Tax Law: Electronic Resource(s) of the Month

Interested in tax law? 

Did you know that the Law Library provides two great tax resources online that provide more tax materials than you could ever imagine? Examples include legislative history compilations, editorial content, and every IRS publication you could think of. The Bloomberg/BNA Tax & Accounting Center and the Intelliconnect CCH OmniTax Library can give students and faculty access to all those materials and more.

Go to http://law.loyno.edu/library/online-resources to connect to these databases. Both resources are only available to Loyola Law faculty and students; they can be accessed while connected to the Loyola internet or off-campus using your Loyola username and password. 

The IntelliConnect legal research platform provides users with access to all our CCH/Wolters Kluwer legal resources, including the CCH OmniTax Library, with its collection of state and federal tax materials.

The Bloomberg/BNA Tax & Accounting Center is a specialized legal research portal for tax professionals that bundles together all of BNA's tax resources, such as the Daily Tax Report and the Tax Management Portfolios, and provides access to the Internal Revenue Code, Treasury Regulations, and federal tax cases.

When citing these resources according to the Bluebook, you might have to read several rules. Be sure to take a look at Rule 14 (administrative materials), Rule 19 (services), Table 1.2 (federal administrative materials), and Table 15 (services). 

Print Resource of the Month: Louisiana Civil Jury Instruction Companion Handbook

From January to May, we are focusing this series on Louisiana-specific materials intended to be helpful for practice (or that are just really interesting). Check back each month for updates!

Last month’s post discussed Trial Handbook for Louisiana Lawyers , a book that provides a wide range of information related to practice in LA district courts. The resource this week focuses on one aspect of courtroom practice: jury instructions.

Louisiana Civil Jury Instruction Companion Handbook is a great resource for practicing attorneys because usually lawyers write and submit jury instructions without pattern instructions to follow. This book compiles jury instructions that were actually given in particular cases with additional notes to serve as a guide for practitioners. It is designed as a “companion handbook” to work in conjunction with another popular treatise on LA jury instructions, Louisiana Civil Law Treatise, Civil Jury Instructions (available in print KFL 542.6 .J64 and on WestlawNext).

Andrea Beauchamp Carroll, Louisiana Civil Jury Instruction Companion Handbook (2014-2015 ed. 2014). (KFL 542.6 .L68)

Electronic Resource of the Month: Index to Foreign Legal Periodicals

From now until May, we will focus this series on some of the collections available via HeinOnline. All HeinOnline resources can be accessed through http://law.loyno.edu/library/online-resources. The collections are available to Loyola Law faculty and students, and they can be accessed while connected to the Loyola internet or off-campus using your Loyola username and password. Check back each month for updates!

The Index to Foreign Legal Periodicals (IFLP) is a great tool for researchers looking for up-to-date foreign-published periodical material on legal subjects. IFLP is available in print (3rd floor index table near the main elevators) and electronically via HeinOnline.

IFLP indexes articles and book reviews by subject from over 500 legal periodicals published outside the US, UK, Canada, and Australia. There is no limit to the languages included, and the legal subjects range from abandonment to the World Trade Organization. The database can be searched from 1984-present (2014), and the print edition on Hein covers 1960-present.

To search online, you can browse by subject, country subject, region, publication title, or a general search. Search options include: language, author, title of article, title of journal, date of publication, key word, country of publication, etc. A search can be further narrowed by year, the type of material (articles or reviews), and to only include entries where the full text is available on another HeinOnline database. While browsing, entries are in alphabetical order.  

One of the best things about IFLP is that it links to articles listed that are available in HeinOnline. This makes it more of a one-stop-shop than print indexing tools. 

Print Resource of the Month: Trial Handbook for Louisiana Lawyers

From now until May, we will focus this series on Louisiana-specific materials intended to be helpful for practice (or that are just really interesting). Check back each month for updates!



This month we’re highlighting Trial Handbook for Louisiana Lawyers, a publication of the Louisiana Practice Series, written by the Honorable Eldon E. Fallon, United States District Judge for the Eastern District of Louisiana.

This practice-oriented book “is designed to be a quick reference for the journeyman trial lawyer who spends his or her life representing clients in trial courts of Louisiana.” There are thirty-four chapters, a table of laws and rules, a table of cases, and an index. The entire range of trial subjects are covered from the role of attorneys, to examination of witnesses and evidence rules, to the verdict and judgment.  

Trial Handbook is available in the stacks, in reference, and in the Reserve Collection at KFL 530 .F34. It is also available online through WestlawNext. 

Eldon E. Fallon, Louisiana Practice: Trial Handbook for Louisiana Lawyers (3rd ed. 2007 & Supp. 2015). 

Immigration Briefings: A Resource You Should Know

This monthly periodical is a must-use for any immigration practitioners and researchers. It provides up-to-date analysis on a variety of important issues written by practitioners and commentators.

The print version is available in the library on the second floor at KF 4800.A15. An electronic version is available on WestlawNext. Simply begin typing in the title and select it on the pop-up options. Then you can search this resource the way you would anything else in WestlawNext. 

Recent article titles include:

• Families Behind Bars: The Intersection of Politics, Law, and Detention
• Handling the Complex Naturalization Application
• The Tricky Triangle: Marriage, Divorce, and Permanent Residence
• Healthy Regardless of Status: Expanding Access to Health Care for Noncitizens

Electronic Resource of the Month: HeinOnline Law Journal Library

Many of you are probably familiar with finding law journal articles in Lexis Advance and WestlawNext. This month we’re taking a look at another place to find law journal articles electronically, the HeinOnline Law Journal Library.

Why use Hein when Westlaw and Lexis are so search-friendly and you might be there for other materials? Two great reasons: Years covered and format.

Years covered: Hein often has a greater archive of journals, reaching further into the past. For example, the Loyola Law Review is available from the following dates: Hein – 1941, WestlawNext – 1982, Lexis Advance – 1998.

Format: Use Hein if you want to read the article as it appeared in the journal or if you need an official source for an assignment. The articles on Hein can be considered an official source because they are PDF scans of the journals. 

You can access Hein through the library’s website using the Online Resources page from the homepage. You’ll have to scroll until you find Hein, or you can search for the term. You can see on our webpage all of the Hein collections you have access to, which provide a great range of current and past information for primary and secondary sources.

Once in the Law Journal Library, you can utilize the advanced search feature at the top of the page and search by article title, author, subject, state or country published, full text, and narrow by date. After an initial search, you can further refine using the options on the left hand side menu, including subject, periodical title, country of publication, and date range. Selecting an article will bring you to the PDF scan of the article as it appears in the journal of publication. On the top menu, you can download a PDF of the article, select download or print options, or select a particular page from that volume of the journal using the drop-down menu. Click on the left and right arrows on the top and bottom of the document to navigate to the previous or next page.

If you already have a journal citation and want to quickly find the article, you can use the citation search option. Selection citation at the top of the page; you can type the citation in there, but a better option is to select “Citation Navigator”. As you type in the journal abbreviation in the boxes provided, suggested titles will appear. 

Print Resource of the Month – State Religious Freedom Restoration Acts: A Compilation of Enacted and Recently Proposed Legislation

This book should be used by anyone with an interest in religious freedom questions, issues in corporate personality, and LGBT rights. This book compiles all current state religious freedom acts. A table of documents lists where legislative intent or other legislative history materials may be found (though admittedly, there are not many). The editor notes where acts failed to pass and provides a bibliography that will be helpful for general research.

  

Recent interest in religious freedom restoration laws has its origins in the early 1990s with the passage of the federal Freedom Restoration Act of 1993. After the Supreme Court in 1997 found that the Act applied only to the federal government in City of Boerne v. Flores, 521 U.S. 507 (1997), states began adopting these types of laws. Interest in this matter has skyrocketed since Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., 134 S. Ct. 2751 (2014), in which the Supreme Court held that a for-profit corporation could hold religious beliefs. More recently, these acts have made headlines in relation to LGBT issues and the inclusion of same-sex couples in the right to marry in the wake of Obergefell v. Hodges, 135 S. Ct. 2584 (2015).

State Religious Freedom Restoration Acts: A Compilation of Enacted and Recently Proposed Legislation (William H. Manz ed., 2015). KF 4783 .Z95 S73

List of Legal Podcasts

Interested in staying up-to-date on legal issues? Check out these podcasts, hosted by a variety of legal professionals on a multitude of topics.

• Case in Point from the University of Pennsylvania Law School, http://caseinpoint.org/: “Case in Point provides smart, informative conversations about the law, society, and culture. By bringing together top scholars with experts on politics, business, health, education, and science, Case in Point gives an in-depth look at how the law touches every part of our lives. Produced by the University of Pennsylvania Law School.”

• Law Librarian Conversations, http://www.blogtalkradio.com/lawlibcon: “Richard Leiter and co-hosts Roger Skalbeck and Marcia Dority-Baker explore all issues of concern to law libraries, law librarians, legal bibliography and the profession.”

• Podcasts from the National State Attorneys General Program at Columbia Law School, http://web.law.columbia.edu/attorneys-general/publications-resources/podcasts: “to hear AGs, AAGs, and others discuss the work of state attorneys general”

• Podcasts of events hosted by the Human Rights Institute at Columbia Law School, http://web.law.columbia.edu/human-rights-institute/speakers-events/podcasts-events: “HRI invites eminent human rights scholars and practitioners to address current issues of interest in the human rights field. Events range from panel discussions on emerging human rights issues, to more informal, intimate discussions with advocates and academicians about the intricacies of practicing human rights law.”

• UCI Law Talks from the University of California, Irvine School of Law, http://www.law.uci.edu/podcast/: “[F]eatures smart conversation analyzing critical legal issues with professors at top-ranked UCI Law.”

• Oral Argument, http://www.hydratext.com/oral-argument/: “A podcast about law, law school, legal theory, and other nerdy things that interest us.”

• Podcasts of events hosted at University of Virginia Law School: http://www.law.virginia.edu/lawweb/news.nsf/PP/PodcastFrontPage

• Collection of multiple podcasts hosted via the American University Washington College of Law: https://www.wcl.american.edu/podcasts/

• The Faculty Podcasts http://www.law.uchicago.edu/audio/podcasts/faculty : “Listen to lectures by—and discussions with—the University of Chicago Law School's eminent faculty, as well as some very special guests.” University of Chicago Law School.

• King County Law Library Podcasts, http://www.kcll.org/podcasts : discusses current legal issues, law librarianship, law school, local legal issues, etc.

• Lawyer2Lawyer, http://legaltalknetwork.com/podcasts/lawyer-2-lawyer/: “Lawyer 2 Lawyer is an award-winning podcast covering relevant, contemporary news from a legal perspective. Hosts Bob Ambrogi and J. Craig Williams invite industry professionals to examine current events and recent rulings in discussions that raise contemplative questions for those involved in the legal industry. Launched in 2005, Lawyer 2 Lawyer is one of the longest-running podcasts on the Internet.”

• MediaBerkman from the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School: http://www.legalproductivity.com/practice-management/legal-podcasts/: “[F]eatures conversations with and talks by leading cyber-scholars, entrepreneurs, activists, and policymakers as they explore topics such as the factors that influence knowledge creation and dissemination in the digital age; the character of power as the worlds of governance, business, citizenship and the media meet the internet; and the opportunities, role and limitations of new technologies in learning.”

• Nolo Podcasts, http://www.nolo.com/podcasts/podcasts.html: free legal resources in plain English.

Interested in learning more? Check out this listing of legal podcasts by the Legal Productivity blog that is updated periodically: http://www.legalproductivity.com/practice-management/legal-podcasts/.  

Electronic Resource of the Month: Utilizing ProQuest

Welcome to another new monthly segment, Electronic Resource of the Month! On the second week of each month we’ll be highlighting electronic resources available to Loyola Law students and faculty. We’ll be tagging these posts with appropriate tags at the bottom; you can use these tags throughout the blog to help guide your research.

Loyola Law students and faculty have access via the Law Library and the University Monroe Library to five ProQuest databases: Congressional, Legislative Insight, New York Times Historical, Dissertations and Theses, and Religion. Congressional and Legislative Insight are available via the Law Library’s Online Resources webpage; Dissertations and Theses, New York Times Historical, and Religion are available via Monroe Library’s Databases webpage. You will need to login using your Loyola username and password or use a Loyola networked computer.

Here we will be looking at Congressional and Legislative Insight, great resources for federal legislative research. Using these resources, you can find committee hearing transcripts, House and Senate documents, Congressional Research Service (CRS) Reports, and other similar legislative documents.

Congressional is better situated for browsing in order to look at multiple laws/other documents on topics. If you are looking for specific legislation, Legislative Insight may suit you better. Both databases have legislative history information, but Insight will have CRS Reports, Presidential Signing Statements, and other similar documents that are not available on Congressional. To ensure complete coverage of your topic, you may want to look at both resources.

On Congressional, you can also search for news and social media posts related to particular topics. From the homepage, you can search for social media posts including Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and other blogs written by Senators, Representatives and Federal agencies. When searching documents, a menu on the right-hand side of the document main page will list related news sources that can be accessed, either through recent news or New York Times Historical. Be cautious with these news links as they are not always directly related to the subject you are researching.

Bluebook Rule 12 requires that citations to official session laws include the Public Law Number and the Statute at Large citation. The main page of Legislative Insight has a Citation Checker, which will allow you to enter a Public Law Number, Statute at Large citation, or enacted bill to retrieve the equivalent citations.
The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation R. 12, at 121 (Columbia Law Review Ass’n et al. eds., 20th ed. 2015).

Print Resource of the Month: Guide to International Legal Research

Welcome to our new monthly segment, Print Resource of the Month! On the first week of each month we’ll be highlighting a print resource available in the Law Library. That’s a lot of books so check back often for new information. We’ll be tagging these posts with appropriate tags at the bottom; you can use these tags throughout the blog to help guide your research.

This month we’re taking a look at Guide to International Legal Research. Produced by the George Washington International Law Review, this book is a must-utilize for research on public international law, private international law, and comparative law. This guide provides a researcher with a comprehensive list of law and law-related sources to help jump-start any research concerning international law.

“[I]t provides sources that address not only relations between States, but also the relations between States and international organizations, subnational actors, and non-state actors.” 

The introduction provides an overview of sources of international law, including the traditional sources like conventions and customs, while introducing the influence of municipal courts and soft law. Chapters are arranged by geographic region – like South Asia and the Middle East – and by subject – like intellectual property and maritime law.

The two biggest strengths of this resource are the annotations providing summaries of the sources listed and the inclusion of official (or at least reputable) websites where available.

Find it in the Reference Section on the second floor of the library, KZ 1234 .G85.

GEORGE WASH. INT’L LAW REVIEW, GUIDE TO INTERNATIONAL LEGAL RESEARCH (2015).