Wisconsin State Law Library

The Wisconsin State Law Library, Milwaukee Legal Resource Center, and Dane County Legal Resource Center will be closed on Tuesday, December 31st and Wednesday, January 1st for state holidays. We will respond to questions and requests on Thursday, January 2nd.

To submit a question to the Wisconsin State Law Library while we are closed, you may call us at 608-267-9696 or Ask a Librarian online.

A recent release from the US Government Printing Office reported that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is the most accessed item in the history of their digital document system, FDSys.

By KVDP (Own work), via Wikimedia Commons

According to their release:

The health care law has experienced approximately 13 million retrievals since the law was passed in March 2010 and nearly 9 million retrievals in the year 2013. GPO launched FDsys in January 2009 to serve as a one-stop site to authentic, published Government information. Today, FDsys has 900 thousand titles available and has experienced nearly 900 million total retrievals.

The library has added several new titles on the Affordable Care Act and health care law to our collection, including Health care reform : now what? and Church and governmental plans.

The Wisconsin State Law Library, Milwaukee Legal Resource Center, and Dane County Legal Resource Center will be closed on Tuesday, December 24th and Wednesday, December 25th for state holidays. We will respond to questions and requests on Thursday, December 26th.

To submit a question to the Wisconsin State Law Library while we are closed, you may call us at 608-267-9696 or Ask a Librarian online.

Most often attorneys communicate professional legal advice through in person or telephone conversations with clients. Sometimes however, an attorney is requested to provide legal advice in a formal written legal opinion. A good place to start for guidance on drafting such an opinion letter is Legal Opinion Letters: A Comprehensive Guide to Opinion Letter Practice. Edited by Attorney M. John Sterba, Jr. and updated annually, this one volume loose-leaf treatise, published by Wolters Kluwer Law & Business, covers virtually all substantive areas of legal opinion practice.

The first two chapters includes an introduction to written opinions and elements to include in a typical opinion letter. Following chapters detail the drafting of legal opinion letters in areas of law such as corporate, commercial and banking transactions, real estate transactions, securities law, tax, intellectual property, bankruptcy and lien opinions, as well as attorneys' letters to auditors.

Sixteen appendices are included, many of which detail various reports issued by the New York TriBar Opinion Committee as related to drafting and issuing opinion letters. Sample opinion letters are also featured in several chapters on the topics listed above.

Search Hint: To find other library sources on opinion letter practice in other areas of the library we suggest a catalog search for the subject heading: Legal Opinion.

We are frequently asked the question: how do I find a public notary in my city or town? 

A notary public serves as an impartial witness to perform notarial acts as allowed or required by law. In Wisconsin, individuals who are a public notary are overseen by the Wisconsin Department of Financial Institutions (WDFI ). Other states' notaries are frequently overseen by the Secretary of State in that state. 

""Notarial act" means any act that a notary public of this state is authorized to perform, and includes taking an acknowledgment, administering an oath or affirmation, taking a verification upon oath or affirmation, witnessing or attesting a signature, certifying or attesting a copy, and noting a protest of a negotiable instrument." - Wisconsin Statute 707.07(1)(c) 

On our Notaries legal topic page we link to the notary public search hosted at the WDFI's site: Notary Public Search. However, a search for all notaries in Madison Wisconsin returns too many results to display. Try plugging in a zip code to whittle the results down enough to return a list. Check for the business affiliation listed next to a notary's name to help you uncover contact information for the notary.

Find a Wisconsin notary located in other state by putting the abbreviation for the state in the Notary Public Search.

A notary public can also be found by doing a web search or looking in a phone book or similar online directory. Frequently banks will provide a notary service to their customers. You may wish to call ahead to find out the availability of notary services and any fees.

If you need court forms notarized, the clerk of court can notarize court documents.

Access to the library catalog and databases may be unavailable on Thursday, December 12th beginning at 9 am. These services will be down for a limited time due to scheduled system maintenance.

If you have any questions or experience issues accessing our catalog or databases, please contact us via our Ask a Librarian service or call us at 800-322-9755.

Our latest newsletter has information about our fabulous winter holiday open house, some library layout changes we think you will like, and tips about understanding your privacy while using the internet.

• What's New: WSLL winter holiday open house; Libraries closed for holidays; Federal Rule changes take effect Dec. 1; Librarians speak out
• WSLL's "new" Wisconsin journals collection
• This Just In...: New & updated library materials; Monthly list of new titles
• Tech Tip in Brief: Illuminating web tracks
• WSLL Recommends: Determining Economic Damages
• Odds 'n' Endings: Woolly weather; December notables