Legal Research News and Information with an Emphasis on Wisconsin
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) — signed into law in 2025 as P.L. 119-21 — made significant changes to federal tax law, and practitioners are still working through the implications. If you’re trying to get up to speed, Jenny Zook, Reference & Instructional Services Librarian at the UW Law Library and current chair …
WisconsinEye, Wisconsin’s nonprofit public affairs network is back online for the month of February after going dark for about seven weeks due to a lack of funding. On Monday, the Joint Committee on Legislative Organization (JCLO) unanimously approved a $50,000 cash infusion for the short term as they continue to work on a longer-term deal. …
For two decades, Wisconsin courts have followed the approach to statutory interpretation established in State ex rel. Kalal v. Circuit Court for Dane County, 2004 WI 58, 271 Wis. 2d 633, 681 N.W.2d 110. As noted in a recent blog post from Stafford Rosenbaum, that framework may soon change. Kalal established a two-step methodology for …
Many of us have boxes of old photos, home videos on VHS tapes, or cassette recordings tucked away in closets or basements. Wouldn’t it be nice to digitally preserve them and make them more accessible for friends and family? Thankfully, Madison Public Library has you covered. The Personal Archiving Lab at Madison’s Central Library provides …
Last week, the Wisconsin Legislative Council’s Study Committee on the Regulation of Artificial Intelligence issued a report outlining seven recommendations for legislation regarding the use and development of AI. Overall, I think the committee’s recommendations reflect a measured approach to AI regulation, but I also have some concerns. Recommendation: Instead of Regulating AI, Focus on …
Last week in our Advanced Legal Research course at UW Law, we delved into the topic of legislative research including 50 state surveys. Inevitably, there are a few students every year who have been tasked with compiling and comparing laws across states and spent hours searching the laws of each state. Then we show them …
The Wisconsin Document Depository Program is a statutorily mandated program that requires Wisconsin state agencies to provide copies of their documents to preserve and make available a record of major state government programs. Documents are made available in two ways: at depository libraries like the University of Wisconsin Law Library and online through the Wisconsin …
Historical federal legislative history research just got a little easier. For the last few years, the Library of Congress has been working to add the Bound Congressional Record to Congress.gov. It is now available all the way back to 1873, when the Bound Congressional Record started, to 1994. With the daily edition, which is available …
Over $52 million was spent on lobbying in Wisconsin in 2021. Nationally, total lobbying spending amounted to a whopping $3.73 billion. You can follow the money with these tools. Lobbying in Wisconsin from the Wisconsin Ethics Commission allows anyone to search and view public lobbying information. See who is lobbying, what they are lobbying about, …
Unlike federal and state law which is widely available, municipal law can be difficult to track down. In Wisconsin alone, there are 585 municipal (city and village) governments and 1,265 town governments and the availability and amount of information available from each varies greatly. Fortunately, there is a guide to searching municipal law in the …