This Week in the Law Library ... June 23, 2025

This week in the Law Library we’re showing faculty the wonderful library resources and services we provide them; looking at bar exam resources; reviewing basic legal research skills for summer; reminding you about library services during our migration to a new library services platform; continuing to learn more about LGBTQ+ legal issues and history; learning about Carribean heritage and law; and previewing Ohio Supreme Court oral arguments.

• 12:15pm 
• Room 465 and Zoom

The Law Library takes center stage at the College of Law Summer Workshop series where we will present on all of the wonderful services and resources that we provide for our faculty!

Congratulations! You have made it through law school but now the bar exam looms. Don’t worry, the Law Library’s got your back. When you’ve caught your breath and you’re ready to start your bar studying, we have resources that can help. Check out our Bar Exam Research Guide.

The July 2025 bar exam will be held in three locations: Cincinnati, Columbus, and Cleveland. 

Examinees will be tested at the following locations:

• Cincinnati: University of Cincinnati College of Law, 2925 Campus Green Dr., Cincinnati, OH 45221
• Columbus: Ohio Union, 1739 N. High St., Columbus, OH 43210
• Cleveland: Cleveland State University College of Law, 1801 Euclid Ave., Cleveland, OH 44115

Accommodations testing will be located at OSU Moritz College of Law (Drinko Hall, 55 W. 12th Ave., Columbus, OH 43210).

Learn more: Ohio Bar Exam

5 More Resources to Help You Study for the Bar Exam

The Bar Exam is not a sprint, it’s a marathon so pace yourself! Check out this week’s Bar Exam Resource highlights below.

• A Short & Happy Guide to the MPT
  • Available through the West Academic Study Aid subscription, A Short & Happy Guide to the MPT teaches you how to take advantage of the fact that the Multistate Performance Test is created and graded based on formulas and patterns. It identifies the basic underlying formulas on which every MPT is constructed and the standard performance expectations. It then shows you how to develop a set of standard strategies, create a process for approaching any MPT, and accurately assess your performance. A Short & Happy Guide to the MPT not only identifies what skills are tested, but how they are tested, and how you can demonstrate mastery of those skills. 
• A Short & Happy Guide to Conquering the MBE
  • Available through the West Academic Study Aid subscription, this small volume will show you how to use practice multiple-choice questions to greatest advantage. That involves changing the way you approach those questions. Conquering the MBE gives you a step-by-step process for attacking every multiple-choice question in every MBE subject, with lots of examples. You will discover that most questions offer review of four concepts rather than just one, and they do so on concrete contexts, not in the abstract. You will also discover that when you do this step-by-step review, one answer, and only one answer, is correct.
• A Short & Happy Guide to the Bar Exam's Multistate Essay Examination (MEE)
  •     Available through the West Academic Study Aid subscription, this is a one-source resource for what you need to maximize your performance on the MEE—not a generic essay writing guide, but a treasury of information, issue identification, and subject area frameworks tailored specifically for the MEE. This book is not intended to replace a bar review course for the substantive law you need to know to pass the bar exam.
• Exam Pro Bar Prep Workbook Revised
  •  Available through the West Academic Study Aid subscription, this book uses frameworks as a guide to writing a top-notch essay. The opportunity to practice techniques allows students to further improve their writing.
• Strategies & Tactics for the MBE 2 
  • Law Stacks  KF303 .E46 2013      
  • Strategies & Tactics for the MBE 2 provides 300 additional questions to help you prepare for the Multistate Bar Exam (MBE). The 300 questions are organized by subject area (Constitutional Law, Contracts, Criminal Law and Procedure, Evidence, Torts, and Real Property). Within each subject area, questions are broken down by subtopic, allowing you to locate and practice questions in your trouble areas.

Be sure and take a look at our previous June 16, June 9,  June 2, May 27 and May 19 posts on Bar Exam Resources.

Previously, we covered basic tips to think about before starting a research project; the initial steps to take; using secondary sources to jump start your research; the structure and organization of annotated codes; and statutory finding tools.  Start by identifying the resources available to you at your place of summer employment and ask questions. Develop a research plan. Read more about developing a research plan on our Research Strategy & Documentation guide. Then you may need to do background research about your issue before jumping into primary sources such as statutes and case law. A good secondary source can explain the law around your issue and cite you to primary sources. It can save you a lot of time and effort! Learn more about researching in secondary sources in our Researching Secondary Sources Guide or watch our videos on finding and searching within the various secondary source types. If your issue is statutory, you want to use an annotated code. An annotated code is a great research tool because it offers editorial enhancements such as: (1) cross references to related statutes and regulations; (2) more detailed historical notes, secondary source references; (3) if it is a Thomson Reuters code you will get topic and key number references to help you find cases; and (3) the case annotations. Once in an annotated code, use the statutory finding tools like indexes, tables of contents, parallel reference tables, and the popular names table to find the statutory sections you need.

This week we will look at updating and validating statutes. Learn more about researching statutes in our Researching Statutes Guide or watch our videos on researching statutes.

Statutes Change - How Current Is Your Code?

Make sure that you are working with the most current version of a statute when researching a current issue. Print and online codes will tell you how up to date they are. Look for these currency statements when viewing a statute. Print statutes are updated by pocket parts, supplements, and legislative services. For both print and online currency, look for the number of the last session law integrated into the code.

How to Make Sure Your Statutes Are Still Good Law

On Lexis, use Shepards to validate your statute and to identify any pending legislation that may impact your statute. In Lexis, when you shepardize a statute, the circle with an exclamation point indicates that a section has strong negative treatment. Such negative treatment would be things like it has been amended or repealed or that it has been declared unconstitutional or void. A yellow triangle indicates possible negative treatment. An example of possible negative treatment for a statute might be an amendment or a case criticizing or limiting the statute. A red upside-down triangle with an exclamation point indicates recent legislative changes. The upside-down yellow triangle with an exclamation point indicates that there is pending legislation that could amend your statute. In Lexis, the green diamond with a plus sign in it indicates that there is positive treatment of your statute, for example being upheld as constitutional or followed by a case. Blue symbols indicate neutral analysis.

On Westlaw, use KeyCite to validate your statute and to identify any pending legislation that may impact your statute. A red flag in Westlaw indicates that a section has been amended or repealed by a session law or that it has been declared unconstitutional or preempted. A yellow flag in Westlaw indicates that the statute has been renumbered or transferred by a recent session law; that an uncodified session law or proposed legislation affecting the statute is available; that the statute was limited on constitutional or preemption grounds; that its validity was otherwise called into doubt; or that a prior version of the statute received negative treatment from a court. KeyCite does not have positive symbols.

This week, on Wednesday, the new Library Services Platform goes live! The Library LSP upgrade website includes more information on the project, including a FAQ and a preview of the new OneSearch, the user discovery interface.

About Pride Month

Pride Month is commemorated each year in the month of June to honor the 1969 Stonewall uprising in New York City. The Stonewall Inn was a popular gay bar that police raided on Jun 28, 1969. The raid resulted in days of protest and the uprising is often cited as a catalyst for LGBTQ+ activism. Former President Clinton issued the first presidential proclamation designating June “Gay and Lesbian Pride Month” in 1999 and issued the second proclamation in 2000. Former President Obama expanded the scope to include bisexual and transgender people in his proclamations. In his first term, President Trump issued a Statement on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month. President Biden issued annual proclamations during his term. 

UCBA Library Pride Month Display

This display of select books celebrates the LGBTQIA+ community. Topics include: memoirs, parenting, poetry, and even popular culture icons. There is something for everyone! 

UC Clermont, Frederick A. Marcotte Library Digital Display Pride Month

This display of selected books celebrates Pride 2025.

Cincinnati Pride Parade and Festival

Cincinnati's Pride Parade will take place Saturday, June 28, 2025 at Sawyer Point & Yeatman's Cove.

5 More Resources to Promote Learning & Reaching Your Own Conclusions About LGBTQ+ Legal Issues and History

• Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender (GLBT) Historical Society Online Resources
  • Founded in 1985, the GLBT Historical Society is recognized internationally as a leader in the field of LGBTQ public history. The GLBT Historical Society collects, preserves, exhibits and makes accessible to the public materials and knowledge to support and promote understanding of LGBTQ history, culture and arts in all their diversity. Search thousands of digitized phographs, audiovisual recordings, documents, and periodicals; view their onlin exhibits; browse sets of primary sources; and view their research guides.
• Independent Voices
  • Independent Voices is an open access digital collection of alternative press newspapers, magazines and journals, drawn from the special collections of participating libraries. These periodicals were produced by feminists, dissident GIs, campus radicals, Native Americans, anti-war activists, Black Power advocates, Hispanics, LGBT activists, the extreme right-wing press and alternative literary magazines during the latter half of the 20th century.
• Lesbian Herstory Archives
  • The Lesbian Herstory Archives is home to the world’s largest collection of materials by and about Lesbians and their communities.
• Ohio History Connection, The Gay Ohio History Initiative (GOHI)
  • The Gay Ohio History Initiative collects, preserves and shares the history and culture of LGBTQ+ Ohioans. GOHI began in 2005, when Outlook Media donated a full run of Outlook periodicals to the Ohio History Connection. Today, GOHI’s work takes many forms, including building unique archival and museum collections, offering educational programs, recording oral histories and developing relationships with LGBTQ+ individuals and organizations across the state.
• ONE Archives
  • ONE Archives at the USC Libraries is the largest repository of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer (LGBTQ) materials in the world. Founded in 1952, ONE Archives houses millions of archival items including periodicals, books, films, videos, audio recordings, photographs, artworks, organizational records, and personal papers. 

About National Caribbean-American Heritage Month

The Institute of Caribbean Studies’ (ICS) led the effort to establish the National Caribbean American Heritage Month (NCAHM) in 1999 which resulted in the first White House Caribbean American Community Briefing being held at the Clinton White House in 1999. In 2004 an official campaign for June as National Caribbean American Heritage Month was launched and a bill passed the House in June 2005, and the Senate in February 2006. President George Bush signed a proclamation on June 5, 2006 and there have been proclamations annually up until this year.

Resources to Learn More

• Jorge Duany, Blurred Borders: Transnational Migration Between the Hispanic Caribbean and the United States (2011)
  •  Langsam Stacks JV7321 .D83 2011
  • This book explores how migrants to the United States from Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico maintain multiple ties to their countries of origin. Chronicling these diasporas from the end of World War II to the present, Duany argues that each sending country's relationship to the United States shapes the transnational experience for each migrant group, from legal status and migratory patterns to work activities and the connections migrants retain with their home countries.
• The Caribbean: A History of the Region and Its Peoples (Stephan Palmié & Francisco A. Scarano eds.,  2011)
  • Langsam & Clermont Stacks F2175 .C325 2011
  • This groundbreaking work traces the Caribbean from its pre-Columbian state through European contact and colonialism to the rise of U.S. hegemony and the economic turbulence of the twenty-first century.
• Kirwin R. Shaffer, A Transnational History of the Modern Caribbean: Popular Resistance Across Borders
  • eBook
  • This book examines Caribbean people resisting racial, political, and social oppression from the eve of the 1790s Haitian Revolution to the twenty-first century. Migrating rebels, shipments of newspapers, rumors, and acts of resistance themselves inspired people throughout the Caribbean who launched their own acts of defiance, illustrating the transnational nature of Caribbean resistance. Some people fought to be left alone, ungovernable, and masterless. Other people fought to free their ethnicity or race, their class, or their nation. Men and women employed a range of tactics from violent armed uprisings to fleeing repression and starting their own communities. Through song, language, religion and festivals, they maintained cultures and identities against oppressive norms that devalued or sought to destroy those cultures and identities. People declared strikes and riots against economic oppression. Women and mothers mobilized for their and their childrens freedoms. Across the Caribbean, people confronted oppression and in so doing illustrated their humanity and agency.
• The South and the Caribbean (Douglass Sullivan-González & Charles Reagan Wilson eds., 2001)
  • Langsam Stacks F209 .S695 2001
  • The South and the Caribbean flow into each other culturally, economically, and socially. These papers and their commentaries suggest that future study of these regions must deal with them together in order to understand each. The merging of the two through music, dance, language, sports, and political aspiration—all discussed in this book—serves to give birth to a New South and a New Caribbean.
• U.S. - Caribbean Relations: Their Impact on Peoples and Cultures (Ransford W. Palmer ed., 1998)
  • Langsam Stacks F2169 .U6 1998
  • This book examines the interaction of the American and Caribbean populations and the influence that interaction has had on their perceptions of each other and of themselves. Although trade is an important component of U.S.-Caribbean relations, the book underscores that population movements and their attendant cultural influences are powerful factors in those relations.

You can view the live stream of oral arguments on the Court’s website or see them after the arguments take place in the Ohio Channel archives.

Tuesday, June 24, 2025

State v. Gowdy - whether a guilty plea must be vacated because the trial court told the defendant prior to trial that he would not give a jury an instruction on self-defense without having heard all of the evidence and the defendent argues this lead him to believe he had no choice but to plead guilty. Court News Ohio Oral Argument Preview

State v. J.B. - (1) whether the extent of the applicant's criminal history speaks to the issue of rehabilitation and can provide the sole basis for denying a request to seal or expunge a criminal record; and (2) whether a trial court can sua sponte consider a legitimate governmental interest in maintaining the record of a conviction. Court News Ohio Oral Argument Preview

Omni Energy Grp., L.L.C. v. Vendel - whether the restriction on the introduction of new evidence in Ohio Rev. Code sec. 119.12(L) for administrative appeals violates the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment and the Due Course of Law Clause of Art. 1, sec. 16 of the Ohio Constitution. Court News Ohio Oral Argument Preview

In re Application of Ohio Power Co. - (1) whether the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio wrongly denied a power generation company’s request to have an in-house expert review documents related to AEP Ohio’s request for an electricity security plan; and (2) whether the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio illegally imposed a rider on all customer bills to cover basic transmission costs. Court News Ohio Oral Argument Preview

Wednesday, June 25, 2025

State v. Ballish - whether the test from the Supreme Court of Ohio decision in State v. Jones, 49 Ohio St. 3d 51 (1990) applies to community control conditions that aren’t specifically authorized by statute.  Court News Ohio Oral Argument Preview

State v. Fraley - whether a Petition for Post Conviction Relief following the “Delayed Re-Opening of an Appeal” within ninety (90) days of the Appeal being dismissed for Counsel’s failure to timely file a transcript of proceedings is timely when filed no later than three hundred and sixty-five days after the date in which the trial transcript is filed in the Court of Appeals. Court News Ohio Oral Argument Preview

Steigerwald v. City of Berea - whether a decision to use otherwise non-defective equipment can constitute a “physical defect” within or on the grounds of buildings used in connection with governmental functions under Ohio Rev. Code sec. 2744.02(B)(4) and thus establish an exception to political subdivision immunity. Court News Ohio Oral Argument Preview

In re the Application of Moraine Wind L.L.C. - (1) whether the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO)’s findings that the electricity resources from the applicants were “deliverable into this state” against the manifest weight of the evidence and contrary to law; and (2) whether the statute and rules governing the proceeding were followed.  Court News Ohio Oral Argument Preview

Posted June 23, 2025 by Susan Boland

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