All published U.S. court decisions from 1658 to June 2018 are now freely accessible online, thanks to the Caselaw Access Project (CAP), a partnership between Harvard Law School’s Library Innovation Lab and Ravel Law, acquired by LexisNexis.  CAP’s goal is to “make all published U.S. court decisions freely available to the public online, in a consistent digitized format.”  To create this massive collection, law librarians at Harvard digitized roughly 40 million pages of decisions contained in roughly 40,000 bound reporter volumes .

Users can access the data via an open-source API (application programming interface). CAP provides a Beginner’s introduction to API along with usage examples that explain how to retrieve cases by ID or through simple full-text searches.

For more information, see Robert Ambrogi’s LawSites blog post and the CAP website.

Thanks to everyone who participated in this year’s Halloween Info Hunt!

We want to thank ALL of you for putting your research skills to work and joining us in what we hope you all found to be a great learning experience. Here are the 29 winners drawn from our renowned Raffle Drum:

Happy soon-to-be-Halloween from the Mendik Library!

As an early Halloween treat, here’s your opportunity to WIN great study aids, law dictionaries, faculty books, pre-loaded OneCards, NYLS swag, and who knows what else!  Just answer the 6 Haunted Halloween Info Hunt questions. Your answers don’t need to be perfect—just close!

Click here to access the questions.  Each slide includes just one question, along with step-by-step instructions that will get you to the answer.

Print this answer sheet (or pick up a copy at the Reference Desk) and drop it the Raffle Drum on the Reference Desk by 5 p.m. on Wednesday, October 31, and then join us outside the library at 5:45 p.m. for some sweet treats and the drawing.

The new Supreme Court term is set to begin this year on Monday October 1, 2018.

For previews of arguments scheduled for this term, visit the SCOTUSblog. Cornell’s Legal Information Institute (LII) offers a comprehensive preview of the upcoming term. You can also find summaries of and links to all cases scheduled thus far for argument at Oyez. The First Mondays podcast, hosted by law professors Dan Epps and Ian Samuel, is a self-described “entertaining podcast about the Supreme Court.” The most recent episode (recorded September 24, 2018) provides a birds-eye view of the coming term. You can listen to oral arguments at the Supreme Court’s Oral Arguments link, where the audio is posted at the end of each argument week. You can access the parties’ briefs at the Supreme Court’s web site. (Under Case Documents click the link for Docket Search.)

Take a break from the tedium of law study and enjoy the pleasures of punctuation!

September 24 is National Punctuation Day: “A celebration of the lowly comma, correctly used quotation marks, and other proper uses of periods, semicolons, and the ever-mysterious ellipsis.”

How do you celebrate such an event? Enter the 2018 National Punctuation Day contest, the topic of which will be posted here on September 24.

Constitution Day is observed each year on September 17 to commemorate the date on which thirty-nine delegates to the Constitutional Convention, held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, signed the United States Constitution in 1787.  The Convention was convened as a result of dissatisfaction with the Articles of Confederation, the first constitution of the United States.  For deeper coverage on the world’s longest surviving written charter of government, download the Library of Congress’s free app containing the official, annotated version of the United State Constitution, U.S. Constitution: Analysis and Interpretation.

The original Constitution is held at the National Archives in Washington, D.C. but you can pick up your own pocket-copy at the library’s reference desk!

Following the aftermath of September 11, the L, one of NYLS’s student-run newspapers, devoted its October/November 2001 issue to those affected by the tragedy.  It offers poignant and meaningful accounts from members of the Law School community.

To read additional issues of this and other NYLS student newspapers through the years, visit our Digital Commons at  https://digitalcommons.nyls.edu/newspapers/.

September 4 marks the first day of Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee. President Donald Trump nominated the D.C. Circuit Court judge to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy. Check out the SCOTUSblog for live blogging of the hearing. For articles, books, congressional materials, and web resources by and about the Supreme Court nominee, visit the Law Library of Congress’ Brett M. Kavanaugh page. To track the public statements made by United States senators about how they plan to vote, visit SCOTUS Watch.

Does your phone or laptop need a charge? Stop by the Library’s Circulation Desk and the juice is on us; no charge to charge – it’s free! Charging is limited to 30 minutes if another student needs the charger too. Otherwise, you can fill ‘er up.