, commemorate, and reflect on Asian Pacific American Heritage Month by sharing the long history of Asian American resistance, and reaffirm our need to stand together as Americans.

Films on Demand – Asian-American & Pacific Islander Heritage Month

Korean American Digital Archive

The Korean American Digital Archive brings more than 13,000 pages of documents, over 1,900 photographs, and about 180 sound files together in one searchable collection that documents the Korean American community during the period of resistance to Japanese rule in Korea and reveal the organizational and private experience of Koreans in America between 1903 and 1965.

This Week in the Law Library …

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This week in the Law Library we’re wrapping up exams with a last look at our exam study aids; looking ahead to summer and graduate Lexis, Westlaw, and Bloomberg Law access; watching Ohio Supreme Court oral arguments; and celebrating Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month.

Law Library Exam Study Resources

Selected Subject Specific Study Aid Resources for Spring 2021 Exams

Looking for a specific study aid for subjects being tested for this semester? You can find our study aids by type or by subject on the Exam Study Guide. Also, take a look at some of our other blog posts:

Selected Subject Specific Study Aids for the First Week of Spring 2021 Exams

Selected Subject Specific Study Aids for the Second Week of Spring 2021 Exams

Looking for tips on taking and preparing for exams? Check out our past blog posts:

Study Aids to Help You with Different Exam Formats & Study Aids for Exam Review

Study Tips & Law Library Resources for Outlining

Accessing Law Library Study Aids

CALI

If using CALI, you will need to create an account (if you have not already done so) using a Cincinnati Law authorization code. You can obtain this code from a reference librarian.

Lexis OverDrive

If accessing study aids from Lexis OverDrive, you will need to login using your UC credentials.

West Academic

To create an account, click the Create an Account link at the top right corner of the Study Aids Subscription page. Use your UC email as the email address. Once you have filled in the required information to set up an account, you will need to verify your email address (they will send you a confirmation email that you will need answer to verify the email address — be sure and check your junk mail). Once you have created an account and logged in, you can use the links below to access individual study aids or you can access all study aids through https://subscription.westacademic.com.

Wolters Kluwer

The Wolters Kluwer study aids are impacted by the change to access e-resources. If you access them from our website or one of our guides you don’t need to do anything. If you have linked to study aids from this particular collection, you will need to change the link by January. The old link will work through December.

Video on using WK study aids

Access to Lexis, Westlaw, & Bloomberg Law for Summer or After Graduation

Summer 2021 Access

Lexis

If you’re already registered for Lexis, you don’t need to do anything else to get Summer Access. Access is unlimited for any purpose.

Westlaw

You can 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 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

B-Law (Bloomberg Law)

If your workplace has a Bloomberg Law account, you are expected to use that, but there are no restrictions on your student Bloomberg accounts over the summer.

Post Graduation Access

Lexis

When you graduate, you’ll automatically have seamless Lexis+ access for 6 months, excluding public records. Continue to use your law school username and password while you prepare for the bar exam and employment. Plus, access exclusive resources and a Rewards program for graduates.

Lexis Aspire Program

Any graduating student who has verifiable employment with a non-profit organization can apply via Lexis ASPIRE program for 12 months of free Lexis access. Students can visit http://www.lexisnexis.com/grad-access for details on either of these offers.You’ll also have access to exclusive resources related to the transition from law school to employment and a Graduate Rewards Program.

Westlaw

May 2021 Graduates will see grad access info when they sign on to the Westlaw Law School Portal. Access is “normal” until May 31st. Starting June 1-Nov 30th graduates will have 60 hours of usage per month for 6 months. Direct link to extend for grad access is https://lawschool.westlaw.com/authentication/gradelite

All graduates will also automatically retain access to a number of job searching databases for 18-months following graduation for 1-hour a month. Please contact the Westlaw Representative for more information.

B-Law (Bloomberg Law)

2021 Graduating students will have unlimited and unrestricted Bloomberg access until Nov. 30, 2021.

 

May Is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month!

Asian Pacific American Heritage Month

This month we’re celebrating Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month! After decades of celebrating Asian/Pacific American Heritage Week, Congress finally passed Public Law 102-450 which annually designated May as Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month. The month of May was chosen to commemorate the immigration of the first Japanese to the United States on May 7, 1843, and to mark the anniversary of the completion of the transcontinental railroad on May 10, 1869.

5 Resources to Learn More About Asian American and Pacific Islanders in/and the Law:

Selected Subject Specific Study Aids for the Second Week of Spring 2021 Exams

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Last week we covered selected study aids to help with the first week of exams. Today we will look at selected study aids to help with subjects from the second week of exams.

Accessing Law Library Study Aids

For an overview of our study aid subscriptions and a demonstration of how to access them, see:

Introduction to Study Aids & Research Guides Video

  • This video introduces you to our four online study aid collections, demonstrates how to access the study aids, and looks at research guides that will help you throughout your law school career. The video is 7:36 minutes long and features closed captioning.

CALI

If using CALI, you will need to create an account (if you have not already done so) using a Cincinnati Law authorization code. You can obtain this code from a reference librarian.

Lexis OverDrive

If accessing study aids from Lexis OverDrive, you will need to login using your UC credentials.

West Academic

To create an account, click the Create an Account link at the top right corner of the Study Aids Subscription page. Use your UC email as the email address. Once you have filled in the required information to set up an account, you will need to verify your email address (they will send you a confirmation email that you will need answer to verify the email address — be sure and check your junk mail). Once you have created an account and logged in, you can use the links below to access individual study aids or you can access all study aids through https://subscription.westacademic.com.

Wolters Kluwer

If accessing study aids from the Wolters Kluwer subscription, you will need to login using your UC credentials.

1L Subjects for the Second Week of Spring 2021 Exams

Civil Procedure

Selected Study Aids for Help Understanding Civil Procedure

  • Civil Procedure CALI Lessons
    • Available via CALI
    • CALI currently offers a number of interactive exercises for students studying Civil Procedure. You will need to set up a password to use CALI online. To set up a username and password, you will be asked to enter UC Law’s authorization code. UC Law students can get this code from any reference librarian.
  • Civil Procedure: Examples and Explanations
    • Available via the Wolters Kluwer study aid subscription
    • This study aid provides introductions to the principles of civil procedure, together with examples that illustrate how these principles apply in typical cases. Clear introductions and explanations cover all aspects of the first-year course including the areas of res judicata, collateral estoppel, personal and subject matter jurisdiction, and three chapters on various aspects of the Erie doctrine. A series of problems at the end of each section or chapter assist you in testing your understanding. Answers are provided for these problems.
  • Principles of Civil Procedure
    • Available via the West Academic study aid subscription
    • This Concise Hornbook covers the main points of civil procedure. It breaks down the subject of civil procedure along the standard lines: a brief orientation; then a lengthier overview of the stages of litigation, followed by a close inspection of the major procedural problems (governing law, authority to adjudicate, former adjudication, and complex litigation); and finally some reflections in conclusion. It discusses specific problems and illustrations, with the aid of generously sprinkled diagrams and special text boxes. Special attention was given to fitting the civil procedure course’s main points together to form the big picture, with each topic ending in a section on the “big idea” (separation of powers, vertical federalism, horizontal federalism, full faith and credit, or procedural due process) that the student is supposed to take from the topic.
  • Understanding Civil Procedure
    • Available via Lexis OverDrive study aid subscription
    • This well-established treatise is premised on the assumption that the key to understanding the principles of civil procedure is to know why: why the principles were created and why they are invoked. The treatise is written to answer these questions as it lays out the basic principles of civil procedure. Although they discuss important civil procedure cases in the text, thus supporting the most widely used civil procedure casebooks using these same cases, they also provide useful references to secondary sources and illustrative cases for the reader who wants to explore further.

Selected Study Aids for Civil Procedure Exam Review and Preparation

  • Acing Civil Procedure
    • Available via the West Academic study aid subscription
    • Moving beyond the outline format used by most students, this book uses a checklist format to lead students through the questions they need to ask and answer to fully analyze the legal questions they are trying to resolve. It assembles the different issues, presenting a clear guide to procedural analysis that students can draw upon when writing their exams. Other study aids provide sample problems, but this book offers a systematic approach to problem solving.
  • The Glannon Guide to Civil Procedure
    • Available via the Wolters Kluwer study aid subscription
    • This book provides a short review of basic topics in Civil Procedure, organized around the theme of multiple-choice questions. In each chapter, the individual sections explain fundamental principles of a topic—such as stream-of-commerce jurisdiction, joinder under Rule 14, or the requirements for res judicata—and illustrate them with one or two multiple-choice questions. After each question, the correct answer is revealed and explained and the author discusses why the wrong answers are wrong.
  • Mastering Multiple Choice for Federal Civil Procedure MBE Bar Prep and 1L Exam Prep
    • Available via the West Academic study aid subscription
    • Need a little practice with multiple choice questions in federal civil procedure? This third edition (expanded by 28% with new questions, new answers, and new explanations) encompasses material reflecting the Civil Procedure Rule amendments of December 2015, December 2016, and December 2018, along with applicable new case law. This multiple choice practice book is designed for: (a) bar exam takers, who are preparing to take the MBE multiple choice bar exam (Civil Procedure was added in 2015 as a multiple choice testing topic), and (b) 1L law students, who are preparing to take their course examinations. This practice book offers practical, easy-to-follow advice on multiple choice exam-taking strategies, clear suggestions on effective multiple choice practicing techniques, and a robust set of Civil Procedure multiple choice practice questions with answers and explanations (designed to simulate MBE-style questions). Tables help users decode the tested-topic for each practice question.
More Civil Procedure Study Aids

Property

Selected Study Aids for Help Understanding Property

  • Property CALI Lessons
    • Available via CALI
    • CALI currently offers a number of interactive exercises for students studying Property Law. You will need to set up a password to use CALI online. To set up a username and password, you will be asked to enter UC Law’s authorization code. UC Law students can get this code from any reference librarian.
  • Property: Examples and Explanations
    • Available via the Wolters Kluwer study aid subscription
    • This study aid that offers introductions to legal terms and concepts in property law, followed by examples and explanations that test and apply the reader’s understanding of the material covered. Using a six-part topical organization, the authors ensure that the rules and doctrines making up the first-year course on the law of property are well covered. New to the Sixth Edition: a more structured development of Chain of Title problems inherent in recording systems; an added discussion of Construction Industry of Sonoma County v. City of Petaluma in the exclusionary zoning section Incorporation of the Department of Justice’s regulations; examples interpreting the Religious Land Use and Institutional Persons Act; expanded guidance on the Wireless Communication Facilities Act; emphasis on how exceptions build on the Penn Central Transportation Co. v. New York City ad hoc factors Discussion on Muir v. Wisconsin in the Takings analysis (states’ ability to conceptually merge parcels to defeat a Takings claim); follow-ups on the effect (or lack thereof) of Stop the Beach Renourishment, Inc. v. Florida Dept. of Environmental Protection; discussion of Marvin M. Brandt Revocable Trust v. United States in easement chapter (whether a railroad abandoning a strip of land held an easement or a fee simple determinable); and clarification and expansion of the discussion of landlord-tenant issues.
  • The Law of Property (Hornbook)
    • Available via West Academic study aid subscription
    • Think of a hornbook as a mini-treatise for law students. It provides a more in-depth analysis of law school subjects than the other series. This hornbook covers property laws; surveys estates in land (present, future, and concurrent); surveys comparable interests in personalty; covers landlord and tenant law; and addresses rights against neighbors and other third persons. Also examines easements and profits, running covenants, governmental controls on land use, land contracts, conveyances, titles, and recording systems
  • Understanding Property Law
    • Available via Lexis OverDrive study aid subscription
    • This comprehensive and authoritative Understanding treatise is suitable for use in conjunction with any Property casebook. Covers all standard property topics, including landlord-tenant law, adverse possession, rights in personal property, estates and future interests, marital property, land sale transactions, servitudes, nuisance, zoning, takings, and other land use issues.

Selected Study Aids for Property Exam Review and Preparation

  • Exam Pro Workbook on Estates and Future Interests
    • Available via the West Academic study aid subscription
    • This title provides a basic introduction to estates and future interests law. Designed to offer solid knowledge of the area’s central concepts, it guides readers through a series of increasingly complex conveyances. The workbook begins with an analysis of the fee simple estate and builds sequentially toward more complicated interests and conveyances. The information proceeds from the simple to more complex, later problems building on the successful command of earlier material. Each problem is followed not only by that problem’s answer but also by a complete analysis of how the answer was derived. The workbook also contains an extensive glossary, summary charts, and a set of review problems that test the reader’s developing mastery of the material.
  • A Student’s Guide to Estates in Land and Future Interests: Text, Examples, Problems and Answers
    • Available via Lexis OverDrive study aid subscription
    • This guide facilitates the understanding of complex materials from Property courses. Chronologically organized material familiarizes students with basic concepts and necessary technical vocabulary. The authors graphically explain complex concepts, and provide extensive problem and answer sets. Topics include basic possessory estates, remainders and executory interests in response to the statute of uses, modifications of the common law scheme, and interesting complexities and modern changes.
  • The Glannon Guide to Property
    • Available via the Wolters Kluwer study aid subscription
    • The Glannon Guide to Property provides a concise review of property topics through the use of multiple-choice questions. After each question the author explains how the correct choice was chosen, So that students learn how to analyze exam questions while they review course material.This edition contains two new chapters on “Bailments” and “Eminent Domain”, and new text and questions on the scope and termination of easements and the scope and termination of covenants.

 

More Property Study Aids

 

2L & 3L Subjects

Business Associations

Selected Study Aids for Help Understanding Business Associations

  • Agency, Partnerships, and LLCs: Examples & Explanations 
    • Available via the Wolters Kluwer study aid subscription
    • This text is written by the professor who drafted the uniform limited partnership act and co-drafted the newest uniform limited liability company act. It provides in-depth treatment of limited liability companies (LLCs) and limited liability partnerships (LLPs), including a discussion of the newest Revised Uniform Limited Liability Company Act. It contains updated agency materials that fully integrate the recently finalized Restatement (Third) of Agency. It has refined its coverage of general partnership law to reflect the ascendancy of the Revised Uniform Partnership Act (RUPA) and revised coverage of limited partnership law to reflect the increasing acceptance of the 2001 version of the Uniform Limited Partnership Act. It also includes analysis of issues unique to limited liability companies. Analysis is first provided for a topic and then examples are given to help students understand the analysis. A series of problems at the end of each section or chapter assist you in testing your understanding. Answers are provided for these problems.
  • Business Associations CALI Lessons
    • Available via CALI
    • CALI currently offers many interactive exercises for Business Associations students. You will need to set up a password to use CALI online. To set up a username and password, you will be asked to enter UC Law’s authorization code. UC Law students can get this code from any reference librarian.
  • Business Organizations Law (Hornbook)
    • Available via the West Academic study aid subscription
    • Clear, succinct, descriptions of the reasoning and policy issues underlying corporate law that is accessible to law students with no business or economic background. The 2020 edition is thoroughly updated to include recent U.S. Supreme Court, Delaware and other leading decisions and regulatory developments (for example, the most recent version of the Model Business Corporation Act as well as the Delaware statute) that impact the conduct of corporate affairs including fiduciary obligations and duties in corporate transactions, governance, and management of corporations and LLCs, as well as benefit corporations, including the landscape of securities fraud suits in the federal courts, new discussions of unincorporated forms of business, insightful explanations of such news-making issues as corporate governance and director liabilities, and coverage of LLCs and LLPs.
  • Business Organization and Finance, Legal and Economic Principles (Concepts & Insights)
    • Available via the West Academic study aid subscription
    • Klein, Coffee, and Partnoy’s Business Organization and Finance, Legal and Economic Principles, 11th explains the basic economic elements and legal principles of business organization and finance. It distills in a straightforward and accessible way the essential elements of these often complex topics and explains the basic economic elements and legal principles of business organization and finance with concise, conceptual overviews. It contains a detailed introduction outlining the essential functions of corporate law. It contains an invaluable new section covering recent developments in financial markets, the financial crisis, the role of derivatives and financial complexity in the modern corporation to give students background on modern financial issues.

Selected Study Aids for Business Associations Exam Review and Preparation

  • Acing Business Associations
    • Available via the West Academic study aid subscription
    • This book provides an explanation of corporations, agency and partnership, and the other subjects addressed in most Business Associations courses. To accompany its explanations, the guide utilizes a checklist format to lead students through questions they need to ask and issues they need to address, to fully evaluate the agency, partnership or corporations, problems they will face when studying this subject.
  • Exam Pro on Business Associations, Objective
    • Available via the West Academic study aid subscription
    • Exam Pro-Objective on Business Associations is a study aid that helps law students prepare to take their Business Associations exam. Taking the sample objective exams and using the corresponding answers and analysis provides students with a more thorough understanding of Business Associations and a better understanding of how to take exams.
  • Corporations and Other Business Entities CrunchTime
    • Available via the Wolters Kluwer study aid subscription
    • This study aid provides flow charts, capsule summaries, exam tips, short answer exam questions, multiple choice questions, and essay questions with model answers.
  • Questions and Answers: Business Associations
    • Available via Lexis OverDrive study aid subscription
    • Q&A books consist of multiple choice and short answer questions with detailed explanations of the answers. This study guide includes over 190 multiple-choice and short-answer questions arranged topically for ease of use during the semester, plus an additional set of 28 questions comprising a comprehensive “practice exam.”

More Business Associations Study Aids

 

Business Tax

Selected Study Aids for Help Understanding Business Tax

  • Federal Corporate Taxation (Concepts & Insights)
    • Available via the West Academic study aid subscription
    • The eighth edition of this popular student supplement retains the cradle-to-grave ordering of prior editions and is updated to reflect changes made by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act as well as other recent changes in the law. In addition to using a “cradle-to-grave” approach to corporate taxation, the book features a discussion of taxable and tax-free corporate acquisitions and penalty provisions. It also surveys the tax treatment of S corporations and (briefly) consolidated groups. Full of examples with explanations of both how and why the system works as it does, this book can be used alongside any standard casebook. It may also be used as a primary text for those who emphasize the problem method and have developed their own problem set.
  • Taxation of Business Entities CALI Lessons
    • Available via CALI
    • CALI currently offers a number of interactive exercises for students studying Business Law. You will need to set up a password to use CALI online. To set up a username and password, you will be asked to enter UC Law’s authorization code. UC Law students can get this code from any reference librarian.
  • Understanding Taxation of Business Entities
    • Available via Lexis OverDrive study aid subscription
    • This book is broken into parts on partnership taxation, C corporation taxation, and S corporation taxation. Each chapter contains a basic overview and a detailed analysis; this allows for an understanding of the big picture before diving into the details, and the basic overview alone may be sufficient for some topics that may be covered lightly in a business entity taxation course. For each type of business tax entity, the book covers its life cycle – formation, operations, and liquidation – along with reorganizations and divisions for corporations. The book is replete with descriptions and analyses of the relevant Internal Revenue Code and Treasury Regulations provisions, summaries of leading cases and IRS rulings, and plenty of examples that apply the law to hypothetical situations.

Selected Study Aids for Business Tax Exam Review and Preparation

  • Black Letter Outline on Corporate Taxation
    • Available via the West Academic study aid subscription
    • This comprehensive and clearly written text is designed to help students recognize and understand the basic principles and issues covered in law school courses in corporate taxation at both the J.D. and LL.M. levels. It explains all the fundamental concepts and transactions affecting C and S corporations and their shareholders, and includes numerous illustrative examples, self-test questions with answers, and sample exam questions. The Ninth Edition incorporates all relevant provisions of the 2017 legislation known as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
  • Black Letter Outline on Partnership Taxation
    • Available via the West Academic study aid subscription
    • This text is designed to help students recognize and understand the basic principles and issues covered in law school courses in partnership or pass-through entity taxation at both the J.D. and LL.M. levels. It explains all the fundamental concepts and transactions affecting partnerships, limited liability companies, and S corporations and includes numerous illustrative examples, self-test questions with answers, and sample exam questions. The Ninth Edition incorporates all relevant provisions of the 2017 legislation known as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
  • Exam Pro on Partnership Taxation
    • Available via the West Academic study aid subscription
    • The Second Edition of the Exam Pro on Partnership Taxation extends the approach of the original as a partnership tax study guide with questions and answers. Completely revised and updated, it includes lectures and study questions on the deduction for qualified business income under section 199A, the new regulations on allocating partnership recourse debt, and the choice of entity for conducting business and investment activities. New sample exams at the basic, intermediate and advanced levels give you an even better shot to ace your partnership tax exam. The book is designed to help JD and LLM students from the first day of class. It begins with over 50 short lectures on topics in partnership tax ranging from basic to advanced, illustrated by over 280 study questions, each with a complete explanation of the right (and wrong) answers. Several of the lectures focus on the basic accounting concepts that are essential to understanding partnership tax, to give students with no prior accounting background the tools they need to succeed in this subject. The book includes twelve sample exams (a total of 120 more questions) that, like the lectures, increase in difficulty from basic to advanced, labeled so that students can pick the exams that are right for them and the course they are taking. Full answers to each of the exam questions are provided, with cross-references to the lectures and the study questions.

More Business Tax Study Aids

Evidence

Selected Study Aids for Help Understanding Evidence

  • Evidence CALI Lessons
    • Available via CALI
    • CALI currently offers many interactive exercises for Evidence students. You will need to set up a password to use CALI online. To set up a username and password, you will be asked to enter UC Law’s authorization code. UC Law students can get this code from any reference librarian.
  • Evidence: Examples & Explanations
    • Available via the Wolters Kluwer study aid subscription
    • This text covers the Federal Rules of Evidence and includes the latest Supreme Court cases. It also analyzes the ebb and flow of Confrontation Clause jurisprudence. Analysis is first provided for a topic and then examples are given to help students understand the analysis. A series of problems at the end of each section or chapter assist you in testing your understanding. Answers are provided for these problems.
  • A Student’s Guide to Hearsay
    • Available via Lexis OverDrive study aid subscription
    • The fifth edition of A Student’s Guide to Hearsay focuses on the Federal Rules of Evidence, breaking down the hearsay rule into its elements and explaining them in straightforward language. It does the same for each of the 29 exceptions to the hearsay rule. The book covers the Sixth Amendment Confrontation Clause and includes a proposed amendment to the Rules. It also explains related subjects: what a grand jury is and how it operates; offers of proof, order of proof, burdens of proof; conditional relevancy and conditional admissibility; and privileged communications.
  • Understanding Evidence
    • Available via Lexis OverDrive study aid subscription
    • Understanding Evidence begins with an overview of Evidence law followed by an explanation of the roles of the judge and jury. The remaining chapters are organized under the following topics: Procedural Framework of Trial; Relevancy; Witnesses; Real and Demonstrative Evidence; Writings; Hearsay; Privileges; and Substitutes for Evidence. This treatise extensively discusses and cites the Federal Rules of Evidence. Cases, statutes, other rules, and secondary sources are also cited, providing a comprehensive framework for understanding evidence law. The fifth edition discusses recent amendments to the Federal Rules of Evidence and new Supreme Court cases since the previous edition in 2013.

Selected Study Aids for Evidence Exam Review and Preparation

  • Exam Pro on Evidence (Objective)
    • Available via the West Academic study aid subscription
    • Exam Pro-Objective on Evidence is a study aid that helps law students prepare to take their Evidence exam. Taking the sample objective exams and using the corresponding answers and analysis provides students with a more thorough understanding of Evidence and a better understanding of how to take exams.
  • Exam Pro on Evidence (Essay)
    • Available via the West Academic study aid subscription
    • Exam Pro-Essay is a study aid that helps law students prepare to take their Evidence exam. Answering the sample essay exams and the specific subject matter essay questions, followed by review of the corresponding answers and analysis, provides students with a more thorough comprehension of the Federal Rules of Evidence and a better understanding of how to take exams.
  • The Glannon Guide to Evidence
    • Available via the Wolters Kluwer study aid subscription
    • Provides an explanation of the Federal Rules of Evidence, with each chapter corresponding to the 10 main articles of evidence. Substantial text is spent on Hearsay, Character evidence, and Impeachment. Each chapter begins with an explanation of the rules and follows with multiple choice questions applying the rules to hypotheticals. An analysis of the correct answers is also provided.

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Copyright

Selected Study Aids for Help Understanding Copyright

  • Intellectual Property CALI Lessons
    • Available via CALI
    • CALI currently offers many interactive exercises for Copyright students. You will need to set up a password to use CALI online. To set up a username and password, you will be asked to enter UC Law’s authorization code. UC Law students can get this code from any reference librarian.
  • Copyright: Examples & Explanations
    • Available via the Wolters Kluwer study aid subscription
    • This study aid provides an overview of Copyright Law, together with examples that illustrate how these principles apply in typical cases. Discussions of issues include whether artists have copyright in their performances, first sale of digital works, copying of information from famous news photographs, copyright of works in virtual worlds, fair use of appropriation art, news clippings services, Google Books, course pack, secondary liability of BitTorrent and YouTube, and reasonable royalty damages. A series of problems at the end of each section or chapter assist you in testing your understanding. Answers are provided for these problems.
  • Copyright Law (Concepts & Insights)
    • Available via the West Academic study aid subscription
    • The text provides an exploration of the doctrinal and policy issues in American copyright law. It covers every major topic in basic copyright courses: the history of copyright, ownership and duration, formalities, exclusive rights of the copyright holder, fair use, civil and criminal enforcement of copyright law, and federal preemption of state law. Beyond that, the authors address the major new issues that have emerged over the past two decades, including the rules of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act regarding circumvention of technological protections of copyrighted materials, and the principles of secondary liability, both in their basic form and as developed through application of the DMCA to internet service providers. Moreover, attention is given to the important points at which U.S. copyright law intersects with international intellectual property treaties.
  • Understanding Copyright Law
    • Available via Lexis OverDrive study aid subscription
    • The Understanding series provides an overview and analysis of legal subjects. It provides less analysis than a hornbook but more than a nutshell. Understanding Copyright Law has incorporated all the recent case law and legislative developments, focusing on the challenges of the digital age.

Selected Study Aids for Copyright Exam Review and Preparation

  • Acing Intellectual Property
    • Available via the West Academic study aid subscription
    • This study aid uses outline-like checklists to lead law students through the analytical steps necessary to analyze intellectual property issues. The book covers trademark, patent, copyright, and trade secret law. Each chapter begins with a brief review of the important rules and concepts that govern a particular area of intellectual property law. The review material is followed by a checklist that provides students with a clear roadmap for answering intellectual property questions. Each chapter concludes with practice problems and solutions that illustrate how students can use the checklist to analyze intellectual property issues.
  • Intellectual Property Crunchtime
    • Available via the Wolters Kluwer study aid subscription
    • This CrunchTime covers intellectual property generally, trade secrets (status, ownership, and public policy); patents (novelty, non-obviousness); rights in undeveloped ideas; copyright (idea/expression, originality, infringement); trademark law (policies, registerd and common-law marks, origin, product feature trade dress; unfair competition; and federal and state law relationship.
  • Questions and Answers: Copyright
    • Available via Lexis OverDrive study aid subscription
    • Copyright law determines what it means to own works of authorship, and it does so by means of a complex federal statute. Questions & Answers: Copyright Law helps students navigate this challenging subject matter with multiple choice, short answer, and final exam essay questions that test both the concepts and substantive law of copyright. The second edition includes over fifty new multiple choice questions, as well as three new practice examinations. These additions reflect the latest developments in this ever-changing field, including the implications of U.S. Supreme Court decisions such as Petrella v. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Golan v. Holder, and American Broadcasting Cos., Inc. v. Aereo, Inc. The questions and practice exams span the varied landscape of copyright, including: Requirements for copyright protection; Copyrightable subject matter; Ownership of copyright; Protection of exclusive rights; Copyright formalities; Length of copyright protection; Infringement; Fair use and other affirmative defenses; Remedies; and Enhanced protection for digital materials.

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Immigration Law & Policy

Selected Study Aids for Help Understanding Immigration Law & Policy

  • Global Issues in Immigration Law
    • Available via the West Academic study aid subscription
    • Topics include an introductory discussion of comparative versus international law and the relevance of both to U.S. Jurisprudence; a comprehensive overview of international migration multilateral and bilateral regimes; glimpses into the immigration law and practices of Mexico, Canada, the European Union, the United Kingdom, France, and Spain; and a final part that examines international norms on freedom of movement, the right to nationality, policing, living conditions, immigrant workers and anti-terrorism law.
  • Law School Legends Audio on Immigration Law
    • Available via the West Academic study aid subscription
    • This audio lecture provides a comprehensive survey of immigration law from a nationally recognized immigration law expert. It explores immigration and the Constitution, the grounds for entering the United States, the grounds for exclusion, the process of admission, the grounds for deportation, relief from deportability, the process of deportation, asylum and refugee law, the convention against torture, workplace enforcement of immigration laws, and the law of citizenship.
  • Understanding Immigration Law
    • Available via Lexis OverDrive study aid subscription
    • The third edition of Understanding Immigration Law lays out the basics of U.S. immigration law in an accessible way to newcomers to the field. It offers background about the intellectual, historical, and constitutional foundations of U.S. immigration law. The book also identifies the factors that have historically fueled migration to the United States, including the economic “pull” of jobs and family in the United States and the “push” of economic hardship, political instability, and other facts of life in the sending country. Each chapter has been updated to analyze the unprecedented number of immigration enforcement measures—and many simply unprecedented measures—taken by the Trump administration.

Conflict of Laws

Selected Study Aids for Help Understanding Conflict of Laws

  • Conflict of Laws: Examples & Explanations
    • Available via the Wolters Kluwer study aid subscription
    • This text explores all topics covered in Conflicts courses, including personal jurisdiction and the Erie doctrine. It covers traditional and modern approaches to choice of law, proof of law, and enforcement of foreign country and sister state judgments. It provides up-to-date coverage of constitutional limits on personal jurisdiction, choice of law, and actions against sister states.New to the Fourth Edition: substantially revised personal jurisdiction chapters to add latest Supreme Court cases; new material on full faith and credit and immunity of state governments to sue in sister states in response to recent Supreme Court decisions; new material on proof of foreign country law in response to recent Supreme Court decision Additional material on state law proof of law that refers to new developments in state law; new examples and explanations that apply most recent changes in law such as coverage of same-sex marriage rights after Obergefell.
  • Principles of Conflict of Laws (Concise Hornbook)
    • Available via the West Academic study aid subscription
    • This Concise Hornbook guides students through the complex concepts and principles underlying the law of domestic and international conflicts. It looks at recognition of judgments, and the law applied in federal courts, as well as more specific developments concerning conflicts in family law, cyberspace, and international transactions.
  • Understanding Conflict of Laws
    • Available via Lexis OverDrive study aid subscription
    • This text provides treatment of the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent personal jurisdiction decisions in J. McIntyre Machinery Ltd. v. Nicastro and Goodyear Dunlop Tires Operations, S.A. v. Brown, and updated material on jurisdiction in cyberspac; discussion of recent choice-of-law cases, choice-of-law codification efforts, and new developments relating to the Erie doctrine; updated discussions of conflict-of-laws issues surrounding same-sex marriage and the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act;and expanded coverage of international conflict-of-laws issues, including forum non conveniens, recognition and enforcement of foreign country judgments, the Hague Service Convention, the Convention on Choice of Court Agreements, the U.N. Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards, the Convention on the International Recovery of Child Support and Other Forms of Family Maintenance, the Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, and the Convention on Protection of Children and Cooperation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption.

Selected Study Aids for Conflict of Laws Exam Review and Preparation

  • Black Letter Outline on Conflict of Laws
    • Available via the West Academic study aid subscription
    • Black Letter Outlines are designed to help a law student recognize and understand the basic principles and issues of law covered in a law school course. This outline covers: overview of conflict of laws; litigational matters; domestic relations; choice of law – basic consideration; particular choice law law – problems; and issues of federalism.
  • Gilbert Law Summaries on Conflict of Laws
    • Available via the West Academic study aid subscription
    • The topics covered in this Conflict of Laws outline include domicile, jurisdiction (including notice and opportunity to be heard, minimum contacts, and types of jurisdiction), choice of law (including vested rights approach, most significant relationship approach, and governmental interest analysis), and choice of law in specific substantive areas. Also included are traditional defenses against application of foreign law, constitutional limitations and overriding federal law (including Due Process Clause, Full Faith and Credit Clause, and conflict between state and federal law), and recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments.
  • Sum and Substance Quick Review of Conflict of Laws
    • Available via the West Academic study aid subscription
    • This product provides clear and concise explanations of the issues surrounding the conflict of laws. The text provides an analytical and exam approach accompanied by typical questions found on a conflict of laws exam. It includes multiple-choice questions and answers, practice essay questions and model answers, and Case Squibs.

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International Business Transactions

Selected Study Aids for Help Understanding International Business Transactions

  • International Business Transactions in a Nutshell
    • Available via the West Academic study aid subscription
    • This work examines the law and practices relevant to the principal forms of international business and commercial transactions. It includes chapters on negotiating business transactions; the law governing international sales of goods; structuring international sales transactions; the function and substance of international commercial terms; the law governing the international transportation of goods; financing international business transactions, especially through letters of credit; electronic transactions and the protection of data privacy; technology transfers; the initiation, operation, and termination of, as well as the limitations imposed on, foreign investments; property takings, including the options for protecting against and remedies for such actions; the extraterritorial regulation of international business; anti-corruption law; and the resolution of international disputes, whether through litigation in domestic court or through international arbitration.
  • Principles of International Business Transactions
    • Available via the West Academic study aid subscription
    • This book is part of the concise hornbook series.Concise hornbooks are condensed versions of the more in-depth hornbook. This tracks the coursebook, International Business Transactions, and three spin-offs Contracting Across Borders, Trade and Economic Relations and Foreign Investment Law. Coverage moves sequentially from structuring international sales transactions to international sales law and letters of credit to regulation of international trade to transfers of technology to foreign investment to international business dispute settlement.
  • Understanding International Business and Financial Transactions
    • Available via Lexis OverDrive study aid subscription
    • This study aid provides an overview of International Business and Financial Transactions. This edition covers a wide range of topics relating to money, currency and finance in International Trade, The Rules of International Trade, United States Trade Laws, international sales, operating in foreign markets and taxation of international transactions. Understanding International Business and Financial Transactions also addresses recent developments in international business and finance particularly since the global financial crisis reached its full force in 2008.

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