Wisconsin State Law Library

This guide is a gold mine of information for anyone interested in acquiring and maintaining legal information resources, written primarily for solo practitioners and attorneys in small to medium sized law firms operating without a law librarian.

Not only does the Legal Information Buyers Guide & Reference Manual provide a comprehensive list of cost-saving strategies, it also provides detailed information on the major legal treatises and reference works in a wide variety of subject areas. Author Kendall Svengalis, who for over twenty years was the Rhode Island State Law Librarian, provides a description of each included title and online resource and pricing history for supplementation and selected cost-saving tips.

An attorney whose practice is focused in federal court would do well to read the chapter on Federal Practice and Procedure before deciding whether to purchase Wright and Miller or Moore’s. Likewise, anyone wishing to develop an immigration law practice should review the resources annotated in this book before making any purchases. Accompanied by tables that detail the rise in the cost of legal publications, this book provides anyone working with law library budgets reliable data to use in planning future law book spending.

This guide also provides a state-by-state review of primary legal publications and sources for practice materials for each state, as well as leading websites for state-specific law research. And for those interested in legal publishing history, Mr. Svengalis provides a history of the industry accompanied by annotated entries for all of the current leading legal publishers.

State Law Library staff use this book frequently – not only to assist in developing our budgets but also to help direct us to the best sources when working on research questions.