Through an institutional partnership with the Maryland State Library and a uniform curriculum, the Conference of Maryland Court Law Library Directors and the Maryland Access to Justice Commission seek to empower public librarians across the state to provide quality legal reference to patrons in their local communities. Trustworthy legal information is a critical first step in ensuring that all Marylanders have access to justice. Law and legal reference constitute a specialized area of knowledge and resources. These Workshops will provide the tools needed for legal reference and referrals, Choose Part I, Part II or both.
Part II: Topic Training with Real World Questions. The partnership continues with resource training focused on topics. Following on the initial training, which centers on methods for approaching a legal reference questions and basic general resources, the topic training narrows in on frequently-asked topics, more deeply investigates accessible resources for public library staff to utilize and develops the ability to locate information through use of hands-on exploration and assessment exercises. Topics include family law (divorce, custody, etc.) and landlord-tenant and housing issues. Learn how to analyze a legal reference question and classify the question into a broad topical category and how to utilize topic-specific resources to identify information related to the question.
Sponsor: PSD This program is worth 2 contact hours of continuing education.
