I barely got into law school, let alone make law review, so after a few decades as a lawyer it’s a real honor to find myself among the leading legal commentators in the world. At least I did so through our Library at LexBlog.
Last week, HeinOnline a product of William S. Hein & Co., Inc., announced the launch of the LexBlog Library, a new database that integrates practitioner-authored legal commentary, drawn from the published works in the Library at LexBlog, directly into the HeinOnline research experience.
Why did HeinOnline find the LexBlog Library attractive? Here’s how they describe it,
“Traditional legal research often involves moving between multiple platforms to piece together the full picture. Researchers may begin with primary law, consult law reviews for scholarly analysis, and then search elsewhere for practical commentary on how developments are affecting legal practice.
By integrating practitioner commentary directly into HeinOnline search results, LexBlog Library helps researchers move beyond simply identifying the law to understanding how it is being discussed, interpreted, and applied in practice.”
This puts the publishing of legal professionals, primarily lawyers, sitting right next to law reviews. These lawyers may well find their publishing read more often than law reviews because of the lawyer’s practical experience and timely insight.
The Library at LexBlog holds 980,000 published works authored by 72,000 legal professionals in 4,400 publications. And these numbers grow all the time.
HeinOnline is part of William S. Hein, a legal publishing company that has served the profession for over 100 years. Its database provides comprehensive coverage from more than 3,400 periodicals, essential government documents, international treaties and trials, case law, and more.
Our mission is, in part, to preserve legal insight. Law firms merge, websites get updated, and publishing gets deleted, sometimes for SEO reasons, sometimes on the belief that law must be updated after a period of time. Decades of publishing is lost.
HeinOnline is in the business of permanence. They preserve legal writing so it can be found and cited by future generations. To know that the hard work of these 72,000 legal professionals is now locked in as citable secondary law is a big step for them and for the profession.
Thanks to the people at HeinOnline. You have been great to work with, and it’s an honor to have our Library and our authors included in your body of published work.
Details of the LexBlog Library from HeinOnline are here.