This Week in the Law Library …

This week in the Law Library, we’re looking at more bar exam resources, summer legal research tips, and we are celebrating Pride month.

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.

The July bar examination will be administered July 26-27, 2022 at the Roberts Centre, 123 Gano Road, Wilmington, Ohio. There will be a room block available for the attached Holiday Inn.

5 More Bar Exam Resources

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

Available via 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.

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. 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

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. 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

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. 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

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. 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

Summer Legal Research Tips

Get Up to Speed on What Resources Are Available

Ask question such as:

  • What resources are available and what are you allowed to access?
  • Does your employer have a library and a law librarian?
  • What internal resources such as document templates, document management systems, and brief banks are available?
  • What citation style is used?

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.

Develop a Research Plan

Having a research strategy is the best way to make sure your research is complete and accurate, and it will also make your research more efficient. There is no single correct plan. Your research strategy will change depending on your knowledge and expertise, the complexity of the issue, the resources to which you have access, your budget, your time, and what you discover as you research. If you know the area well, you will not have to look for authorities in as many places and you can zero in on the sources you know are likely to lead you directly to the answer. A good research strategy for a law student researching an unfamiliar legal issue is to plan on consulting secondary sources before moving on to primary sources. A secondary source is about the law and primary source is the actual law itself. Secondary sources can help you learn the basics of a particular area of law, provide you with the vocabulary used in that area of law and what that terminology means, and identify primary sources of law.

Once you have a plan, you will identify the issues and the best resources in which to research those issues. After you have identified the best resources to use, you will need to locate those resources and then evaluate them in the context of your research needs. You will sort and sift through those resources, choosing the material that you will use to solve your problem. As you go through these steps, you will document and update your research and then start the cycle again.

Read more about developing a research plan on our Research Strategy & Documentation guide.

June Is Pride Month!

Rainbow 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. Read President Biden’s 2022 Proclamation on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and Intersex Pride Month.

5 Pride Month Resources

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

June ABA 21-Day LGBTQ+ Equity Habit Building Challenge ©

This Challenge is modeled after the “21-Day Racial Equity Habit-Building Challenge©,” which was conceived several years ago by diversity expert Dr. Eddie Moore, Jr. to advance deeper understandings of the intersections of race, power, privilege, supremacy, and oppression. The goal of the Challenge is to assist each of us to become more aware, compassionate, constructive, engaged people in the quest for equity, and specifically to learn more about the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and many communities included under the “LGBTQ+ umbrella.” It transcends our roles as lawyers. Non-lawyers are also welcome to participate. The Challenge invites participants to complete a syllabus of 21 daily, short assignments (typically taking 15-30 minutes), over 21 consecutive days, that includes readings, videos, or podcasts. The assignments seek to expose participants to perspectives on elements of LGBTQ+ histories, identities, and cultures. This Challenges cannot possibly highlight all of the diversity of experiences and opinions within the LGBTQ+ community itself, much less substitute for learnings about any other community. This syllabus is but an introduction to what we hope will be a rewarding journey that extends far beyond the limits of this project.

ABA Commission on Sexual Orientation & Gender Identity, 2022 Stonewall Award Honorees & Virtual Celebration Video

The Stonewall Award recognizes lawyers, members of the judiciary and legal academia who have effected real change to remove barriers on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity in the legal profession, the world, state, state/or locale and championed diversity for the LGBT community. Thi year’s honorees are Justice G. Helen Whitener, Shannon Minter, and Jordan Blisk.

ABA Commission on Sexual Orientation & Gender Identity & DISCLOSURE, Trans Awareness for Legal Professionals: Why it Matters and Tools to Help

The American Bar Association and DISCLOSURE produced this 2021 webinar for legal professionals during Trans Awareness Week 2021. Participants get a closer look at the toolkit developed by the DISCLOSURE Impact team for lawyers, judges, and others in the legal system, and hear from trans leaders in the field at the Transgender Law Center, the Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund, as well as Alameda County Superior Court.

LGBTQ+ Bar’s Educational Program Series, LGBTQ+ and Black History: A Conversation

In this webinar, historian Zaylore Stout, recent author of “Our Gay History in 50 States,” adds historical perspective to the national dialogue on racial equity. He focuses on how two important January events (Inauguration and first MLK day since George Floyd) fit into our nation’s larger story.

LBTQ+ Bar’s Educational Program Series, Trans Awareness For The Workplace

More than 90% of Fortune 500 companies explicitly embrace gender identity non-discrimination policies (up from 3% in 2002). Therefore, you are more likely now than ever before to encounter transgender people and their colleagues in the workplace. In this presentation, Jamie Rodriguez, Senior Counsel at Holland & Knight LLP, will help us understand how to be aware and intentional in interacting with transgender individuals, how we can be allies to the transgender community, and the unique issues transgender people face in the workplace. In June 2019, Jamie was the first openly trans employee to transition at Holland & Knight LLP. By learning her story and listening to her guidance, we can help create inclusive workplaces and organizations, where transgender people feel supported, empowered, and safe to bring their authentic selves to work.