Wisconsin State Law Library

Visit your libraries or find us online to celebrate Law Day on May 1st.

The Wisconsin State Law Library is presenting two short Google Hangouts on HeinOnline. At 10 a.m. get an overview of which Federal agency materials are available through this database. At noon learn quick tips to get the most out of the advanced search. Visit our Google+ page for the link to watch each Hangout live and catch up on the archived videos at our YouTube channel.

In Dane County, Law Day at the Courthouse features community mock trials and free pro se legal consultations from attorneys in the Dane County Legal Resource Center.

In Milwaukee County, the Milwaukee Bar Association will host free legal clinics around the city.

Prosecution and Defense of Civil Forfeiture Cases provides detailed coverage of the history and use of forfeiture as an economic crime-fighting tool by law enforcement. Author David B. Smith begins by examining the role of forfeiture in the United States, with an emphasis on legislation and case law since the 1970's.

Smith provides a hypothetical walk-through of a typical civil forfeiture case, including commencement of proceedings, pretrial proceedings, trial, and defenses. The nature and scope of criminal forfeiture is addressed in the second volume of this 2 volume looseleaf set. Some chapters include sample forms. While there is an emphasis on federal statutes and case law, state law is also included with special attention to New York, Florida and Texas statutes. A detailed index, table of cases, and table of statutes serve as finding tools.

Without experience under your belt, it can be hard to know where to start on a new research endeavor. Library research guides can be a great place to start since they often tie together treatises, primary law sources, and internet resources in one place. We have created our own Start Here research guides to help you find books and other library materials on a given topic. Our Legal Topics area hosts guides to primarily free internet resources on around 400 topics. (We also include major books and articles). We link to several other library-created guides on our Legal Research Guides page.

Some popular guides from our Legal Research Guides page include:

• Legislative Source Book (Law Librarians Society of Washington DC)
  Federal administrative and legislative law research guides. Introductions to Federal legislative history research and primary law materials. 
• Researching Legislative History in Wisconsin (WI Legislative Reference Bureau)
• Restatements of the Law (Harvard Law School Library)
• Zimmerman's Research Guide (LexisNexis)
  Legal research encyclopedia.

Did you know that we have a YouTube Channel? We post tutorials and tips there. Plus in May we'll be using our YouTube Channel and Google+ page to host two Google Hangouts on HeinOnline.