Legal Letters

I never thought much about a legal letter until this year. Sure, we wrote a client memo my 1L year, but never again did I think about this subject, until this year. A colleague and I both were asked to present what the library had to offer in the legal letters department. My colleague did a long presentation, but I was asked to come several times over the course of the semester to cover selected topics: Engagement Letters, Client Advice Letters, and Memos to the Partner.

At my school, we have three sections of Legal Letters, which totals about 60 students. Since the library did not have multiple copies of most of the materials, I decided to place these materials on Reserves at our Circulation Desk to ensure equal access to these materials. This turned out to be a great idea because these books turned out to be extremely popular.

I have to say, this is an area that I prefer to research in print over electronic. In print, I was able to easily find the type of document I needed. Online, I had to do a lot of sifting through irrelevant material.

Hat tip to Drake Law Library's Legal Writing LibGuide for giving me the inspiration to create my presentations.

If you would like to see my presentation on Engagement Letters (aka retainer agreements) please go to the User Education in Law Librarianship Wiki.

2010 RIPS National Legal Research Teach-In Kit Available

The Research Instruction and Patron Services SIS is proud to announce the release of the 18th Annual National Legal Research Teach-In Kit. Each year in conjunction with National Library Week, RIPS creates a Teach-In Kit containing fresh materials for use in your institution's promotional and instructional activities. This year’s kit includes legislative history materials (some of which are in Spanish—a first for the kit), a primary and secondary source matching game, a human rights presentation and guide, online tutorials, syllabi, various research assignments, and many other wonderful materials.

The 2010 Teach-In Kit is available at:
http://www.aallnet.org/sis/ripssis/TeachIn/2010/index.html

An overview of the kit as well as kits from previous years are available now at:
http://www.aallnet.org/sis/ripssis/TeachIn/teach_in.html

Thanks to all this year's contributors, as well as the Teach-In Kit Committee: Gail Partin, David Lehmann, Laura Ax-Fultz, and Shawn Nevers.

Tips for PowerPoint Presentations

I was reading the Legal Writing Prof Blog today and it had a link to an article from the Business Writing Blog on presentations. The article is called Presentations: Less is More, and it was published on August 9, 2009. The article is a quick read and gives 9 tips to help you reach your audience while giving a PowerPoint Presentation.

Purpose

This blog has been created for law librarians and those working in law libraries and related fields to share and exchange ideas on user education in all law library settings. Share what works, what doesn't work, and how you have been educating patrons in your library.