What else can you do with a law degree?

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If you find yourself wondering whether practicing law is the right career path for you, you're not alone. Occasionally, students reach graduation and realize "Well, that was interesting but I don't think practicing law is right for me. What now?"

Here are some of the other professions you could pursue with a JD:

• Academic administration
• Law librarian (firm, corporate, public, court, academic) or freelance legal research specialist
  
• Non-profit management
• Corporations
• regulation specialist/trainer
• Civil Rights-related positions, such as ADA, Affirmative action or Civil Rights coordinators/specialists
  
• Alternative Dispute Resolution
• Banking & finance - brokerages, pension funds, insurance companies
• Court administration

For an extensive list of fields & position titles, see JD preferred!

From the law library collection:

• What can you do with a law degree? : a lawyer's guide to career alternatives inside, outside & around the law / Deborah Arron
• Should you really be a lawyer? : the guide to smart career choices before, during & after law school / Deborah Schneider & Gary Belsky
• Nonlegal careers for lawyers / by Gary A. Munneke, William D. Henslee, Ellen S. Wayne
• Running from the law : why good lawyers are getting out of the legal profession / Deborah Arron
• America's greatest places to work with a law degree : and how to make the most of any job, no matter where it is! / by Kimm Alayne Walton
• JD preferred! : legal career alternatives / Federal Reports, Inc.
• Career opportunities in law and the legal industry / Susan Echaore-McDavid

Update 10/28/08: Also check out Explore Career Options Within the Law from The Complete Lawyer.

NEW DU Law Librarian Fellows Program

"The Library and Information Science Program in the Morgridge College of Education at the University of Denver and its partners, the Westminster Law Library and the Sturm College of Law, will recruit and educate ten new law librarians, known as the Law Librarian Fellows (LLF), thanks to a grant of $999,360 from the Federal Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS)... the law librarianship students will participate actively as members of the Rural and Small Practice Attorney Library Support Center (Support Center) at DU. They will be assigned a list of clients and provide legal reference, document retrieval, and other services under the guidance of WLL law librarians. Clients will include rural attorneys, academic and public libraries with legal collections, rural government agencies, and non-governmental legal organizations serving low-income individuals and families."

Program summary by Patty Wellinger. Read her article on law librarianship and the new fellow program.

Press release: $999,360 in federal aid received from Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program

Gigablast: Search with Attitude

Gigablast (www.gigablast.com) is a ten-billion-page search engine that accommodates a huge quantity of users, workloads, and transactions. Customize Gigablast to retrieve web pages, images, video, or directory queries based on freshness by clicking last day, last month, last week, last year, custom, or off links. For more information, click Fresh Results link.

Try a simple search on Gigablast’s front page template (who is Ruth Bader Ginsburg) or click Advanced Search to set up a query. Other links include Help, Eco-Friendly, and Privacy Enhanced. Gigablast retrievals show key themes and related topics in GigaBits displays.

Most Gigablast search results include the following information at the end of retrieval abstracts:

• Archived Copy: a direct link to Gigablast’s cached copy of the web page.
• Stripped: an image-free copy of the page.
• Older Copies: a hard-coded link to The WayBack Machine’s copy of that site’s information.
• Indexed Date: when Gigablast’s spiders last crawled the page.

Gigablast is listed in the law library's Web Research Links under Non-Legal > Search Engines > Search Engines > Gigablast.

Law Librarianship: A Career Alternative for JD's

Interested in using your law degree in an alternative career? Law librarians work in diverse and challenging environments, and have a variety of educational backgrounds. Several of the Westminster Law Library staff have JD's and some practiced law before switching to law librarianship.


About 30% of AALL* members have a law degree. Academic law libraries are more likely to require a JD than are other employers, especially if you are interested in public services positions. A legal bibliography class or practical experience through working and volunteering in a law library can give you great experience.


The AALL website provides information on scholarships and grants, job postings, a salary survey, and a writing competition for library school students. There are also numerous regional and local chapters affiliated with AALL, including the Colorado Association of Law Libraries (CoALL). CoALL, our state chapter, provides networking and educational opportunities in the Denver metro area. CoALL includes individuals from academic, firm, court, and agency law libraries through Colorado.


While many programs are free to anyone, student membership in CoALL is only $5 per year. This includes discounted rates on fee-based programs and a quarterly newsletter. CoALL offers a yearly research workshop to summer law clerks called BRAG (Bridging the Research & Analysis Gap). CoALL also sponsors grants and scholarship opportunities for library school students.


For more information about educational requirements or the profession check out these resources or stop by the Law Library. The University of Denver School of Library & Information Science (SLIS) received a grant of nearly a million dollars to develop a law librarianship fellow program in conjunction with the Westminster Law Library. Applications are now being accepted for the Fall 2009 class.


*The American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) was founded in 1906 to promote and enhance the value of law libraries to the legal and public communities, to foster the profession of law librarianship, and to provide leadership in the field of legal information. Today, with over 4,800 members, the Association represents law librarians and related professionals who are affiliated with a wide range of institutions such as law firms; law schools; corporate legal departments; courts; and local, state and federal government agencies.

by Patty Wellinger, Reference Service Coordinator

Colorado's New Landlord-Tenant Law

Colorado residents who live in leased housing now have basic legal rights for safe, habitable living conditions. See An Act Concerning Landlord and Tenant Relations (HB 08-1356).

Find provisions of this new tenant’s bill of rights in Colorado’s statutes at Title 38 (Property – Real and Personal), Article 12 (Tenants and Landlords), Part 5 (Obligation to Maintain Residential Premises – Unlawful Removal), Sections 501 through 511 as follows:

38-12-501 Legislative declaration – matter of statewide concern – purposes and policies.

38-12-502 Definitions.

38-12-503 Warranty of habitability.

38-12-504 Tenant’s maintenance of premises.

38-12-505 Uninhabitable residential premises.

38-12-506 Opt-out.

38-12-507 Breach of warranty of habitability – tenant’s remedies.

38-12-508 Landlord’s defenses to a claim of breach of warranty – limitations on claiming a breach.

38-12-509 Prohibition on retaliation.

38-12-510 Unlawful removal or exclusion.

38-12-511 Application.

According to Colo. Rev. Stat. § 38-12-501 (2008), this law was designed to:

• Simplify, clarify, modernize, and revise the law governing the rental of dwelling units and the rights and obligations of landlords and tenants.

• Encourage landlords and tenants to maintain and improve the quality of housing.

• Make uniform the law with respect to the subject of this part 5 throughout Colorado.

See also:

• Colorado Bar's CLE on Residential Landlord-Tenant Law, 10/16/08,which will address the new changes to the law.
• New law requires rental units to be habitable by Jerry Kopel in The Colorado Statesman, 6/13/08.
• Warranty of Habitability - Bed bugs, cockroaches, tenants and other pests by Drew Hamrick in Apartment Trends Magazine.

by Sheila Green, Reference Librarian

New category: Dicta

Hearsay has a new category called "Dicta." Dicta articles are legal news, entertainment, occasional snark, and in general things we think you ought to know. They occupy a space between Research Tips (which discuss research skills) and Announcements (about the library) by providing general information about legal resources and notices of new legal developments.

RSS: Bring the news to you!

Notice: This post was written for our previous format in BlogFusion. You can still subscribe to Hearsay's RSS feed, but you will receive all of our posts instead of individual categories. (11/11/08)

You can read Hearsay by going to our blog's site, checking our Facebook page, and subscribing to our RSS feeds. Ever feel like you spend too much time clicking around checking your favorite blogs and news sites? RSS can streamline your news browsing and supply you with the most relevant items.

RSS = Really Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary

From w3schools.com: "RSS is a method that uses XML to distribute web content on one web site, to many other web sites. RSS allows fast browsing for news and updates."

How does that help you? Instead of you going to get your news from many sources, those sources send the news to you! When you sign up for an RSS reader, you select which RSS feeds go to your feedreader. Then you can browse the headlines on your topics from within the feedreader and click through to the articles that you find most interesting.
RSS readers can be desktop-based, email-based, web-based, or browser-based (see your browser's website for options).

For an excellent, straight-forward explanation of RSS, see: RSS in Plain English on Youtube.

Other resources:

• RSS Readers
• RSS Tutorial from w3schools.com
• RSS for Beginners tutorial from webmonkey.com
• Whatisrss.com

Just look for the RSS buttons on your favorite sites!

Creative Commons images by Chesi - Fotos CC

Individual and various

by Esti Shay, Reference Librarian

Now now children...

Courtesy of www.stus.com