Happy New Year!
The Harris County Law Library will close early on Monday, December 31, 2018 at 5:00 pm. We will be closed on Tuesday, January 1, 2019 and will reopen on Wednesday, January 2, 2019 at 8:00 am.
New Combined Forms Packets from TexasLawHelp.org
The Harris County Law Library's collection of combined forms packets contain valuable self-help instructions and forms from TexasLawHelp.org. The packets on this page have been assembled to assist institutions that help self-represented litigants who need printed forms, such as county law libraries, public libraries, clerk's offices, and community centers. If you are an individual representing yourself, please visit TexasLawHelp.org to find interactive checklists and chat assistance that will provide additional guidance.
Note: Most of the instructions and forms included in the combined forms packets were originally developed by the Travis County Law Library for use throughout Texas. Countless Texans have benefited from the hard work and dedication of the reference attorneys and law librarians in Travis County and we at Harris County Law Library appreciate their efforts immensely.
As of this month, a few new forms packets are available, specifically forms in Spanish for divorce and annulment. Please visit the Combined Forms Packets page and scroll down to the bottom of the column on the right, where you will find Formularios en Español. Available Spanish forms include
The Combined Forms Packets page is updated regularly as changes to the law are adopted and incorporated into the TexasLawHelp forms. For additional content on any number of legal topics, as well as Toolkits, Checklists, and FAQs that will assist self-represented litigants in completing the TexasLawHelp forms, please visit TexasLawHelp.org in English or Spanish.
Christmas Holiday Hours
The Harris County Law Library wishes you and yours a very joyous holiday and all good things in the year ahead.
NOLO PRESS IN PRINT AND ONLINE + OTHER SELF-HELP RESOURCES FOR PRO SE LITIGANTS
Navigating the law, especially for the non-lawyer, can be daunting, confusing, and frustrating. We at the Harris County Law Library provide resources and information that, we hope, make the law less intimidating and more accessible to the general public. One of the best, most indispensable tools for those who need to get acquainted with a new area of the law is a collection of books from Nolo Press, a publisher of legal materials, written in plain English, on a wide variety of legal topics. Designed to assist self-represented parties in learning about the law, Nolo Press is a company that seeks to “make the law accessible to everyone."
In addition to the Nolo Press publications, the Harris County Law Library's self-help collection contains a number of accessible, user-friendly resources including the Nutshell series from West publishing and the Texas Young Lawyers Association Research Guides for the general public. Nutshells are concise, one-volume treatises that address a particular area of the law, and the TYLA guides provide very practical information for handling specific legal matters in Texas, including probate, CPS cases, guardianship, and divorce.
The Nolo collection is a bit more expansive, as it covers all of the following topics and more: bankruptcy, criminal law, immigration, family law, labor and employment, landlord-tenant, estate planning, and social security. Other titles address how to start a small business, file a suit in small claims court, repair your credit, dispute a traffic ticket, survive foreclosure, and win a personal injury claim.
If you are unable to visit the Law Library in person, there are several options for accessing self-help legal resources online. The Nolo books, in particular, are available through several channels, including the Harris County Public Library, the Houston Public Library, and the Texas State Law Library online. As members of the TexShare Libraries Consortium, these institutions offer access to the Ebsco Legal Information Reference Center, which provides full-text digital versions of all titles published by Nolo Press, including some titles not included in the Harris County Law Library print collection. (The Texas State Law Library also provides access to the West Nutshell series.) To gain access to this online database, you must have a valid library card for one of the institutions named above. All residents of Texas are eligible to receive a library card, simply by filling out an application in person or by requesting a library card from the Texas State Law Library via the library's web portal.
New Video CLE: Fulfilling Ethical Obligations with Legal Research
The Legal Tech Institute at the Harris County Law Library has released a new video CLE. Fulfilling Ethical Obligations with Legal Research is the latest additional to our Learn On-Demand CLE library that lets you earn CLE credit in Texas while staying up to date on legal tech. Visit the Law Library's Legal Tech Institute page for more legal tech learning opportunities.