The Harris County Attorney’s Office and the Harris County District Attorney’s Office will present a CLE program on Thursday November 8, 2018 at the HCAO Conference Center, 1019 Congress. Seating is at capacity, so registration to attend this event in person has closed. However, a video recording of the program will be available at a later date. For details about the speakers and their presentations, please visit the webpage for this program, Fighting Hate Crimes and Bias in Texas - Legal Perspectives on Ten Dollars to Hate by Patricia Bernstein.
Veterans Law Resource Month
November is Veterans Law Resource Month at the Harris County Law Library. Selected titles to help veterans achieve economic security, obtain benefits, and promote stability within their families will be on display throughout the Law Library all month long.
Recommended print resources
Veterans Benefits Manual (National Veterans Legal Services Program)
Federal Veterans Laws, Rules, and Regulations (National Veterans Legal Services Program)
Veterans Benefits: A Legal Research Guide (William S. Hein & Co., Inc.)
Social Security, Medicare, & Government Pensions - Chapter 8: Veterans Benefits (Nolo Press)
Recommended online resources
TexasLawHelp.org — Benefits, Legal Assistance & Support, Family Law & Military Families
HeinOnline (On-site access) — Air Force Law Review, Army Lawyer, Veterans Law Review
Happy Halloween from the Harris County Law Library
Happy Halloween from the Harris County Law Library! In the spirit of the day, visit the Law Library and sneak up on our Book O’Lantern for a scary #shelfie. When you post it, be sure to to haunt our feeds by tagging us on Facebook and Twitter.
Harris County Law Library Partners with Procertas on Access to Tech Training Platform
The Harris County Law Library is pleased to announce a new partnership with Procertas that unlocks legal technology learning opportunities for our local legal community. The Procertas Legal Technology Assessment is now available to all at the Law Library, Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. This innovative online learning platform combines real-time assessment of skills on drafting software, like Microsoft Word and Excel, that attorneys and self-represented litigants need to accomplish modern legal work with targeted video content to provide instruction at the point of need. The result is a customizable experience that helps you learn the skills you need on Word and Excel at your own pace on a platform built to promote efficiency and retention.
“We are very pleased to be the first public law library in the country to offer the Legal Technology Assessment from Procertas,” said Law Library Deputy Director Joe Lawson. “Anyone engaged in legal research and drafting needs to have a basic understanding of how to create documents digitally, so it is important to make this resource available for free to all as we do with all of our learning opportunities through the Law Library’s Legal Tech Institute.”
Inspiration
The inspiration behind Procertas revolves around a simple question - Should lawyers charge for time spent inefficiently using Microsoft Word or Excel? Casey Flaherty didn’t think so when he was in-house counsel for Kia Motors and was tasked with ensuring the multi-national corporation was not overpaying for legal services. To determine whether his company was paying for inefficient use of office technology for legal work, Flaherty developed the Legal Tech Audit. He administered the timed test to top law firms vying for Kia’s business and discovered that although these lawyers were some of the best and brightest in terms of legal analysis and argument, they had no training on the basic tools it takes to efficiently translate that expertise into a modern work product. So, he got to work on building the Legal Technology Assessment and making it available to attorneys through Procertas.
How Does It Work?
Visit our downtown location and ask about Procertas at our reference desk. A law librarian will set up a training laptop for you and help you get started with the Legal Technology Assessment. You can peruse the collection of tutorials, take a timed assessment in the Word or Excel modules, or view training videos. If you have questions or you have completed your session, alert a law librarian and we’ll be happy to help. Access is free to Law Library patrons, so the amount of training and topics covered is up to you!
For details on access to the Procertas Legal Technology Assessment, visit or call our reference desk today!
National Pro Bono Week
This week (Oct. 21-27, 2018) is the 10th Annual National Pro Bono Week! Legal organizations across the country have planned events to celebrate and educate pro bono attorneys in their communities, and the Harris County Law Library is no exception. On Thursday, Oct. 25, at 2 p.m., we’ll offer our first session of Free Legal Tech for the Public, which is designed to help pro bono attorneys and self-represented litigants make sense of all the great online resources available to help individuals representing themselves in legal matters. Everyone is welcome to attend this Hands-on Legal Tech Training from the Law Library’s Legal Tech Institute and Texas attorneys can earn 1.0 hour of CLE credit. Click for details and registration information.
Hats Off to Houston Volunteer Lawyers!
In the tradition of celebrating excellence in pro bono work during National Pro Bono Week, the Law Library would like to give a hat tip to Houston Volunteer Lawyers! HVL attorneys staff the “Library Booth,” which is a legal information booth where self-represented litigants with limited means can speak with a licensed attorney for free. The Library Booth is open Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., in the lower level of our downtown Houston location. Working in close proximity with HVL attorneys, our law librarians see the positive impact it has on our patrons to have ready access to pro bono attorneys who can answer basic questions. With guidance, self-represented litigants can make better use of the Law Library’s collection and have improved access to justice. Visit www.makejusticehappen.org to see all the ways HVL supports pro bono.
Further Reading
For more information about National Pro Bono Week, including a nationwide events calendar, visit www.probono.net
For information about National Pro Bono Week events in Houston, visit the Houston Bar Association’s Pro Bono Week 2018 page.
For more information about the Law Library’s Hands-on Legal Tech Training sessions, including the Pro Bono Week session of Free Legal Tech for the Public, visit our Legal Tech Institute website and click the Course Calendar.