Tarlton Library News

Traditionally April 15th is the nation’s deadline for when individual income tax returns are due to the federal government. Because April 15th falls on a Sunday this year, taxpayers actually have until Tuesday, April 17th, to file their 2011 tax returns.

Hopefully you have completed your return already, but are taxes still on the brain? Check out the library’s research guide on federal tax law, listed on our Research Guide page.

Research in tax law is specialized and the law changes frequently. The Internal Revenue Code is regularly amended several times each year, and the Treasury Department issues many new, proposed, temporary, and amended regulations. In addition, the IRS publishes several types of regulatory and administrative documents. This guide helps researchers to be aware of these types of documents, how they can be located and updated, and their level of authority.

The Tarlton Law Librarians will be teaching three different legal research courses in the fall:

• advanced legal research
• foreign and international law research, and
• Texas law research.

These are all short, seven-week courses for one pass/fail credit to help prepare you for practice.

The general advanced legal research course, taught by Matt Steinke, Lecturer and Assistant Director for Public Services, expands upon skills taught during the first year of law school. The other two courses are intended for those who have a particular interest in or expect to practice in these legal jurisdictions. Jonathan Pratter will teach the foreign and international law legal research class and will bring his many years of experience researching in this area. Casey Duncan, Lecturer and Assistant Director for Technical Services, will teach the Texas law research course that is invaluable for any law student planning to stay and practice in Texas.

Check out the library’s website for more information.

Equal opportunity. Arbitration. Law & economics. These are just a few of the many seminars with paper requirements being offered this spring semester.

If you are a law student and it’s time to get started on research for your seminar paper, ask any lawyer-librarian at the reference desk for assistance. Tarlton’s research guides may also be useful. Research guides can help not only in choosing a paper topic, but also refresh your memory about the legal research process and provide direction when researching various substantive topics.

For more in-depth assistance about the best way to research a seminar paper, feel free to contact Kasia Solon, Student Services Coordinator, at ksolon@law.utexas.edu.

The library recently added a new research guide on employment law and discrimination to its Research Guides page. This research guide focuses on federal and Texas employment law, with some labor law resources covered in passing.

Employment law is one of those areas of the law where a single issue can often involve all three branches of government–judicial, executive, and legislative–on both the state and federal level. To assist in finding all relevant authorities, this guide provides an overview of the main secondary sources such as treatises and law reviews, and as well as highlighting the most important portions of primary sources.