This day, October 1st, marks the 104th Anniversary of the founding of the Harris County Law Library. Every day, we are committed to promoting open and equal access to justice for all, including self-represented litigants and the local legal community.
Since the celebration of our Centennial in 2015, the Law Library has continued grow and evolve. We are especially proud of our expanded digital offerings.
Our Legal Tech Institute (LTI) now provides even greater opportunities for hands-on learning about the effective use of technology in the practice of law. One hour of free CLE instruction is provided every Thursday at 2:00 pm at the Law Library in our Legal Tech Lab. We offer nine classes on rotation, and all are welcome to attend.
Additional learning opportunities are available in our Digital Education Nook or DEN, where library visitors can select from a full menu of videos to watch in a convenient and comfortable setting. There’s something for everyone! Licensed Texas attorneys can earn CLE credit by viewing previously recorded LTI presentations. The general public can get familiar with basic civil procedure and learn about the experience of filing a lawsuit and representing oneself in court.
These are just a few of the resources we offer to our many library visitors. We also provide access to heavily used print resources, including a wide variety of practice guides and form books, as well as an extensive collection of online content. Increasingly, the Law Library has expanded its selection of digital information available through Westlaw and Lexis. We also offer database access to HeinOnline, which includes a comprehensive collection of digitized law reviews and other legal journals. We are especially happy to offer access to the new Lexis eBook Collection, which is available to anyone connected to the Harris County wi-fi network. This Digital Collection contains complete searchable sets of several popular titles, such as the Texas Transaction Guide and the Texas Litigation Guide, along with a wealth of other materials published by Lexis for legal practitioners.
With so much growth in recent years, we are excited to see what the future holds. We are eager to implement a number of new ideas as we begin our next year of service to the Harris County community. As technology and legal technology, in particular, continues to develop and evolve, we will embrace and be responsive to those changes for the legal community and the residents of Harris County.