What’s New in Bloomberg Law?

Bloomberg Law provides many valuable sources, such as:  case dockets and some documents described in the dockets, a database of “breaking complaints” filed in selected courts, Dealmaker Documents & Clauses (under the “Transactional” tab), current company information/ability to create reports about many companies, breaking news about financial markets, and Bloomberg BNA materials.

If Bloomberg Law is new to you:

• Do not run Google-style searches to find legal documents.  If one enters: arbitration severability when searching for court opinions, Bloomberg Law will search for arbitration severability as consecutive words.  If one enters: arbitration severability and enables the “word variations,” Bloomberg Law will retrieve results like:  “…. court appointed arbitrator.  Several…”
• SEARCH TIP #1: Instead, use connectors like AND, OR, P/, S/, N/x
• Bloomberg Law will rank case results in reverse chronological order. 
• SEARCH TIP #2:  If a researcher knows that a high level court has addressed an issue, the researcher should begin searching in the narrow database of high level court decisions.  Example: If the U.S. Supreme Court has addressed an issue, the researcher should begin searching in Bloomberg Law database: Court Opinions > All U.S. Supreme Court Opinions, rather than in database: Court Opinions > All Federal Court Opinions.  This will prevent recent U.S. district court cases from appearing at/near the top of the results list.
• SEARCH TIP #3: Under top-level tab “Search and Browse,” there are links to search templates for: court opinions, legislative sources, regulatory sources, DealMaker documents/clauses,dockets,Domain Name dispute decisions, EDGAR filings with the SEC, news, patents, and people.
• SEARCH TIP #4: Top-level tab: “Practice Centers” links to Practice Center pages for: Antitrust, Banking & Finance, Bankruptcy, Corporate/M&A, Employee Benefits, Health, Intellectual Property, Labor & Employment and Securities.  When possible, use the search boxes in these Practice Center pages.
• Account Manager Pamela Haahr (oribe@bloomberg.net) can arrange for current BLS students, faculty and administrators to obtain Bloomberg Law passwords and training.

New Bloomberg BNA legal news sources include:

• Social Media Law & Policy Report (weekly review, updated continually)
• International Financial Regulation Review (monthly review, updated continually)
• TIP: One can receive email notifications (headlines or editors’ highlights) for Bloomberg BNA legal news sources.

New books and treatises in Bloomberg Law include:

• Getting the Deal Through volumes (international and comparative guides to laws and regulations in 40+ practice areas).  Among the updated volumes are: Arbitration 2012, Banking Regulation 2012, Climate Change 2012, Corporate Governance 2012, Environment 2012, Patents 2012 and Trademarks 2012.
• Many current PLI publications such as: Copyright Law: A Practitioner’s Guide (Jan. 2012), Deskbook on Internal Investigations, Corporate Compliance & White Collar Issues (May 2012), Expert Witness Answer Book (Feb. 2012), Immigration Fundamentals: A Guide to Law & Practice (May 2012), Likelihood of Confusion in Trademark Law (May 2012), New York Elder Law Handbook (Apr. 2012), Soderquist on the Securities Laws (Mar. 2012), Substantial Similarity in Copyright Law (May 2012), Trade Secrets: A Practitioner’s Guide (June 2012) and Transfer Pricing Answer Book (Mar. 2012).  There are also many PLI materials with 2011 publication dates in Bloomberg Law, such as Directors’ & Officers’ Liability (Oct. 2011), Financial Institutions Answer Book 2012: Law, Governance, Compliance (Nov. 2011), and Soderquist on Corporate Law and Practice (Aug. 2011).
• Some recent ABA publications, such as Corporate Counsel Guides: Understanding Asia (2011),  Corporate Director’s Guidebook (6th ed. 2011), and Fundamentals of Corporate Governance: A Guide for Directors and Corporate Counsel (2nd ed. 2011).  Note: At present, a law library could not rely on the ABA materials in Bloomberg Law as a substitute for sources in an ABA Package Plan.

I will be recommending Bloomberg Law as a source for note topic development in the coming weeks!