The Law Library of Congress Legal Research Institute

The Law Division at the Library of Congress (LOC) recently launched their Legal Research Institute, a one-stop-shop for the Law-related educational presentations and resources available from the LOC. It is divided into four categories: US Law Webinars, Foreign, Comparative, and International Law Webinars, Onsite Classes, and Online Resources.

Both the US Law Webinars and the Foreign, Comparative, and International Law Webinars list upcoming webinars that are taught by legal reference librarians. The US Law Webinars includes two sets of classes: the "Orientation to Legal Research Webinar Series" and Congress.gov webinars. The orientation series covers three topics on a rotating monthly basis: U.S. Case Law, U.S. Federal Statutes, and Tracing Federal Regulations. The Congress.gov webinars provide a basic overview of Congress.gov with a focus on searching legislation.

The Foreign, Comparative, and International Law Webinars are "designed to shed light on some of the foreign, comparative, and international law issues researched by the foreign law experts at the Law Library of Congress." The 2020 classes are set for the rest of the year and include topical webinars like "Regulating the Use of Technology to Combat COVID-19" and "Avoiding the New Wave: Response to the Pandemic in Japan and South Korea" as well as a wide-range of other international subjects, including "Immigration Control and Integration of Immigrants: Legal Models" and "World Trends in Elections and Campaign Financing Regulation".

For those interested in a webinar but unable to attend, check out the Webinar Recordings. These include past recordings of a number of webinars, like "How to Transcribe Spanish Legal Documents", "Case Law Research", "Tracing Federal Regulations", "Perspectives on BREXIT", and more. Webinars are added after they are processed and transcribed, so continue to check back for new archived material.

The Law Library of Congress also offers onsite classes. These include the "Orientation to Legal Research Series" for beginning legal researches as well as "Orientation to Law Library Collections" for the more advanced legal researcher. Prior to attending any in-person class, patrons will need to obtain a Library of Congress Registration Card. Check with the Library of Congress before registering for an upcoming onsite class as access to the LOC is currently restricted and all events are cancelled through at least July 1 due to the current pandemic.

The Legal Research Institute also links to a selection of legal guides and resources under the Online Resources heading. The guides are extensive, and cover a wide-range of topics. Most guides link to resources found in the Library of Congress, but their Guide to Online Law includes "selected links to useful and reliable sites for legal information".

For more information about the LOC Legal Research Institute, check out their announcement blog post.

To learn more about the federal research resources available at Jenkins, see our Federal Research Guides.