Law

This Week in the Law Library ... May 27, 2025

This week we’re looking at bar exam resources, reviewing basic legal research skills for summer, and continuing our celebration of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month.

Bar Exam Study Resources

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 Bar Exam Resources to Help You Study

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

  • Clearing the Last Hurdle: Mapping Success on the Bar Exam
    • Law Reserves KF 303 .T46 2024
    • Clearing the Last Hurdle focuses on guiding a law student in understanding the tasks involved in bar preparation; giving the student specific suggestions on how to study; and providing sufficient practice questions to improve the student’s skills in answering MBE, essay, and performance test questions. In addition, it emphasizes using mind maps, which allow a student to make the necessary associations between concepts for better memory retention and recall, to order thinking about each topic. The book includes practice questions in all three formats—multiple choice, essay, and performance tests—with score sheets to more specifically guide students in how to review their practice answers.
  • Office Hours: Bar Exam Success
    • Available via the West Academic study aid subscription, this audio book covers foundational prep for the bar exam.They say bar prep takes 400 to 600 hours of study. It's not just putting in the time. It's putting in quality time. This Office Hours covers common questions on studying for the bar exam and includes tracks on 400-600 Hours; Briefing Cases; Family and Friends; Fear of Failure; Fear of Success; Focusing on the Long View; IRAC; GPA; Other Parts; Bar Exam Problems and Bias.
  • Acing the Bar Exam
    • Available via the West Academic study aid subscription, Acing the Bar Exam provides candidates with a complete guide to the bar exam — from pre-planning considerations through bar review and sitting for the exam. It features comprehensive coverage of the Uniform Bar Exam, including an explanation of each component and how to prepare for it. Every aspect of the process is explained in detail and by example. The bar exam is de-constructed, section by section, where candidates are led through the steps they need to follow to succeed. Approaches for learning the black letter law, setting study schedules, and answering essay and multiple-choice questions are combined to maximize the likelihood of success. Each of these tasks is then configured into checklist format to help candidates navigate each step.
  • If I Don’t Pass the Bar I’ll Die: 73 Ways to Keep Stress and Worry from Affecting your Performance on the Bar Exam
    • Law Stacks KF 303 .L3 2008
    • This book addresses the psychological aspects of taking the Bar Exam. The book provides practical suggestions for dealing with stress and worry and their relatives: distractive thoughts; procrastination; and poor habits in planning, managing time studying and test taking.
  • The Zen of Passing the Bar Exam
    • Available via the LexisNexis Digital Library study aid subscription, The Zen of Passing the Bar Exam offers a comprehensive approach to studying for (and passing) the bar exam. Couched in neuroscience and Zen principles of focus, discipline, awareness, balance, and simplicity, the book provides guidance for the best daily practices for uplifting your mind, body, and spirit during the rigors of studying. A central theme is harnessing a Zen mindset to stay motivated and mentally sharp. In addition to lifestyle and mindset, the book also offers specific, practical advice for maximizing scores on the essay, MBE, and MPT portions of the bar exam. The book outlines specific organizational/formatting tips for how to write effective (and efficient) essays under bar exam time constraints.

Summer Legal Research Tips

Last week we covered basic basic tips to think about before starting a research project. Here we address them in more detail.

Ask Questions & Know Your Resources

Ask general questions such as:

  • What resources are available and what are you allowed to access?
  • Does your employer have a library and a law librarian?
  • What internal resources such as document templates, document management systems, and brief banks are available?
  • What citation style is used?

Ask specific questions for assignments such as:

  • When is it due?
  • Are there any cost or resource restrictions?
  • Who else know about or is working on the project?
  • Is there a client ID or billing code that should be used?
  • What type of information would be most useful?
  • How much information is wanted or needed?
  • How is the information going to be used?
  • How much time should you spend on it?
  • What format should the final product be in?

If you have access to a law librarian at your place of employment, ask for help when you get stuck! You can also ask local law librarians, most Ohio counties have a law library, and we can help you out too! Often the vendors for products are helpful resources. For example, Lexis and Westlaw have reference attorneys on staff who can help with searching. Have the vendor help numbers ready to access!

Follow a Research Strategy

Having a research strategy is the best way to make sure your research is complete and accurate, and it will also make your research more efficient. There is no single correct plan. Your research strategy will change depending on your knowledge and expertise, the complexity of the issue, the resources to which you have access, your budget, your time, and what you discover as you research. If you know the area well, you will not have to look for authorities in as many places and you can zero in on the sources you know are likely to lead you directly to the answer. A good research strategy for a law student researching an unfamiliar legal issue is to plan on consulting secondary sources before moving on to primary sources. A secondary source is about the law and primary source is the actual law itself. Secondary sources can help you learn the basics of a particular area of law, provide you with the vocabulary used in that area of law and what that terminology means, and identify primary sources of law.

Once you have a plan, you will identify the issues and the best resources in which to research those issues. After you have identified the best resources to use, you will need to locate those resources and then evaluate them in the context of your research needs. You will sort and sift through those resources, choosing the material that you will use to solve your problem. As you go through these steps, you will document and update your research and then start the cycle again.

Read more about developing a research plan on our Research Strategy & Documentation guide.

May is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month

Establishment of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month

After decades of celebrating Asian/Pacific American Heritage Week, Congress finally passed Public Law 102-450 which annually designated May as Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month. The month of May was chosen to commemorate the immigration of the first Japanese to the United States on May 7, 1843, and to mark the anniversary of the completion of the transcontinental railroad on May 10, 1869.

President Trump's Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, 2025 Proclamation

Learn more about the establishment of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month by visiting the Law Library of Congress guide to the laws and presidential proclamations related to establishing and designating Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month (May).

Library Displays at UCBA, Asian-Pacific Heritage Month

UC Clermont Frederick A. Marcotte Library, Digital Display AAPI Heritage Month

5 More Resources to Learn about Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders

  • American Archive of Public Broadcasint, Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Collection
    • The AAPI Collection features more than 700 public radio and television programs from 1965 to 2021 that highlight Asian American and Pacific Islander cultures in the United States. The programs cover a wide range of subjects, including immigration, Japanese internment, hate crimes against members of the Asian American community, and affirmative action. The collection additionally spotlights conversations around the representation of Asian Americans in the media and the kinds of discrimination they have faced as a result.
  • University of California, Calisphere, California Cultures: Asian Americans
    • California Cultures documents California's rich history of diversity and multicultural contributions. The California Cultures project was specially charged with correcting the historic lack of digitized primary source materials for four major ethnic groups: African Americans, Asian Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Native Americans. The 2000 US Census reported that 49% of all Asian Americans lived in the West. California became home to thriving immigrant communities from China, Japan, the Philippines, Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Hong Kong, Thailand, and other parts of Asia. Five exhibitions are available: Everyday Life and Cultural Traditions, 1860s-1980s; Gold Rush Era to 1890s; Early 20th Century; World War II; and New Communities, 1960s-Present.
  • Library of Congress, Behind Barbed Wire: Japanese-American Internment Camp Newspapers
    • Behind the barbed wire of assembly centers and relocation centers around the country during World War II, interned Japanese-Americans produced newspapers to chronicle the stories and experiences of their community in a time of crisis. The Library of Congress has made available online a rare collection of the newspapers produced by Japanese-Americans interned at assembly centers and relocation centers around the country during World War II. The collection includes more than 4,600 English and Japanese language issues published in 13 camps.
  • Library of Congress, Chinese Exclusion Act: Primary Documents in American History
    • The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was signed into law on May 6, 1882. Officially titled “An act to execute certain treaty stipulations relating to Chinese,” the Chinese Exclusion Act prohibited the immigration of Chinese laborers for ten years. It was extended in 1892 for another ten years by the Geary Act and then made permanent in 1902. In 1943, at a time when the United States and China were allies during World War II, the ban on Chinese immigration and naturalization was finally repealed.This guide compiles Library of Congress digital materials, external websites, and a print bibliography.
  • Library of Congress, Filipino-American Materials: A Resource Guide
    • Filipino-Americans comprise the second largest Asian ancestry group in the United States. This guide provides information on how to locate all physical and electronic material on Filipino-Americans available for use at the Library of Congress and online.

Learn More

For more resources on Asian American and Pacific Islander heritage, see our past blog posts!

Posted May 27, 2025 by Susan Boland

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