The updated 11th edition of MSBA’s Maryland Divorce and Separation Law (2023) is now on our shelf (catalog record). You can also access the updated text on Lexis in the Law Library. As of today, Westlaw has not yet updated its content from the 10th to 11th editions.
Among the book’s updates is a new section on parenting plans in response to the laws passed in 2020 requiring these plans in custody and/or visitation cases.
In December and January, the Ask A Lawyer in the Library program provided legal advice to seventeen people. Thanks to volunteer attorneys, Steve Migdal, Jack Paltell, Saul McCormick, and Michele Manculich for providing this service to the public. In January we were happy to welcome new volunteer attorney, Patrice Clarke. Issues included student loan debt, landlord/tenant, expungement, estate planning and immigration.
The Ask a Lawyer in the Library program is a civil, non-family law, self-help program held every Wednesday, from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m., and on the 3rd Wednesday from 4:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. The program is sponsored by Maryland Volunteer Lawyers Service and hosted by the Anne Arundel County Public Library. You can talk with a volunteer attorney for at least 20 minutes. Registration is required. All sessions are held remotely via Zoom videoconferencing or phone. More information can be found here.
Do you have a family law matter? Family Law matters are best addressed by the Family Court Help Center.
Do you have a criminal case? The Office of the Public Defender provides legal services to eligible individuals. Information about representation in criminal cases can be found here.
“Vintage snowflakes” by thethreesisters is licensed under CC BY 2.0 
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The Anne Arundel County Public Law Library and the Circuit Court for Anne Arundel County will be closed on the court holidays of Friday, December 23rd, Monday, December 26th, and Monday, January 2nd.
New and updated titles from the National Consumer Law Center (NCLC), the Maryland State Bar Association (MSBA) and the National Business Institute (NBI) are now on our shelves covering used car fraud, custody and child support, real property, civil practice, and criminal procedure. See below:
See all NCLC titles in our catalog.
See all NBI titles in our catalog.
In an August 31, 2022 Press Release, the American Association of Law Libraries announced that the AALL Advancing Access to Justice Special Committee has developed a new resource, the Online Legal Information Resources (OLIR, “for information professionals—law librarians, legal information professionals, and public librarians—and members of the public to easily locate online primary legal materials.”
“The new Online Legal Information Resources (OLIR) includes information for U.S. states, the District of Columbia, U.S. territories, the U.S. Federal Government, and Canada. The OLIR includes links to session laws, statutory codes, registers, administrative codes, and court opinions. To help users easily identify reliable online sources, the OLIR contains information about whether the legal materials are official, authentic, preserved, and copyrighted. The OLIR also includes contact information for state and local public law libraries, covering whether services to incarcerated people are provided.”
Jessica Corace, Saul McCormick, Steve Migdal, Jack Paltell and Carole Brown provided pro bono assistance to 20 people this month. Legal questions involved such issues as HOA disputes, expungement, name change, debt collection, car accidents and estate planning. The law library will send registrants information on their topic to review before there session with the attorney. The attorney will receive a copy of the information sent. Oftentimes, links to the law library’s online FAQs can be sent. These FAQs have links to the Maryland Code and Rules, People’s Law Library articles and Maryland Access to Justice department videos. FAQs sent this summer included FAQs for name change, wills and estates and expungement.
“Ask a Lawyer in the Library” is held every Wednesday of the month from 11:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. and on the third Wednesday from 4:30 p.m. – 6:30 p.m. You can talk with a volunteer lawyer for at least 20 minutes about your civil, non-family legal problem for free. All sessions are now conducted over Zoom or by phone.
This program is sponsored by Anne Arundel County Local Pro Bono Committee, Maryland Volunteer Lawyers Service, and the Anne Arundel Bar Association. It is hosted by the Anne Arundel County Public Library.
Register online here or call the law library for help. Once you have registered, you will be sent a link to an intake sheet. Instructions for meeting with the attorney will be sent once the intake is competed.
Contact the library if you have questions: (phone) 410-222-1387 or (email) AALawLibrarian@mdcourts.gov
We now have a resource page on adoption listed on our FAQs page, where you can find relevant laws, online articles, and library materials on adoption law in Maryland.
The Conference of Maryland Court Law Library directors has issued its Annual Report for FY2021. The report describes how the Conference provides access to legal information, offers expert
assistance with using legal materials, operates educational programs and advocates and innovates new solutions for connecting the public to legal information and self-help resources.
While it’s in no way new to the library, our FAQs webpage can now be found in our catalog. For those who have never seen it, the FAQs page provides links to our comprehensive resource pages on the most frequently asked-about topics (See the page on bankruptcy, for an example). Each individual resource page also has a new record in our catalog for those who want to search under specific topics.
These pages provide links to statutes, videos, free articles for the layperson, forms, and bibliographies of relevant print resources in the library. If you need help figuring out which resources to start with on the list, we at the law library can point you to those that would be most helpful and relevant to your situation.
Maryland Court Law Libraries serve a wide variety of customers from judges and attorneys to students and those dealing with a legal issue without an attorney. How law libraries across the country serve these self-represented litigants (SRLs) was the subject of a recent survey by the AALL GLL (Government Law Libraries SIS of the American Association of Law Libraries) and the SRLN Law Librarian’s Working Group through a research grant from LexisNexis.
For an introduction check out this video:
You can dig into the details of the survey with the Story Map. Law libraries serve the SRL through the collections, technology, reference, referrals and partnerships.
If you find the AACPLL on the map you will see that we fit within all the criteria for an intermediate law library:
The Anne Arundel County Public Law Library would be excited to move to the advanced level, a library with a staff attorney to provide brief legal advice, but for now will continue to provide the best service that we can to all in need.
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AACPLL Blog: Law Library News 