Articles Posted in Law Libraries

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Introduction

This proposed legislation  is more consequential for libraries and government-information professionals than its title might initially suggest. It is not simply an internal GPO housekeeping bill; it would substantially rewrite the statutory framework governing the Federal Depository Library Program, digital preservation, permanent public access, cataloging, and the National Collection. In this post the strongest emphasis is on permanent public access, preservation of born digital government information, the modernization of the FDLP, and the implications for law librarians and researchers. Those features distinguish this bill from what might otherwise appear to readers to be a largely administrative modernization of GPO.

H.R. 9342, the GPO Modernization Act of 2026, was introduced on June 18, 2026, by Representative Stephanie Bice of Oklahoma. Its stated purpose is “[t]o revise certain authorities of the Government Publishing Office, and for other purposes.” The bill was referred to the House Committee on House Administration and the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
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Introduction

Two distinguished law professors recently offered incoming law students advice from different but unusually complementary perspectives. Vikram David Amar, writing broadly about the habits of mind and disciplined effort required to succeed in law school, is principally concerned with how students learn to think like lawyers. Michael C. Dorf, focusing more specifically on artificial intelligence, considers how that learning process can be preserved and adapted at a time when AI systems can produce seemingly authoritative answers almost instantly.

Considering their essays together reveals an important relationship that might be less apparent if each were read in isolation. The traditional methods through which law students develop legal reasoning, judgment, and intellectual independence are now encountering technologies capable of retrieving information, summarizing complex material, and generating plausible responses with remarkable speed. The question is therefore not simply whether students should use AI, but how they can take advantage of useful technological tools without allowing those tools to displace the intellectual work that legal education is intended to cultivate.

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On August 12, 2026, Austin Sarat, William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science at Amherst College, published a commentary in Verdict, Justia’s legal analysis and commentary publication. Sarat’s commentary is titled “Trump’s Arresting State,” where he examines what he regards as an increasingly consequential feature of the Trump administration: the use or threatened use of arrest, prosecution, fines, and other criminal penalties not simply against political opponents, but as a means of pressuring state and local officials to cooperate with federal policy objectives.

Sarat’s article is strongly critical of the administration. His central concern is that the threat of criminal enforcement may be moving beyond conventional law-enforcement situations and into disputes involving government authority and public policy, particularly immigration enforcement and the administration of elections. Because Sarat’s article is commentary rather than a neutral news report, it is useful to examine his arguments alongside the administration’s own statements, relevant government documents, and other primary sources. Doing so provides a fuller context within which readers can evaluate both Sarat’s concerns and the federal government’s stated legal and policy justifications.

From Political Rhetoric to Governmental Power

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From the  Congressional Budget Office (CBO)

S. 3733, a bill to amend the Passport Act of June 4, 1920, to authorize certain public libraries to collect and retain a fee for the execution of a passport application as ordered reported by the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations on June 17, 2026. This bill would authorize the Department of State to restore the ability of nongovernmental public libraries to accept passport applications. The bill also would require the department to report to the Congress within 30 days of enactment on whether it has done so.

COST ESTIMATE,

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FROM THE LAW LIBRARY AT THE WASHINGTON AND  LEE UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF LAW:

The 2025 W&L Law Journal Rankings are now available!

Released on July 15, 2026, the 2025 Rankings provide citation data and calculated ranks for the top 400 U.S.-published law journals and the top 100 law journals published outside the United States. Journals ranked below these thresholds display “NR” (Not Ranked) for each data category and are listed alphabetically. The survey span of the 2025 ranking is five years (2021-2025). For more information about the new and previous rankings, please see our Methodology page.

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David G. Badertscher

“Every generation of legal researchers inherits new tools. Their enduring responsibility is to learn how to use them wisely.”

Introduction

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