The Goodson Blogson

You probably already know that current state constitutions are reprinted in state code publications, and are generally freely available on state legislature websites (like North Carolina's ). But what if you want to search across all fifty states? A new free resource from the State Democracy Research Initiative at the University of Wisconsin Law School, 50Constitutions.org , allows researchers to explore the text of current state constitutions individually or across the country. Fourteen states, including North Carolina , also include constitutional histories , detailing amendments over time and providing access to historical texts. The site’s editors note that “additional features will be added for other states on a rolling basis.” 50Constitutions.org has been added to the Law Library's Legal Databases & Links page. Other sources for state constitutional research available at Duke include Oxford Constitutions of the World , which provides U.S. state materials in its Juri...

The Duke Law community now has access to Lex Machina , a litigation analytics tool containing data on courts, judges, law firms, attorneys, and parties. Access Lex Machina by logging into Lexis+ and choosing it from the product switcher grid in the top left corner of any research screen.   Duke's Lex Machina pilot access from Lexis is expected to last for the 2025-2026 academic year. It includes federal court and specialty venue modules, with limited read-only access to state court materials. Sections beyond the pilot program's access are clearly labeled as out of scope, and may include a brief preview or overview of the data contained within that section. The "Quick Tools" section includes the ability to compare and explore litigation history for parties, courts and judges, and law firms as well as expert witnesses; Analyzers for the case history of attorney teams and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on courts’ workload; and a case assessment tool. Lex Machina a...

Whether you are graduating from Duke Law this month or continuing your legal studies next year, your access to legal research services and other campus databases may change this summer. Below is a summary of policies for the major legal research databases that you might wish to access over the summer. Continuing Students Westlaw allows continuing students to use Thomson Reuters products, including Westlaw® and Practical Law, over the summer for non-commercial research (i.e., "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 Westlaw 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 Your Westlaw summer access will continue automatically - no action is needed on your part. Lexis : A...

Time to get ready for spring exams! Just a few more weeks separate you from your summer, and here are some resources to make the most of your remaining study time. Additional recommended productivity apps and time management tips are available from Bowdoin's Wicked Smart Learning Strategies , Central Michigan University's Study and Success Strategies , and the Duke Academic Resource Center's Study Strategies that Work . First, fill in those outline gaps with study aids , available in print and online via the Law Library. The West Academic Study Aids Library includes Acing, Concepts and Insights, Hornbooks, Nutshells, Black Letter Outlines, Legalines, and Sum and Substance audio. The Aspen Learning Library includes Examples & Explanations, Glannon Guides, and Emanuel Law Outlines. Elgar Advanced Introductions to Law provides accessible yet comprehensive overviews of more than two dozen legal topics, particularly strong in comparative and international areas of law...

The Duke University Libraries now provide full-text unlimited access to The Atlantic , featuring news and commentary on today's issues as well as a complete online archive of back issues dating back to 1857. To access the subscription, go to https://www.theatlantic.com and click "Sign In." Under "Accessing a group subscription?" select "Sign in through your institution" > Duke University > Continue to sign in via NetID. Links to this access are available on the Duke Libraries A-Z research database list or on the Law Library's Legal Databases & Links page. This access also works with The Atlantic mobile apps for Android and iOS ; be sure to use the "Sign in through your institution" option rather than username/password. In its nearly 200 years of history, many notable authors have published in The Atlantic , including Frederick Douglass, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Ernest Hemingway, and Mark Twain. The Atlantic Writers Proje...

The Goodson Law Library, in partnership with the Duke University Libraries, now offers campus-wide access to The Assembly , an award-winning news source focused on North Carolina politics, government, and other issues affecting the state. Full-text access is currently automatic from the Duke University IP range or through the “Library Resources” group of the Duke VPN . A link with access instructions is available at the Legal Databases & Links page. The Assembly launched in 2021 and maintains bureaus in the Triangle, Fayetteville, Wilmington, and Greensboro. In the local area, a partnership with Indyweek brings selected stories to the biweekly free paper. The site offers newsletters for statewide and regional coverage as well as The Docket , a weekly email on state court activity. For help with accessing The Assembly , or for questions about the other news resources you can access at Duke University and Duke Law , be sure to Ask a Librarian .

Tired of newspaper website paywalls? At Duke, you have access to more popular news sources than you may think! The Goodson Law Library offers current members of the Law School community access to group subscriptions for several outlets, including The New York Times , Financial Times , and the Washington Post ; additional titles are available through your NetID or other credentials, such as the Law School Lexis login. Details for major titles are available at the Legal Databases & Links page and highlights are below. The Law community can set up an individual account with The New York Times by visiting https://nytimesineducation.com/access-nyt/ while connected to the VPN (be sure to choose "Library Resources" option rather than the "Default" when logging in). Once connected, type "Duke" under "Find School" and select "Duke University School of Law." Student accounts last until December of the graduation year; faculty and staff a...

The Goodson Law Library research guide to Court Records & Briefs has recently been updated. In addition to corrected web links and updated guidance to free and premium resources like PACER and Bloomberg Law dockets searching, the guide includes a number of new records and briefs compilations that were added since the last update. Some highlights include: The Making of Modern Law: Landmark Records and Briefs of the U.S. Courts of Appeals, 1891-1980 features selected records and briefs from the U.S. Courts of Appeals dating from the 1890s to 1980. Drawn from a number of source libraries (including the National Archives, the New York City Bar Library, and the University of Iowa), featured cases cover a wide range of subject matter. The database is searchable by case name, citation, and keyword, and a "Topic Finder" feature is also available. LLMC Digital has expanded its records and briefs offerings since the last guide update. Its Records and Briefs search tab (avai...

It's been three years since the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously held in National Collegiate Athletic Association v. Alston that the NCAA's rules on player compensation violated federal antitrust law. Since then, Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) deals have proliferated for college athletes, and universities and fans alike are grappling with the changes and their impact on the recruitment and retention of top prospects. You can read more about the history and future of these developments in College Sports Law in a Nutshell , a newly published title now available in the West Academic Study Aids Library . Attorney Dan Lust and Ole Miss sports law professor William W. Berry III cover such topics as NIL, the transfer portal, and the impact of conference realignment. West Academic Study Aids Library also includes Walter T. Champion, Jr.'s Sports Law in a Nutshell , 5th ed. 2017, which includes some content about collegiate athletics. Other general sports law treatises can be fo...

A common question at the Law Library reference desk involves how to find contact information for various people: potential academic collaborators, government employees like court clerks or agency officials, or attorneys who participated in a particular case. A basic web search on your favorite search engine may reveal contact information for academics and other public figures. (Go beyond the usual suspects with PC Mag’s " Best Alternative Search Engines .") If contact information is omitted or behind a login wall, though, some additional free options are available: SSRN contains author contact information, although researchers are restricted to accessing the email addresses of 3 contacts per day (click the author's name to access their profile, then the down arrow next to "Contact," then the link to "Email"). This can be a good method to locate contact information for academic authors whose emails are not provided on their institutional website. S...

Whether you're hunting for an audiobook for long commutes or seeking out a perfect beach vacation read, it can be daunting to pick the right title. After all, no one wants to be stuck on a long plane ride with a book that turns out to be a dud! To help you find something good to read this summer, the Goodson Law Library staff are once again sharing their recent recommendations. You can see some of these titles in person at the service desk display this month, along with special summer reading bookmarks. Magic for Beginners: Stories , by Kelly Link (2005). ( Request a print copy or read the e-book !). "Based on the recommendation from a friend and fellow librarian, I began reading this book as an escape from the everyday, and it has not disappointed. Kelly Link's short stories paint of world of magic that lurks behind the mask of the ordinary." –Julie Wooldridge, Research Services Librarian and Senior Lecturing Fellow   The Firm , by John Grisham (1991). ( Borrow...

Hard to believe that summer is almost here! Whether you are graduating from Duke Law this month or continuing your legal studies next year, your access to legal research services and other campus databases may change this summer. Below is a summary of policies for the major legal research databases that you might wish to access in the next few months. Continuing Students Westlaw allows continuing students to use Thomson Reuters products, including Westlaw Precision and Practical Law, over the summer for non-commercial research ( i.e ., "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 Westlaw 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 Your Westlaw summe...

Curious about how casebooks and study aids have treated a particular court opinion or doctrine over time? The Goodson Law Library now has access to a brand-new collection in HeinOnline: the West Academic Casebooks Archive , available to the Duke University community with NetID and password. This collection contains nearly 4,000 historical West casebooks and study aids, including the American and University Casebook series, Hornbooks, and Nutshells. Contents of this collection date from the 1830s to 2018. Hundreds of additional titles will be added in the near future. However, don't go looking for the latest editions of casebooks and study aids here: The two most recent editions of any series are held back from the collection until a newer one arrives to push the third-oldest title into the archive. (Recent West Academic study aids series can be found in the separate database of West Academic Study Aids , while recent West casebooks assigned in Duke Law courses can be found in the ...

Last month marked a milestone for the Caselaw Access Project (CAP) , an ambitious project from the Harvard Law Library Innovation Lab to digitize centuries of U.S. federal and state case law for free public access. Launched in 2016 with the financial backing of online legal research company Ravel Law (now owned by LexisNexis ), the Caselaw Access Project involved the digitization of more than 36 million pages of printed case reporters. The original agreement contained a commercial use restriction for eight years, which has now expired. The Innovation Lab commemorated the occasion with a conference on March 8 , highlighting the history of the project and use cases for the future. For more information on the history of the project, see Adam Ziegler's guest post at Bob Ambrogi's Law Sites . The Search feature on the legacy version of the CAP website links to CourtListener's Advanced Case Law Search , which has incorporated the CAP content. The beta version of the  CAP websit...

The Goodson Law Library has just subscribed to MuniPro MuniCode Library , a database with nearly 4,000 municipal codes. While many municipal and local ordinances are freely readable and searchable online (such as Durham, NC ), MuniPro allows researchers to search across multiple codes and jurisdictions, as well as create saved searches and alerts for topics of interest. For more details, visit the vendor help page .    Municode is available to current members of the Duke University community and is linked from the Legal Databases & Links and campus libraries Databases A-Z list . If using off-campus, connect via the Library Resources Only group of the Duke VPN . At the Municode home page, select "Sign in" in the header area and then click "Log in with site-wide subscription." Additional resources for researching municipal codes include: Fastcase (University) includes city codes for Durham, Raleigh, Greensboro, and Winston-Salem in its North Carolina Statut...

Most legal researchers are familiar with the federal government's treaty powers (for an overview, check out the Constitution Annotated discussion of Article II, section 2, clause 2 or the three-part 2023 Congressional Research Service report series on International Agreements ). Likely less familiar to many are state -level commitments with foreign governments. After all, the Constitution expressly prohibits states from entering into their own treaties, and requires congressional consent for states to enter into agreements or compacts with foreign governments. However, individual U.S. states can and do enter into memoranda of understanding and other commitments with foreign entities. Due to their more ad hoc nature as compared to the highly formal federal process, locating the text or information about these state-level commitments can be difficult.  A new library within the HeinOnline research database called U.S. State Commitments with Foreign Governments , now available to t...

The Goodson Law Library has recently subscribed to Jus Mundi , a research platform containing the full text of treaties, case law, rules, and publications related to international law and arbitration. This database is available to current Duke University students, faculty and staff with NetID and password, and links are available through the Duke Libraries Catalog and Legal Databases & Links page. Jus Mundi includes thousands of documents on the topics of investment arbitration, commercial arbitration, public international law, law of the sea, and international trade. Decisions from more than 100 commissions and organizations are included. Duke's subscription also includes access to the ICC Dispute Resolution Library and Juris Arbitration Library. Additional international arbitration databases include Kluwer Arbitration and the Oxford Legal Research Library 's International Commercial Arbitration module. For more information about researching international arbitrat...

The end of the semester is almost here! Amid the flurry of final exams and the holiday rush, it might be hard to find time for your perfect winter break book. But a good read can help pass the time on long flights or airport delays, as well as give you a great way to wind down for the night at the end of busy holiday festivities. To help you find something appealing to read before you go, here are seven recommended titles that the Goodson Law Library staff have enjoyed recently. Number Go Up: Inside Crypto's Wild Rise and Staggering Fall , by Zeke Faux ( Request a print copy   or put a hold on the e-book !) "In this up-close-and-personal account, Faux reveals the highly entertaining and, frankly, horrifying (for human beings and the environment) worlds behind the current crypto scandals. An investigative reporter for Bloomberg, Faux also manages to make abstruse cryptocurrency concepts digestible here. For my fellow legal news junkies looking for a deep dive beyond the FTX/...

If you’ve ever ventured to the Superseded Looseleaf collection on Level 1 on a cite-checking quest, you know that locating archived issues of BNA Law Reports and similar titles can be challenging. Bloomberg Law , which acquired BNA more than a decade ago , has long offered access to the full text of various Law Reports back to the 1990s, but many titles have had a much longer history in print than that. Thanks to an inquiry from Indiana University Maurer School of Law Library Director Susan deMaine this summer, Bloomberg Law has now activated a fuller archive of Law Reports publications for its users.  The BNA Current Reports Archive is accessible from the Practice Centers & Tools home page. To reach it, click on " Practice Centers & Tools " under "Popular Links" on the Bloomberg home page, then scroll down to News & Analysis > " Bloomberg BNA Law Reports (Archive) " to view available titles. Once you've selected a title, you can sea...

Sooner or later, we all hit a paywall while trying to read the news online. Sometimes a cleared cache or incognito browser window might provide limited access to one story, but many news outlets restrict even that practice. Understandably, newsrooms need to pay their bills in the face of declining subscriptions and increasing online competition. Some outlets face outright hostility for their work, such as the small-town Kansas newspaper whose editors' offices and homes were raided by law enforcement last week after the paper received a tip about a local restaurateur's criminal record. How can you ethically access so many different news sources without breaking the bank? Good news: current members of the Duke Law and Duke University community have many options for accessing the full text of popular news sources. Some require the setup of an individual account, while others need only a NetID login from a link on a Duke website. The Goodson Law Library offers current members of...