Family Law Resource Month

Legal forms and reference sources related to family law matters are the most commonly requested items in our collection. Self-represented litigants often ask for help in locating do-it-yourself forms for divorce and child custody arrangements, while practitioners often seek information about the latest legislative changes or the most recent appeals court decisions focused on important family law issues. Fortunately, the Harris County Law Library has a wealth of family law resources including those suggested on our Family Law Research Guide. Our research guide recommends both primary and secondary sources, including annotated family law statutes and a variety of practice essentials, such as legal form books and CLE course materials.

Online resources are also plentiful thanks to the user-friendly, self-help website TexasLawHelp.org. On this website, self-represented litigants will find an abundance of useful information from how-to videos and FAQs to legal forms, with detailed instructions, on a wide variety of topics within the area of family law -- divorce, child custody, visitation, protective orders, name changes, and more.

Look for family law resources on display throughout the library all month long. Find additional titles using our online library catalog or stop by the reference desk for assistance. 

Nolo Press in Print and Online + Other Self-Help Resources for Pro Se Litigants

Navigating the law, especially for the non-lawyer, can be daunting, confusing, and frustrating. We at the Harris County Law Library provide resources and information that, we hope, make the law less intimidating and more accessible to the general public. One of the best, most indispensable tools for those who need to get acquainted with a new area of the law is a collection of books from Nolo Press, a publisher of legal materials, written in plain English, on a wide variety of legal topics. Designed to assist self-represented parties in learning about the law, Nolo Press is a company that seeks to “make the law accessible to everyone."

In addition to the Nolo Press publications, the Harris County Law Library's self-help collection contains a number of accessible, user-friendly resources including the Nutshell series from West publishing and the Texas Young Lawyers Association Research Guides for the general public. Nutshells are concise, one-volume treatises that address a particular area of the law, and the TYLA guides provide very practical information for handling specific legal matters in Texas, including probate, CPS cases, guardianship, and divorce.

The Nolo collection is a bit more expansive, as it covers all of the following topics and more: bankruptcy, criminal law, immigration, family law, labor and employment, landlord-tenant, estate planning, and social security. Other titles address how to start a small business, file a suit in small claims court, repair your credit, dispute a traffic ticket, survive foreclosure, and win a personal injury claim. 

If you are unable to visit the Law Library in person, there are several options for accessing self-help legal resources online. The Nolo books, in particular, are available through several channels, including the Harris County Public Library, the Houston Public Library, and the Texas State Law Library online. As members of the TexShare Libraries Consortium, these institutions offer access to the Ebsco Legal Information Reference Center, which provides full-text digital versions of all titles published by Nolo Press, including some titles not included in the Harris County Law Library print collection. (The Texas State Law Library also provides access to the West Nutshell series.) To gain access to this online database, you must have a valid library card for one of the institutions named above. All residents of Texas are eligible to receive a library card, simply by filling out an application in person or by requesting a library card from the Texas State Law Library via the library's web portal.   

Legal Reference Services for the Public

The reference staff at the Harris County Law Library is always happy to help you find the resources you need to answer your legal research questions. Whether you are a legal professional or a self-represented litigant, we strive to provide the most appropriate and thorough information to meet your legal needs.

Our print materials, especially the titles shelved at the Reference Desk, are heavily used on a daily basis. O'Connor's annotated codes and the O'Connor's legal form books are requested most frequently, along with the State Bar of Texas Practice Manuals for Family, Probate, Real Estate, and Guardianship matters.

The do-it-yourself legal website, TexasLawHelp.org, is another indispensable tool. It provides library patrons with the information they need to file for divorce, arrange for child custody, request name changes, apply for occupational licenses, and expunge criminal records. It also provides a wealth of information about common legal matters including court structure, basic civil procedure, and what to expect when going before a judge in a court of law. 

The Harris County Law Library is a self-service, public law library committed to providing open and equal access to justice for all. We aim to offer the best service possible for every individual who walks through our doors. We partner with the Houston Volunteer Lawyers to offer you the legal advice that we as librarians are not permitted to provide. As a constant reminder to ourselves and to those we serve, we post signs clearly displayed throughout the library, informing patrons of our dedication to providing legal information but not legal advice. We can point you to resources that we know to be reliable, accurate, and authoritative, but we cannot interpret legal forms, statutes, or cases. We must remain neutral and impartial, providing legal definitions and procedural explanations that facilitate access to and understanding of the legal system without providing advice, research, opinions, legal counsel, or subjective evaluations.

As providers of legal reference -- not legal research -- we must remain objective and unbiased. Law librarians are passionate about facilitating access to legal information and empowering library patrons to educate themselves about the law. Ensuring that all library patrons -- especially pro se litigants -- have the tools they need to successfully navigate the complex legal machinery of our justice system and gain access to the legal process is our goal.

To answer any questions about the kind of service we can provide, please refer to this helpful quick reference guide. We're happy to clarify any of the points covered. We look forward to serving all your legal reference needs.

Recursos en Español - Spanish Language Legal Resources

The Harris County Law Library has created several research guides on a number of popular legal research topics such as family law, labor and employment, real estate law, and civil and criminal litigation. Our newest guide, now available in the Law Library and on the Law Library's website, is the Spanish Language Resources Research Guide.

Provided is a directory of Spanish language materials in the Law Library's print collection as well as links to digital resources available online. Topics covered are immigration, wills and estates, landlord/tenant, family law, consumer law, and criminal law. Community legal resources are also included along with general reference guides on the legal system in Texas.

If you have any questions about accessing these resources or about finding Spanish language legal services in the Greater Houston area, please speak with a member of the Law Library's reference staff. 

Social Media Search Engines

Family, friends, neighbors, employers, and social media platforms are all good sources of actionable intelligence about an individual, but, for good reasons, people are typically not forthcoming with the information you wish to gather, and searching every social media platform is impractical and inefficient. That's where websites like SocialMention.com and Social-Searcher.com may be helpful. 

Social Mention is a real-time social media search and analysis platform that "aggregates user generated content from across the universe into a single stream of information. It allows you to easily track and measure what people are saying about you, your company, a new product, or any topic across the web's social media landscape in real-time. Social Mention monitors 100+ social media properties directly including: Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed, YouTube, Digg, Google etc."

Social Searcher is a free social media search engine. "It allows you to search for content in social networks in real-time and provides deep analytics data. Users can search without logging in for publicly posted information on Twitter, Google+, Facebook, Youtube, Instagram, Tumblr, Reddit, Flickr, Dailymotion and Vimeo. Free users can also save their searches and set up email alerts."