Getting Started in the Library

This guide is designed to help you find library resources during your 1st year in law school.

The Atlanta's John Marshall Law School Library provides a variety of resources and information to support the curriculum of the law school and faculty research. Today, the law library collection contains over 100,000 volumes and equivalents in all areas of American law and selected areas of international law, as well as electronic resources, including Westlaw and LexisNexis. In addition, students have access to databases, e-books, and electronic journals. To help you make the most of all these resources, you can turn to the law library's highly trained staff of legal researchers in the Public Services Department. We look forward to working with you!

You probably already have some library skills.  However, library research holds a uniquely central place in the practice of law.  It has been said that the library is to lawyers what the laboratory is to chemists.  Certainly, it is at the very heart of what lawyers do.  For that reason, it is essential that each student become familiar with the library as quickly as possible. 

Please feel free to visit the library prior to orientation.  If you call in advance of your visit, we will be happy to give you a tour.  In the meantime, here is some information you may find useful: