This Week in the Law Library ... November 10, 2025
This week in the law library we're thanking our veterans, teaching online searching, AI and the Law, and Advanced Legal Research Civil Litigation, as well as highlighting professional responsibility resources, and previewing US Supreme Court oral arguments.
Veterans Day
Tuesday is Veterans Day. Veterans Day originated as “Armistice Day” on Nov. 11, 1919, the first anniversary marking the end of World War I. Congress passed a resolution in 1926 for an annual observance, and November 11th became a national holiday beginning in 1938. There were an estimated 15.8 million veterans in 2023. There were almost 700,000 veterans in Ohio. Thank you to all who have served!
The College of Law will hold classes and the Law Library will be open on Veteran’s Day.
This Week's Research Sessions
Tuesday, November 11, 2025
AI & the Law
- 10:40am - 12:05pm
- Profs. Laura Dixon-Caldwell, Shannon Kemen, Ashley Russell, and Michael Whiteman
Technology Tuesdays
- Accessibility in Canvas
- 12:15pm - 1:15pm
- Zoom
- Shannon Kemen, Legal Technology & Research Instructional Services Librarian
Wednesday, November 12, 2025
Advanced Legal Research Civil Litigation
- 3:05pm - 4:05pm
- Laura Dixon-Caldwell, Instructional & Reference Services Librarian
Thursday, November 13, 2025
AI & the Law
- 10:40am - 12:05pm
- Profs. Laura Dixon-Caldwell, Shannon Kemen, Ashley Russell, and Michael Whiteman
LLM Research & Writing
- 1:30pm - 2:55pm
- Online Searching
- Shannon Kemen, Legal Technology & Research Instructional Services Librarian
Good Luck on the MPRE!
For all of those taking the MPRE this week, good luck!
Spotlight on Legal Ethics Research
Featured Study Aids
- CALI Professional Responsibility Lessons
- Available via CALI, this Subject Area Index lists all CALI lessons covering Professional Responsibility. If using CALI, you will need to create an account (if you have not already done so) using a Cincinnati Law authorization code. You can obtain this code from a reference librarian.
- Acing Professional Responsibility
- Available via West Academic study aid subscription, this study aid provides a dual benefit to law students who, to become licensed lawyers, have to pass both a law school exam in a Legal Ethics course as well as the Multistate Professional Responsibility Examination (MPRE). To prepare for the law school examination, there are pages of text, numerous outlines, bullet points, sample essay questions and answers, and mini-checklists to learn the basics and fine points of Professional Responsibility. In addition, this book discusses all recent ABA Formal Ethics Opinions. The Acing book also enables students to quickly recall and pass the MPRE.
- Examples & Explanations: Professional Responsibility
- Available via the Aspen Learning Library subscription, this text covers the whole field of professional responsibility, focusing not only on the ABA Model Rules, but on the often-complex relationship between the rules and doctrines of agency, tort, contract, evidence, and constitutional law. Beginning with the formation of the attorney-client relationship, the book proceeds through topics including attorneys' fees, malpractice and ineffective assistance of counsel, confidentiality and privilege rules, conflicts of interest, witness perjury and litigation misconduct, advertising and solicitation, admission to practice, and the organization of the legal profession. Coverage includes all subjects that are tested on the Multistate Professional Responsibility Exam (MPRE), including: A chapter on judicial ethics, a subject tested on the MPRE and not often covered thoroughly, if at all, in law school professional responsibility courses. Updated discussion and examples based on recent developments in the law, including the ABA's simplification of the rules on advertising and solicitation, new Model Rule 8.4(g) on discrimination in the practice of law, the California Supreme Court's Sheppard Mullin opinion on advance waivers of conflicts, and continuing developments in the impact of technology on the practice of law. A series of problems at the end of each section or chapter assist you in testing your understanding. Answers are provided for these problems
- Understanding Lawyers' Ethics
- Available via the LexisNexis Digital Library study aid subscription, this study aid analyzes the fundamental issues of lawyers' ethics and the ABA's Model Rules. It is designed to facilitate a real understanding of legal rules as distinguished from a superficial familiarity with them by challenging the reader to test their understanding of the legal rules against the reader's own moral standards and reasoned judgment. The sixth edition has substantial new material on cross-examination in sexual assault cases; prosecution in the context of race and policing; the rise of the "progressive prosecutor movement"; the renewed call for the U.S. Supreme Court to abide by the Code of Judicial Ethics; and the ethics of lawyers engaged in former president Donald Trump's scheme to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
Featured Database
- ABA/Bloomberg Law Lawyers’ Manual on Professional Responsibility
- Available on Bloomberg Law, the ABA/Bloomberg Law Lawyers’ Manual on Professional Responsibility provides authoritative guidance on professional responsibility law and malpractice to all practitioners. The publication offers over 130 chapters of in-depth analysis; full text of ABA ethics opinions, Model Rules, and Standards; summaries of ethics opinions issued by more than 60 state and local jurisdictions; and a current developments component providing the latest news and analysis of issues in the field of legal ethics.
Featured Guide
- Researching Legal Ethics & Professional Responsibility Guide
- Researching legal ethics and professional responsibility involves looking at rules (model and state specific), cases (that can cover criminal law, malpractice, disciplinary appeal, and more), and ethics opinions. Legal ethics involve both mandatory rules and aspirational goals. This guide assists those researching in all of these areas.
Featured Treatise
- Geoffrey C. Hazard et al., The Law of Lawyering
- The Law of Lawyering shows how to approach concrete problems that arise in everyday practice while staying within the letter and spirit of the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct. It provides the full text of each Model Rule provision in sequence, followed by the authors' guidance and commentary, which put the rule into context, help identify its key features, and show its relation to other Rules and the ALI's Restatement of the Law Governing Lawyers. Clear, realistic examples demonstrate how each Rule applies in practice. Available in Law Stacks KF306 .H33
Featured Videos
- Researching Legal Ethics & Professional Responsibility Video Part I: Fact Pattern Analysis
- This video demonstrates how to analyze a fact pattern. This video is 6:59 minutes long and features closed captioning.
- Researching Legal Ethics & Professional Responsibility Part II Video: Secondary Sources
- This video looks at secondary sources for researching legal ethics and professional responsibility. The video is 9:38 minutes long and features closed captioning.
- Researching Legal Ethics & Professional Responsibility Video Part III: Rules and Opinions
- This video illustrates how to find ethics rules and opinions in a variety of sources. It is 4:56 minutes long and is closed captioned and features a table of contents.
Featured Website
- ABA Center for Professional Responsibility Model Rules of Professional Conduct
- The ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct were adopted by the ABA House of Delegates in 1983. They serve as models for the ethics rules of most jurisdictions. Before the adoption of the Model Rules, the ABA model was the 1969 Model Code of Professional Responsibility. Preceding the Model Code were the 1908 Canons of Professional Ethics (last amended in 1963).
November Arguments at the United States Supreme Court
US Supreme Court by Jarek Tuszyński CC-BY-SA-3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
From SCOTUS Blog:
Monday, November 10, 2025
- The GEO Grp. v. Menocal - whether an order denying a government contractor’s claim of derivative sovereign immunity is immediately appealable under the collateral-order doctrine.
- Landry v. La. Dep't of Pub. Safety & Corr. - whether an individual may sue a government official in his individual capacity for damages for violations of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000.
Wednesday, November 12, 2025
- Rutherford v. United States - whether a district court may consider disparities created by the First Step Act’s prospective changes in sentencing law when deciding if “extraordinary and compelling reasons” warrant a sentence reduction under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A)(i).
- Fernandez v. United States - whether a combination of “extraordinary and compelling reasons” that may warrant a discretionary sentence reduction under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A) can include reasons that may also be alleged as grounds for vacatur of a sentence under 28 U.S.C. § 2255.
Posted Nov. 10, 2025 by Susan Boland