Events

Martin Luther King Day

Martin Luther King Day

Legislation signed in 1983 marked the birthday of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as a federal holiday, celebrated on the third Monday of each January. In 1994, Congress designated the Martin Luther King Jr. Federal Holiday as a national day of service, now led by the Corporation for National and Community Service.

This year, the NYLS community is honoring Dr. King’s legacy by expanding its traditional day of service to a week of volunteering, trainings, and discussions. The “Week of Action” is being organized by NYLS’s Impact Center for Public Interest Law, one of its six academic centers. Click here for more information.

 

First Monday in October 2018

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.)

Celebrate National Punctuation Day!

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.

Happy Constitution Day!

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!

Win… and Learn!

Have you submitted your Legally Clueless Info Hunt entry? The drawing take place on Thursday August 23 at 5:45 pm, just outside the Library. We plan to award lots of prizes, including OneCards (with pre-loaded cash values), First Year course study aids, books, NYLS swag, and who knows what else!

The lime colored entry form is in the blue folder you received and worked on during your First Week Finding the Law class. If you need another copy, you can pick one up at the Reference Desk. Spend a few minutes learning more about research and the library’s resources. You don’t even need to get the right answers, and you should always feel free to ask one of the reference librarians for help.

Good luck to all!

2018 Summer Research Challenge

The Challenge is On!

 Join us next Wednesday June 6 (and on any or all of the following Wednesdays through June 27), for the Mendik Library’s 2018 Summer Research Challenge! Hone your research skills with real issues you’ll encounter in practice and have some fun at the same time. Get all the details here and follow this link to register.

Congratulations to our Valentine’s Day Info Hunt Winners!

Thanks to everyone who participated in this year’s Valentine’s Day 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 22 winners drawn from our renowned Raffle Drum:

Those winners who haven’t claimed their prize, please drop by the Circulation Desk to pick it up.