Please return your corrected list of attorneys and the appropriate fee by Friday, January 30 to ensure uninterrupted circulation service. If you have questions about the fee, please call Mary McDevitt at 348-3024.

We will also be closed November 27 and 28 in observance of the Thanksgiving holiday.

Another valuable resource is Northwestern University Medill School of Journalism’s “On the Docket.”  It provides news about the Supreme Court as well as an analysis of the issues in each upcoming case.  Also try Findlaw’s Supreme Court Docket.  For each case, it lists the issues, provides a link to lower court opinions, and links to the briefs of the parties as well as amicus briefs.

Last month’s HCLL Alert focused on specialty form titles—those titles containing subject specific transaction forms—and provided some hints for locating them in the Law Library’s collection.  The library has a similarly rich collection of pleading and litigation forms.  There are multi-volume sets of pleading forms that staff use again and again when looking for a complaint or motion or answer on a particular topic.  American Jurisprudence Pleading and Practice Forms and Federal Procedural Forms are the two most complete and most heavily used titles.

But as with the general legal forms, there are many sets with subject specific litigation forms, forms for specific jurisdictions, or forms dealing with a single step in the litigation process.  Among these titles:

• Trademark Law Practice Forms
• Complete Manual of Criminal Forms
• Securities Litigation:  Forms & Analysis
• Section 1983 Litigation Forms
• ERISA Litigation Formbook

• West’s Federal Forms
• Federal Local Court Forms
• Manual of Federal Practice Forms
• Florida Civil Procedure Forms
• Civil Practice of North Dakota Forms
• Grenig’s Civil Procedure Forms for Wisconsin
• Haydock’s Civil Practice Forms for Minnesota

• Bender’s Forms of Discovery
• Deposition Strategy Law and Forms
• Douglas Danner’s Pattern Discovery series contains volumes on antitrust, employment discrimination, family law, motor vehicles, products liability, premises liability, securities, and torts.

In addition to these forms sets, many treatises include pleading forms either as appendices or interspersed with the topical discussion.  Two great titles are the Cause of Action Manual from the Minnesota Trial Lawyers Association and Causes of Action 2d, a multi-volume set now published by Thomson/West.  Both titles analyze the elements of a particular cause of action, suggest how the elements might be proved, and provide sample pleadings.  Other treatises with sample pleadings include:  Selz’s Entertainment Law; Larson’s Employment Discrimination; Cook’s Civil Rights Actions; Smith’s Prosecution and Defense of Forfeiture Cases; and Morosco’s Prosecution and Defense of Sex Crimes.  No Minnesota legal collection can be complete without McFarland’s and Keppel’s civil procedure treatise, Minnesota Civil Practice 3rd ed., which discusses the handling of a civil case from initial client interview through the appeal procedures and contains many sample pleading forms.

All of these titles and more are available at HCLL.  In addition, the library’s website includes a Legal Forms link to Hennepin County Online Forms, Minnesota Court Forms, and other internet sites containing pleading forms.  With all these resources, finding the sample form you need may seem overwhelming.  Contact the reference librarians at HCLL by phone (612-348-2903) or email for assistance. We are happy to recommend or check sources for you.

At the Philadelphia meeting, major topics of discussion included subscriber benefits in addition to circulation, training programs, disaster planning, insurance, and fund raising.  Several of the libraries now offer in-house Westlaw and/or Lexis access to subscribers as well as training on how to use these services efficiently. Watch for the announcement about HCLL’s new Westlaw access and training in next month’s HCLL Alert.