Tuesday, May 5, 2015

New Research Guide to Transactional Resources

The Goodson Law Library website now includes a new research guide Transactional Resources: Tools for Doing a Deal. Reference librarian Laura Scott has compiled a mix of electronic and print resources for transactional practice, including drafting guides, forms and checklists, and sample documents.

Current members of the Duke Law community have access to many resources through Bloomberg Law's Transactional Resources tab, the Lexis Practice Advisor available on Lexis Advance, and WestlawNext's Business Law Center. All of these sources include forms and helpful secondary sources such as glossaries and treatises. The library collection also includes several useful titles, particularly in the area of contract drafting. Of particular interest is the recent textbook Contract Drafting: How and Why Lawyers Do What They Do (Reserves KF807 .S73 2014); this helpful introduction is not available online at Duke. A similar, but older, title, Working with Contracts: What Law School Doesn't Teach You, is available in the library's Reserve collection as well as online in Bloomberg Law (Search & Browse > Books & Treatises > Practising Law Institute).

This new guide has been published at an especially good time. A recently-released white paper from LexisNexis on attorney practice-readiness found that a whopping 95% of transactional attorneys believe that their newer associates lack critical skills for transactional practice. Some of the most important skills for newly-hired transactional attorneys include familiarity with business and finance concepts, simple contract drafting, and research of sample precedent forms and company information. The Transactional Resources guide includes materials which will assist with the development of these basic skills.

The new transactional guide is linked from the Law Library Research Guides page, along with more than 30 other topical guides created by Goodson Law Library reference staff. (If your research topic isn’t listed, there’s also a link to CALI's Law School Website Custom Search Engine, which will help locate research guides from other ABA-accredited law schools.) For help with accessing materials in the Transactional Resources guide or other library guides, be sure to Ask a Librarian.