Research Assistant: Home

On Demand Reference Assistance
Members of the LLS community may request reference assistance via phone, email, in-person, or Zoom.
Please check our current hours here.

Contact Information
 reference@lls.edu
213.736.1177

Members of the public should contact the LA Law Library for legal resources and services.

As a faculty research assistant (RA), you will work extensively with the Rains (LLS) and Hannon (LMU) Libraries as you research faculty requests. This guide covers library and research fundamentals that are relevant to RAs.

• This guide does not contain significant substantive research advice on individual topics. For substantive research advice (e.g., legislative history), look to our extensive libguide collection located on the main library page, or by clicking here. You can also find helpful libguides published by other institutions by searching for "[topic] law libguide" at Google or other public search engines. A selection of popular guides are below.
• Reference librarians are also available to assist you with research challenges, contact details available to the left.

Where can I scan documents?

•  Scanning is available in the Computer Lab.

How do I pay for printing related to research projects?

• RAs do not automatically receive funds for printing materials for faculty!  Rather, you should speak to your faculty member and ask that they contact faculty support to request an allocation. 

Am I able to use my student Westlaw/Lexis/Bloomberg accounts for RA work?

• You may use your existing accounts, and you are automatically granted access for the entire summer.

Whose account should books be checked out under?

• Ebooks may be accessed from your account; see "Borrowing" above for information on checking out print materials to your professor's account.

How can I access the New York Times or Washington Post?

• See the LLS database page for access to these sites. (You can also access NYT Games as a student!)
• Many other newspapers and periodicals can be accessed on-campus through LMU's ProQuest Central. 

As part of the library's transition to a new system, our other research guides are currently unavailable to allow the librarians time to update them. Please check back here periodically to review available guides. In the meantime, if you are searching for a guide on a particular topic, run a Google search for a research guide or libguide on your topic (e.g. martime law libguide, intellectual property law research guide).