Public Law Library Classes
The Public Law Library offers a variety of classes designed to help you improve your legal research skills, understand a particular research tool, or learn more about a court process. Unless otherwise indicated, all classes are free. Registration is handled on a first-come first-served basis. Some classes may have attendance size limits. To see a list of upcoming sessions, select the Dates option from the Classes menu option above.
Civil Procedure in 90 Minutes Class
Learn the basics of civil procedure in Washington state, including terminology, the court system, and the steps of the civil litigation process.
Commencing an Action Class
Can you sue? Should you sue? How do you file a lawsuit? Learn the basics for filing a lawsuit in Superior Court, including alternatives to filing a lawsuit, along with how to format your pleadings and resources to help you fill out your complaint.
eFiling Combined Class
This 1.5 hour class (incorporating two previous one-hour classes) provides training on how to use the King County Superior Court’s Filing system. The Basics section covers how to navigate around the eFiling site, how to set up an account, how to begin a new case, how to add files to an existing case, technical issues concerning document preparation, and other troubleshooting topics. The Advanced Features section covers the eFiling Status tab, eWorking Copies, eService and eEx-Parte via the Clerk.
Legal Research for the Non-Attorney Part 1 Class
The first of this two-part class focuses on basic legal research techniques for the non-attorney and highlights books and online resources for legal research on the local and state level.
Legal Research for the Non-Attorney Part 2 Class
The second part of this two part series on legal research builds on the information from the first class and delves into federal law and how to update case citations and the discussion of various different legal research databases available online.
Searching on Lexis Class
Learn about basic and advanced searching strategies for Lexis. Participants are welcome to bring a sample query to search.
Searching on Westlaw Class
Learn how to search on Westlaw using Boolean operators as well as advanced search strategies. Participants are welcome to bring a sample query to search.
Searching Washington Court Case Information Class
Learn how to use the new searching features on the Washington Courts web page, the King County Superior Court's ECR service (paid access to scanned-in court documents) and King County District Court's DCoR case retrieval system.
Skiptracing: Finding Business and Personal Information Class
Learn how to perform skip tracing searches for personal and business information. Skip tracing is the procedure of tracking down a debtor, witness, company, defendant, etc. by following his/her paper trail from a known address to his/her new location. This can also include searching for other information such as financial, news, associates, relatives, etc. Many of the resources that we will be looking at today are free web sites. However, to do a complete job of tracing someone or a company he/she owns, you may have to resort to a paid service - or at least use some paid databases.