WestlawNext CLE @ HCLL

On Thursday, January 14, the Law Library will host a free training session covering Statutory and Legislative History Resources on WestlawNext. The session carries 1.0 hour of CLE credit for Texas attorneys and is conveniently scheduled during the lunch hour, from noon to 1 p.m. Click the photo to download a flyer for the event.

The Law Library hosts WestlawNext training sessions quarterly on a variety of topics, including resources for family law, criminal law, and statutes and legislative history. For more information about CLEs and training sessions at the Harris County Law Library, visit our Events page.

All of the databases covered during training sessions are accessible for free on the Law Library’s legal research computers, which are open to the public for legal research. Visit our Services page for more information about the digital resources available for your legal research needs.

Latest and Greatest - $olo Contendere

$olo Contendere: How to Go Directly From Law School Into the Practice of Law Without Getting a Job

By Marc Garfinkle, Esq.

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It’s Law Practice Management Month here at the Harris County Law Library, and it’s time to highlight some of the resources that we have in our collection that might be useful to your current practice or to assist you in establishing a new solo practice. One of these resources is Solo Contendere: How to Go Directly from Law School into the Practice of Law - Without Getting a Job, 3rd Edition by Marc Garfinkle, Esq. According to Garfinkle, some basic questions that the new lawyer should address before hanging out his shingle include:

  • How do I begin?
  • What type of law do I want to practice?
  • Do I want to focus on a particular specialty?
  • Is the cooperative office arrangement for me?
  • What equipment and furniture do I need?

The book also offers practical advice for creating a business plan, developing a “real” client base, and going to court. From Garfinkle’s "Practice Defensively: The Ten Commandments" to his thoughts about getting paid for your work, the author provides you with enough information to shed the fear and fly solo.

Law Practice Management Blogs

In honor of Law Practice Management Resource Month here at the Harris County Law Library, a bibliography of topical blogs sounded like a good idea. After all, the Wild Wild Web is filled with blogs to help you manage your law practice. Here’s a few of our favs:

From Texas Bar Today’s Texas Law Blogs:

  • Business Solutions for Law Firms: Houstonian Stacey E. Burke brings a local spin to all aspects of marketing and managing a law firm
  • Raising the Bar: Houstonian Debra L. Bruce provides tips on all areas of law practice management
  • Legible: UT legal writing prof Wayne Schiess gives tips to improve practitioners’ legal writing skills

From the ABA Journal’s Blawg 100:

Last, but not least, don’t forget to check back here at Ex Libris Juris for posts about resources about law practice management all month long and download our Law Practice Management Research Guide to quickstart your research at the Harris County Law Library.

Welcome to Ex Libris Juris!

This new blog from the Harris County Law Library is a forum for our law librarians to communicate useful information to our patrons. Ranging from new and featured resources to training session announcements to research tips and local legal news, posts will cover a wide variety of legal and research topics of interest in Houston and Harris County, Texas. Check back regularly and set up an RSS feed to stay up to date on the latest from the Law Library.

What’s behind the name? “Ex Libris Juris” is Latin for “from the books of law” and much of the information here will relate to the legal information collected and curated by the Law Library. Additionally, “Ex Libris” has long appeared on bookplates – labels appearing inside the front cover of books – and has acquired the connoted meaning “from the library of” to show ownership of the book. Using this connotation, the phrase becomes “from the library of law” and better describes the posts about digital resources, event announcements, and research tips that will regularly appear here.