Legal Research News and Information with an Emphasis on Wisconsin
On Sept 26th, On This Day in Wisconsin History reported: On this date [in 1833], Indian tribes including the Ojibwe, Menominee, Potawatomi, Ho-Chunk, Ottawa, and Sauk ceded land to the government, including areas around Milwaukee, especially to the south and east of the city. The ceded land included much of what is today John Michael …
The 2013-2014 edition of the Wisconsin Blue Book is now available on the Wisconsin Legislative Reference Bureau website. What is the Wisconsin Blue Book? The State of Wisconsin Blue Book remains the primary one-volume reference source about the state, documenting the organization of the state’s three branches of government (legislative, executive, and judicial). Typically, each …
Late last week, a Wisconsin Law Journal article (Subscription required) discussed how the focus of recent bills proposing changes to Wisconsin’s Court Access Website (CCAP) may be changing. The senators who sponsored the bill have received feedback and are re-evaluating what the best step may be to improve CCAP. The original bill proposed splitting CCAP …
On September 21st, a new study was released on SSRN that details a problem that face researchers, librarians and attorneys with the new online world of legal research. The problem is ‘link rot’, meaning that active URLs, over time, no longer lead to helpful research material. In some cases the information is moved to a …
Badgerlink, a unique Wisconsin resource that provides residents with access to music, scholarly works, newspapers, magazines and much more has recently been redesigned. The sight is much more user-friendly, with resource icons, friendlier colors and an intuitive set-up that makes it easy to find what you are looking for. Badgerlink is available for free to …
Hein Online has announced a new way for patrons to use their mobile devices to view and share pdfs. Documents on Hein now include a QR code that link straight to that document, and shows up in your tablet’s internet browser. I tested this out by searching for a Wisconsin Law Review article from 2013 …
Last year I became responsible for our collection of Native American materials at the UW Law Library. In reviewing the collection and availability of sources, I learned that tribal legal materials are very difficult to track down, especially for non-Indians. There are 566 federally recognized tribes in the United States today. For a majority, no …
The Legislative Reference Bureau has announced that it has completed scanning the Wisconsin Administrative Code archive back to 1956 (vol 1 of the Administrative Register). The Code does not appear in it’s entirety for these archived editions. Rather, each year contains a list of the Administrative Code Registers for each month. The chapters that were …
CCAP, Wisconsin’s online access to Circuit Court Records, may be altered if pending legislation passes. Introduced by Senator Lena Taylor (D-Milwaukee) in the Senate and Representative Evan Goyke (D-Milwaukee) in the Assembly, the bill is designed to give persons who were wrongfully arrested a chance to clear their records. Currently, the records that can be …
A little noticed part of the WI Budget Act (Act 20) requires the Legislative Reference Bureau to certify the online version of the Wisconsin Statutes. The online statutes will be considered prima facie evidence of the law–the legal equivalent of the printed statutes. 2013 WI Act 20, section 575L states: 35.18 (2) (b) of the …