Our Collection
As a public law school library, our primary mission is to serve faculty, staff, students, and clinics of the University of the District of Columbia David A. Clarke School of Law. Our secondary mission is to serve the public, particularly residents of the District of Columbia.
The Law Library holds approximately 257,000 volumes and volume equivalents. The collection can be searched using the Law Library’s catalog, at http://catalog.law.udc.edu/search.
Resources include:
The laws of the District of Columbia, the United States, twenty-seven states, and one territory form the basis of the collection. Primary law sources include:
- Constitutions
- Federal statutes and regulations
- D.C., Maryland, and Virginia statutes and municipal regulations
- Federal and state regional case reporters
- D. C., Maryland and Virginia case reporters
- Administrative law reporters
- Court rules for U.S., D.C., and twenty-seven state courts
All these primary sources are located in the Law Library’s Reading Room.
Resources that describe, explain, analyze, criticize or organize the law are called secondary legal sources. Secondary sources include:
- Legal encyclopedias American Jurisprudence and Corpus Juris Secundum
- American Law Reports
- Treatises, hornbooks and practice guides
- Legal periodicals and periodicals indexes
- Restatements of Law
- Digests (of caselaw) including the General and Decennial Digests, and the Federal Practice Digests 2d and 3d
- Looseleaf services
- Reference resources
The Law Library has an extensive microfiche collection and two microfiche readers located in the Reading Room. The collection includes:
- Code of Federal Regulations (Only the current year is available in print.)
- Congressional Record
- Federal Register
- CIS Legislative History materials (federal)
- United States Serial Set
- United States Reports
- United States Supreme Court Records and Briefs
- State reports
- Bar journals
- 19th and 20th Century Treatises
Library resources are located in the Reading and Reference Rooms, and on Reserve at the Circulation Desk. Stacks are numbered and stack lists are attached to end panels throughout the library. Download a map of the Law Library in PDF format.
Circulating books may be checked out for two weeks at a time, with renewals by telephone, email or in person. Fines for overdue books are $1.00 per day.
Reserve materials may be checked out at the Circulation Desk for two hours at a time, or overnight from 10 pm to 9 am the next morning.