PLI is offering a free one hour webinar on June 11th at 3 pm.  You must register on the PLI website and use the code: FREE COVID. Here is the description of the program.Register for free at this link

COVID-19 and Issues for Legal Librarians

As the legal community adjusts to the COVID-19 new normal virtual work environment, law librarians face unique challenges.  It is vitally important for law librarians to be proactive in monitoring the needs of the respective practice areas they support, including ensuring adequate research is being performed in those hot Covid-19 practice areas and ensuring alerts have been set up to monitor late breaking
Continue Reading PLI Offers Free COVID Webinar for Law Librarians on Thursday June 11th

Thomson Reuters has added a collection of municipal ordinances  and order for the 100 largest U.S. cities. Early in the COVID-19 crisis Thomson Reuters published  a Global Coronavirus Toolkit on the Practical Law platform. A bigger legal publishing challenge  was about to emerge.  Ever since California Governor Gavin Newsom issued the nation’s first state “stay at home” order on March 19, 2020 there has been a steady cascade of orders, ordinances and policies issued from every kind of governmental unit (cities, counties, villages) and administrative units ( health, transportation, public utilities, fair housing…)

Across the US. law librarians and knowledge managers were developing a “skunk-works” approach to gathering what was normally viewed as the “ephemera” of legal documents: governors proclamations and agency polices. Most states lacked a systematic publication plan and most failed to publish all the  COVID materials on one central website. Sometimes these  life altering  issues emerging  as tweets, texts,  on  Facebook or other social media sites. Finding
Continue Reading A Major Legal Publisher Adds Local COVID-19 Ordinances and Orders

It will come as no surprise that the roster of legal publishing and tech innovator offerings of Covid-19 resources continues to grow. Fastcase, PacerPro, PubK Law and Tax Notes have new Covid-19 resources.Thomson Reuters and Bloomberg Law mentioned in an earlier post now have added free resources which out from behind the paywall.Well Fastcase has gone “Amazon” – they have basically built a Covid-19 Shopping Mall which includes a gallery of their own resources, affiliates resources, government resources and competitors resources – all for a good cause!

Federal Legislative Response to Coronavirus
Thomson Reuters Skopos Labs

Bloomberg Law has brought their very popular In Focus Covid-19 page out from behind the paywall. There are  3 “trackers ” which provide a survey of  court operations during Covid-19, state quarantine and public health laws and Covid-19 related labor laws.The page also provides, news, analysis, regulatory guidance e.g .reporting Covid issues to the SEC. According to Bloomberg Law President Joe Breda “We are committed to continuing to add to this collection, and possibly other features of BLAW in the future.” There also a Bloomberg Law Corona Virus news page  That offers great deal of public content as well as a free newsletter.

Fastcase Covid-19 “Mall of American Resources”
Covid Resources “Gallery”   Fastcase COO, Steve Errick sent me an email about Fastcase’s Covid-19 efforts. ”We are supporting our bar members by providing them a list of resources including noting where our publishing peers provide
Continue Reading New Covid-19 Resources From Fastcase, PacerPro, Tax Notes and PubK Law. Free Covid Resources From Westlaw and Bloomberg Law

I have been working on a post about the various ways legal publishers have been responding to the current pandemic, but this news was too good to hold back for a longer piece. It is not often that legal publishers forego the opportunity for revenue. Many legal publishers have begun publishing kits and resources for their subscribers which sit behind a paywall.  Kudos for Lexis Nexis for being the first publisher (that I know of) to make subscription resources available to the entire legal community for free. Content includes news from Law360 as well as a toolkit covering corporate, commercial,privacy/security, capital markets and life science issues.  According to the press release, they are providing these resources “to help legal professionals, lawmakers and business leaders become better informed and successfully navigate the legal issues and intricacies surrounding the Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19).
Continue Reading LexisNexis Offers Free COVID-19 News and Practical Guidance From Law360 and Practice Advisor