NYLI’s Director of Innovation & Engagement, Ellyssa Valenti Kroski, will be giving a webinar for the American Library Association (ALA) on Law Librarianship for Beginners. In this webinar, participants will learn the fundamental elements of finding legal materials, including primary sources like constitutions; statutes; court opinions and case law; regulations; and administrative decisions. Kroski will also cover secondary and scholarly sources which may be cited as persuasive authority such as treatises, law reviews, specialized periodicals, annotations, and restatements, as well as legal encyclopedias. This webinar is applicable to libraries in a wide variety of environments and will cover both free and commercial sources.
After participating in this event, learners will:
- Understand how to track down a legal citation
- Be able to distinguish between statute and case law citations
- Know sources for locating both Federal and State statutes
- Understand where to find both Federal and State court opinions
- Know how to look for specialized legal materials such as regulations, dockets, forms, and reporters
- Understand the basics of checking the validity of a case before citing it
