… and law-geek wannabes…

If there’s anything The Legal Genealogist believes wholeheartedly, it’s that there’s no such thing as too much legal education, particularly legal education that genealogists can use.

And an ongoing series of webinars from the Law Library of Congress ought to be just up our alleys — for all of us.

And you can stay abreast of what’s being offered and when on my favorite law blog, called In Custodia Legis, the blog of the Law Librarians of Congress.

Just a few days ago, the blog announced the two webinars scheduled for October:

• Thursday, 14 October, 11am-noon ET, Orientation to Legal Research: U.S. Case Law. Presented by Margaret M. Wood, senior legal reference librarian, here’s a chance to “learn about historic American legal traditions, how to use print and online resources to find court decisions, and researching court materials, including dockets and filings, to name just a few subjects.”

This isn’t a high-level course: it’s “an introduction to legal sources and research techniques regarding U.S. case law research, including information about the U.S. federal court system, the publication of court opinions, methods for researching case law, and information about locating records and briefs.”¹

• Thursday, 28 October, 2-3 pm ET, Congress.gov Webinar. Presented by Barbara Bavis, bibliographic and research instruction librarian, and Robert Brammer, chief of the Law Library’s Office of External Relations, this look at the website for Congressional info will “feature some of Congress.gov’s functions, as well as recent updates to the site.”

If you’re not familiar with this website, this will be a good way to learn more — it’s “a basic overview of Congress.gov with a demonstration of how to conduct a search and information on setting up alerts for legislation, members, and saved searches. Recent enhancements to Congress.gov will also be covered, such as the addition of historical content from the Bound Congressional Record and other updates.”²

You can register for these free sessions online. For the case law webinar, the registration link is here, and for the Congress.gov webinar, the registration link is here.

These are just the most recent in a series of educational webinars offered by the Law Library of Congress. Past sessions have included topics ranging from federal statutes to federal regulations.

It’s a terrific way to learn more about legal resources, legal research techniques for getting to those resources, and the holdings of the Library of Congress.

From the Law Library of Congress.

From home.

Free.

It doesn’t get much better than that.

Cite/link to this post: Judy G. Russell, “Attention law geeks!,” The Legal Genealogist (https://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog : posted 27 Sep 2021).

SOURCES