Law Faculty

Law faculty have 24-hour access to the collection with their campus ID card.

General Library Schedule

Library liaisons are assigned to each full-time law school faculty member. These liaisons act as intermediaries between the Law Library and the faculty. Liaisons meet with their assigned faculty regularly to determine individual library needs and research interests. They also ensure that faculty members are aware of library services and collections and seek suggestions regarding how library services can be improved. Library liaisons are available to assist faculty members with their research needs. They obtain library material for faculty members and arrange for other library services that are needed or requested.

Specific services might include:

• obtaining law review articles
• making interlibrary loan requests (or you can contact Melanie Coleman at colemanm@law.byu.edu)
• forwarding purchase requests for approval and ordering
• setting up automated current awareness accounts (such as SmartCILP, Lexis/Nexis alerts, Westlaw’s WestClip and SSRN/LSN subscriptions)
• creating coversheets for scholarly works to be posted on SSRN
• uploading scholarly works to SSRN on behalf of the faculty member
• presenting research classes on subjects taught by the faculty member
• working with faculty research assistants
• compiling citations to the faculty member’s scholarly works

Liaison Assignments

Curtis Anderson	Nick Hafen
Clark Asay	Shawn Nevers
Kif Augustine-Adams	Annalee Hickman Pierson
Shima Baradaran Baughman	Kory Staheli
Annika Boone Barkdull	Kristen Kellems
Kathryn Blair	Kristen Kellems
Catherine Bramble	Kory Staheli
Elizabeth Clark	Kristen Kellems
Will Clayton	Iantha Haight
Justin Collings	Kory Staheli
Elysa Dishman	Iantha Haight
Dayle Elieson	Nick Hafen
John Fee	Laurie Urquiaga
Cliff Fleming	Annalee Hickman Pierson
Fred Gedicks	Iantha Haight
Kristin Gerdy Kyle	Kory Staheli
Brook Gotberg	Iantha Haight
Lisa Grow	Shawn Nevers
Matthew Jennejohn	Nick Hafen
Eric Jensen	Kristen Kellems
Cree Jones	Kory Staheli
Tom Lee	David Armond
Tyler Lindley	Kristen Kellems
Jane Mitchell	Laurie Urquiaga
David Moore	Shawn Nevers
Aaron Nielson	Iantha Haight
Carolina Núñez	Annalee Hickman Pierson
Stephanie Plamondon	Annalee Hickman Pierson
Bradley Rebeiro	Kory Staheli
Lutforahman Saeed	Kristen Kellems
Brett Scharffs	Kristen Kellems
Gladriel Shobe	Shawn Nevers
Jarrod Shobe	Shawn Nevers
Gordon Smith	David Armond
Michalyn Steele	Annalee Hickman Pierson
Dane Thorley	Nick Hafen
Lucy Williams	Annalee Hickman Pierson
Kevin Worthen	Annalee Hickman Pierson
Charity Bunson Wyatt	Nick Hafen

The Law Library employs law student reference assistants to assist law faculty with their research needs. These law students provide support for law faculty who either do not have enough ongoing work to justify hiring their own research assistants or need assistance beyond their own research assistants. The reference assistants are meant to complement, not replace, individual faculty research assistants. The reference assistants work primarily on research requests and, if there is time available, data projects that require the student research assistant have at least one year of law school. The law student reference assistants are supervised by Annalee Hickman Pierson. Faculty who need assistance are encouraged to contact their library liaison.

In addition to providing research support to law school faculty, the reference assistants also provide reference services to library users virtually and in-person at the Law Library. 

Data project support is a faculty service the Law Library provides to law faculty. The support is provided by data assistants (undergraduate BYU students), who collect data and/or enter data that does not require being a law student or having any legal knowledge or background. The data assistants also work on data projects supporting corpus linguistics. The data assistants are hired, trained, and managed by the Data Project Manager, Teresa Odam. Faculty requests for data project support may be made through library liaisons who will coordinate with the Data Project Manager to ensure the carrying out and completion of the requested data project.

The reference assistants will continue to provide support for data projects that require some legal knowledge or background learned through the first-year legal research and writing program in law school, though traditional research requests may receive higher priority. More information about what the reference assistants can do for law faculty can be found here.

The Law Library faculty are available to work with and train law faculty research assistants in the process of legal research and to suggest research strategies for particular research projects. Contact your library liaison for individual training for your research assistant(s) any time through the year. General summer RA training takes place shortly after Winter semester. Contact Shawn Nevers for more information. Law Professors are also welcome to send their RAs to class sessions of Advanced Legal Research, scheduled during Winter semester. For the syllabus or more information, contact Shawn Nevers at (801) 422-8784 or neverss@law.byu.edu.

The Law Library subscribes to a growing number of electronic databases. A full list is available on the Law Library website. View the list of BYU Law Library databases here. Contact Iantha Haight at (801) 422-9023 or haighti@law.byu.edu with questions about access and training. Contact your library liaison if you are unable to find a database that meets your research needs.

Law school faculty have special borrowing privileges at the Law Library. Regular library materials are due in May of each year and may be renewed as needed. Journals may be checked out for one month. Non-circulating and reserve materials may also be checked out by special arrangement. No overdue fines are charged to law faculty for regular Law Library material. However, all items are subject to recall by the Lee Library or other patrons. Be aware that any fines accrued due to the late return of a recalled item are non-waivable.

To request material from the collection, faculty members may contact either their liaison or Melanie Coleman at (801) 422-3656. Faculty may also come to the Circulation Desk on the second floor of the Library for assistance.

What is Interlibrary Loan?

Interlibrary Loan is a FREE service that the Law Library provides through agreements with other libraries to expand the walls and provide access to a variety of materials that we may not have in our own collection.

The Details

ILL pulls materials first from the Law Library. If the material cannot be found here, then the search extends to the Lee Library and to other libraries after. It is rare for materials not to be available through this process. The library may purchase materials that are important to your research. Contact your library liaison about doing so.

How to Make a Request

• Go to https://lib.byu.edu/account/request/
• Click on Login in the upper right corner

• Sign in using your BYU NetID

• Click the icon next to your name in the upper right corner then select Request an Item from the drop down menu.

• Click on the Request an item button.

• Click on the Item Type you would like to request.

• Fill in the required information
• Click “Submit Request” at the bottom of the page

Items Not Available Through ILL 

The Law Library will not request materials that are available from the Law Library or Lee Library. This includes items on course reserve and all other non-circulating items.

• Requests for textbooks, casebooks, or any other required book will be cancelled. 
• Requests for fiction, non-fiction, etc. that are owned by the Lee Library but currently checked out will be cancelled. Please place a hold through your library account for these items.
• The Law Library will only fill one duplicate request per person. 

Have Questions?

Set up an appointment with Melanie, she will be able to help you navigate through the ILL process and help you obtain the materials you need.

ILL Materials

In most cases we are able to obtain the items you need, but occasionally some items cannot be sent physically. The Access Services Librarian will work with you to reach a solution. There are many other specific items that can be scanned and obtained rather than entire publications, textbooks, or print including

• Journal Articles
• Book Chapters
• Dissertations
• Page Requests
• Materials Cited in Footnotes
• Print Publications
• Table of Contents
• Microfilm
• Microfiche
• CD’s, DVD’s, etc.

Contact Information

Melanie Coleman—Access Services Librarian
Email: colemanm@law.byu.edu
Phone: 801-422-3656

Due to past experience, our recommendation for law faculty when materials are needed from the Lee Library is to contact their Liaison, the BYU Law Library Reference Services, or Melanie Coleman; or to submit an online request through InterLibrary Loan (ILL). We have developed procedures to retrieve materials quickly and to automatically reroute requests to other libraries (ILL) if a requested item is not immediately available at the Lee Library.

However, if needed, law faculty may request proxy privileges for a secretary or a research assistant that allows the designated proxy to check out materials from the law library in the faculty member’s name. Research assistants should never be encouraged or required to use their personal accounts to borrow materials for faculty members. 

Law Library proxy privileges should be requested through Melanie Coleman via email. The Harold B. Lee Library also provides proxy privileges according to their established policies.

Proxy privileges are not available for law students.

Faculty members are encouraged to recommend new titles for the Law Library collection. Please send requests to your library liaison. Requests for print purchases can also be sent to Kory Staheli, Collections and Legal Research Instruction Librarian, at stahelik@law.byu.edu. Requests for digital purchases and database licensing can be sent to Iantha Haight, haighti@law.byu.edu. We will route new print materials to your office if you wish.

The Law Library maintains several reserve collections, described below. Reserve collections may consist of both materials purchased by the Library and personal copies.

Course Reserve: The Law Library maintains one copy each of print casebooks and other course materials assigned during the current semester at the Circulation Desk as a backup resource for students whose books are temporarily inaccessible (such as having forgotten a book at home). These materials are available for limited two-hour checkout. We discourage students from relying exclusively on Course Reserves for access to casebooks because books are shared among multiple students and will be inaccessible if the student cannot come to campus (e.g., during an illness).

Electronic Course Reserve: In order to support learning on- and off-campus, the Law Library offers limited digital course reserves when requested by faculty and as licenses are available. Casebooks are not provided due to cost and licensing limitations. Electronic materials are usually provided via links on the course’s Canvas page.

Whenever possible, the Law Library is happy to assist faculty by licensing ebook versions of monographs or selections from books for course readings, or by locating unrestricted digital copies of monographs. Licensing options are controlled by the publisher and vary from unlimited access to use by one reader at a time. Some books are not available for any form of digital licensing.

Faculty are encouraged to contact the Law Library at least one month in advance of the start of the semester with a reading list to allow for time to investigate and secure any necessary licenses.  Faculty will be provided with either a PDF of the assigned reading or a URL to the ebook to make available to students on the course’s Canvas page. Contact your library liaison, Laurie Urquiaga (copyright permissions and fair use), or Iantha Haight (ebook licensing) for assistance.

A/V Reserve: A/V reserve consists of audio/visual items, software, and similar material. These items are located behind the Circulation Desk and may only be borrowed for a limited time. Course reserve and professor files may be borrowed for 2 hours at a time. Audio/visual and software reserve items circulate for 24 hours.

Reserve Room: The Reserve Room is located on the second floor, in room 280 JRCB (near Circulation). The Reserve Room consists of high-use monographs (treatises, study aids, Nutshells, etc.), self-help materials (Nolo guides), six months-worth of newspapers (the Wall Street Journal, the Deseret News, the Salt Lake Tribune, the Daily Herald, the Intermountain Commercial Record), and the Utah law collection — including copies of the state code and Utah secondary sources. The Biblical Law and Benson Collections are also located in the Reserve Room.

Law Library faculty are available to come into law classes to teach students how to conduct legal research in specialized areas and demonstrate how to use specific library and research resources. Librarians can give students an overview of the Library’s print holdings and relevant electronic databases. This type of instruction can be very useful to students, especially in seminar courses where a paper is required. Requests for such lectures can be arranged through library liaisons.

Read the Law School Copyright Policy.

The BYU CLO has posted the following guidelines for all supplemental course materials:

• Linking to authorized online sources is a preferred option.
• Directing students to subscription content available through the BYU Librar[ies] is also a great option. For assistance linking to any particular Library content, contact [your liaison or Law Library Reference].
• Copying entire works is generally not recommended. Alternatively, copying limited portions of works to share with students will often be fair use. (The Fair Use Checklist and Interactive Fair Use Evaluation Log are helpful tools for analyzing fair use.)

Links to supplemental resources are always the recommended option, because links do not involve making copies. Linkable resources include authoritative sites on the open web, LexisNexis, Westlaw, HeinOnline and other library-licensed material. The Law Commons is an open-source repository of scholarly legal content, including law review articles from many highly-ranked journals. The Library of Congress provides access to online federal legal resources, as well as links to state primary legal resources. Cornell’s Legal Information Institute is another good portal to legal resources and information. Google Scholar can be also be useful as a tool for locating authoritative legal content, including case opinions.

If the supplemental material to be shared with a class is not available online, we will likely need to obtain copyright permission for that use. Faculty should keep in mind that permission to scan books or articles often requires payment of royalties, which must then be collected from each student enrolled in the class. Copyright permission must be secured before items can be copied and distributed.

Getting Help

Please contact your liaison or Annalee Hickman Pierson if you would like help with locating sources for supplemental course materials.

Questions regarding copyright issues and requests for clearance should be directed to Laurie Urquiaga at (801) 422-6657 or urquiagal@law.byu.edu. 

Faculty who use copyrighted content as supplemental course material must obtain clearance before asking Library Circulation to scan and print or the web support team to post the material. For tracking purposes, clearance requests should be emailed to urquiagal@law.byu.edu and include the bibliographic details for each item (article/chapter title, source, page numbers) as well as course ID and the number enrolled. The requestor should plan to submit requests 4–6 weeks before the material will be needed, to allow time for processing.

Alternatively, faculty have the option to obtain clearance themselves, and then provide that permission record to Laurie Urquiaga. This approach is often the best choice if the copyright owner of the desired content is a known colleague. A fillable PDF form letter is provided as a model, but a less-formal email is sufficient if it contains adequate detail.

• Copyright Clearance Request Letter (PDF form letter allowing faculty to request permissions directly)

After the use of copyrighted content has been cleared, requests for help with scanning and printing course materials or packets may be directed to Melanie Coleman. Melanie will forward scanned items to the web team if they are to be posted on Canvas or TWEN.

J. Reuben Clark Law School and Hunter Law Library

The Law School is committed to the enforcement and protection of copyrights as both a legal and an ethical imperative. A copyright is a set of exclusive rights that vests in the author of an original work of authorship (including literary, musical, dramatic, pictorial, sculptural, and motion picture works). The copyright attaches upon the work’s creation (when it is “fixed in a tangible medium of expression”); current law does not require the formalities of registration or of a copyright notice such as the “©” symbol. The exclusive rights covered by copyright include the right to (1) copy or reproduce the work or portions of the work (including by making electronic copies); (2) prepare “derivative works” based on the original; (3) distribute copies of the work or portions of the work (including by electronic means); and (4) publicly perform or display the work.

Any faculty member, staff member, or student who intends to copy or distribute any material that is not in the public domain and is, therefore, protected by copyright must first receive copyright clearance from the law school’s Copyright Coordinator under the procedures set forth here, unless the copyright is held by that faculty member, staff member, or student. Copyright clearance is required even if the material is believed to be covered by the doctrine of fair use, and even if permission has already been secured from the holder of the copyright by the individual faculty member, staff member, or student. “Copying” and “distributing” include not only making and distributing hard copies, but also making any digital or electronic copies, posting such copies on the internet or the law school’s web page, or distributing copies via e-mail.

Any faculty member, staff member, or student seeking copyright clearance must contact the law school’s Copyright Coordinator. Requests for clearance should be submitted on a form approved by the Copyright Committee. The request should be submitted as far in advance of the use of the material as is reasonably possible (preferably at least one month in advance). The form for the written request may be completed in hard copy or on the law school’s web page, and will require the person submitting the request to (1) identify the copyrighted works in question by author, title, publication date, journal citation (where applicable), publisher (if known), and ISBN/ISSN (if known); (2) describe the nature of any copying and/or distribution (e.g., hard copies, scanning, uploading, etc.); (3) identify the name of the course and number of students to whom the material will be distributed; (4) indicate whether the person submitting the request has ever previously received permission to use the material in question, and attach any documents memorializing such permission; and (5) indicate whether the person submitting the request believes that a fair use privilege applies, and provide a brief justification for such privilege.

Many single copies made purely for research purposes will be covered by the doctrine of fair use, particularly where only a portion of the original work is copied. For such uses, the Copyright Coordinator may provide clearances that may cover certain uses, without requiring specific clearance requests for each individual copy.

If a faculty member disagrees with a decision of the Copyright Coordinator, appeal may be made to the Associate Dean for Faculty & Curriculum.

Because keeping up with current events and scholarship is important for faculty research and writing, the Law Library provides a number of current awareness tools. This page summarizes some common current legal awareness resources. Most of these resources are also available to students and can be utilized in teaching. Contact your library liaison with questions or to develop a current awareness plan tailored to your needs.

The following electronic news websites are available through the Law Library. Contact Iantha Haight with access questions:

• The Atlantic: to login, click “Sign In,” then “Sign in through your institution” at the bottom of the box. Type BYU and select “BYU Law School.” Log in with your BYU Law School Okta credentials. To sign up for email newsletters, click the three line “hamburger menu” in the upper-left corner, then click “Newsletters.”
• Bloomberg Law News: includes The United States Law Week and over 50 topic-focused news channels such as Artificial Intelligence, Immigration, and Securities. Log into Bloomberg Law, then “News & Analysis” in the upper-right of the menu bar. Click “Bloomberg Law News,” then select a news channel from the vertical menu. Once you have selected a news channel, click “Subscribe to Newsletter” in the upper-right corner to receive regular email updates. Email Iantha Haight for a Bloomberg Law account.
• The Chronicle of Higher Education: Access via the link using your BYU Net ID and password (this is a BYU Lee Library subscription). Register for email newsletters at https://www.chronicle.com/page/newsletters. Links in email newsletters to stories will not work off campus, but you can access the article via the direct link to the Chronicle here.
• Climatewire: news source for global climate and environmental news. Email Iantha Haight for an account.
• The Economist: register with your law school email address here. Upon registration, The Economist will ask you if you wish to sign up for email newsletters.
• Financial Times (UK): register with your law school email address here and sign up for regular email updates if you wish.
• Greenwire: news source for U.S. climate and environmental news. Email Iantha Haight for an account.
• Law360: popular legal news source from LexisNexis with over 60 topic- and state-specific news channels such as Compliance, Intellectual Property, and Sports & Betting. Access via the link using your BYU Law School account, or email Iantha Haight to set up a personal account. Sign up for email updates by clicking on the red “Newsletters” button in the upper-right part of the page.
• Law.com: access via the link using your BYU Law School account, or email Iantha Haight to set up an account. Click “Newsletters” in the upper-right part of the page to subscribe to email updates.
• Tax Notes (federal, state, and international editions): REGISTRATION ONLY WORKS OFF-CAMPUS. Register with your law school email address here. Click “Sign In” in the upper-left part of the page, then “Register Here.” To sign up for email alerts, go to “My Tax Notes” in the middle of the blue menu bar and click “Manage Email Subscriptions.”
• The New York Times: Try resetting your password through the “Log In” button to access your account. Contact Iantha Haight for assistance. To sign up for email updates, click “Account” in the upper-right corner of the page, then click “Newsletters” under “Your Content.”
• The Wall Street Journal: Register with your law school email address here. To sign up for email updates, click on your name in the upper-right corner of the page, then click “Emails And Alerts.”
• The Washington Post: Access via the link with your BYU Law School Account, or register for a personal account with your law school email address at https://www.washingtonpost.com/subscribe/signup. After creating your account, click on the link in the email from the Post to verify your account. Then return to https://www.washingtonpost.com, click on your username in the upper-right corner of the page, and click “Account Settings.” Click “My Subscriptions,” then click on the link to join the BYU Law School group account. Trouble? Make sure you verified your account via the email link and try logging out of washingtonpost.com and logging back in again.

BYU Law faculty can subscribe to eJournals from SSRN’s Legal Scholarship Network (LSN) and the Entrepreneurship Research & Policy Network (ERPN) for the latest scholarship on topics of interest because the BYU Law Library is a subscribing institution. Contact your library liaison for help setting up your subscriptions, or follow the directions on SSRN’s website: https://www.ssrn.com/index.cfm/en/lsn/lsn-subscribe-orgs/.

You can modify your eJournal subscriptions through your SSRN account at any time. Contact your library liaison for assistance.

The Law Library can also assist with posting your scholarship to SSRN and including it in subject-matter eJournals. Contact your library liaison or Annalee Hickman Pierson, hickmana@law.byu.edu.

SmartCILP is a weekly email alert providing customized notifications of recently published law journal articles organized by topic, e.g. “Administrative Law” and links to the full-text publications on HeinOnline. Editors at the University of Washington’s Marian Gould Gallagher Law Library have been providing this service for over 80 years, and they currently index over 600 publications using 104 subject headings. To set up your SmartCILP research profile and begin receiving weekly SmartCILP notifications, contact your library liaison or click on the following link for instructions: https://help.heinonline.org/kb/creating-a-smartcilp-profile/.

You can change your profile as often as you like. Contact your library liaison or click on the following link for instructions: https://help.heinonline.org/kb/managing-your-own-smartcilp-profile/.

Many electronic resources have the option to create custom email alerts that can notify you when new legislation is proposed, new citations are available for a case or an article, or can run a set keyword search periodically and email you the results. For assistance, contact your library liaison.

The Law Library receives print copies of several national, local, and legal newspapers. The most current papers are available in the commons area near 484 JRCB. Older papers are stored in the Reserve Room for six months, after which they are discarded. For assistance with locating a newspaper article, contact your library liaison.

American Bar Association Affiliated Upcoming Events

• Calendar of ABA section, committee, and other events & conferences
• Can search by topic, sponsor, date, or location
• Mainly CLE events

Legal Scholarship Blog

• Law-related calls for papers, conferences, and workshops, as well as general scholarship resources
• A collaborative service from law librarians at various U.S. law schools

SSRN Legal Scholarship Network’s Professional Announcements

• An SSRN eJournal to which you can subscribe
• Includes calls for papers and calls for applicants

Scholastica — contact Shawn Nevers for help setting up an account

Information for Submitting Articles to Law Reviews & Journals

Writing for and Publishing in Law Reviews (By Mary Whisner & Ann Hemmens, University of Washington Law Library)

Resources for Keeping Up and Staying Current (By Mary Whisner, Stacy Etheredge, & Cheryl Nyberg, University of Washington Law Library)

 

Law faculty can receive notifications when their articles are cited by signing up for various citation alert services.

HeinOnline

On HeinOnline, faculty can sign up for email alerts in their HeinOnline author profile page for whenever their articles on Hein are cited by new publications and cases on Hein. View instructions on how to manage author alerts from HeinOnline here: https://help.heinonline.org/kb/how-to-manage-author-alerts/.

Google Scholar

You can make a Google Scholar profile and receive alerts any time your articles on Google Scholar are cited by other works in Google Scholar. You can read more about Google Scholar profiles and how to receive alerts here: https://scholar.google.com/intl/en/scholar/citations.html#citations. If you need help making your Google Scholar profile, see the screencast made by the BYU Law Library here: http://huntersquery.byu.edu/google-scholar-profiles/.

Contact your library liaison for any assistance you may need.