June 1, 2011 – A valued client walks into your office and asks you to help out with a problem you’re not familiar with. Her dog has bitten a small child, and she’s worried about liability – and about the fate of her dog. This isn’t your area of law, but you don’t want to turn her away. Where do you start? If the fourth edition of the State Bar PINNACLE™ Wisconsin Attorney’s Desk Reference is on your shelf, you start in chapter 35, Animal Law. After consulting the chapter’s detailed table of contents, you flip to section 35.32 and quickly assess your client’s case.
Situations like this crop up frequently, and that’s why you need the Wisconsin Attorney’s Desk Reference. The Desk Reference provides quick, basic answers to practical questions in 33 practice areas. Ideal for the beginning general practitioner, the Desk Reference should also appeal to experienced attorneys who may be addressing legal matters that fall beyond their area of expertise. Newly revised for 2011, this easy-to-use reference – available in both print and online as part of Books UnBoundTM – puts the information you need at your fingertips.
First published in 1986, and continually developed and expanded to meet practitioners’ demands, the Desk Reference covers a wide range of practice areas, including appellate procedure, probating an estate, divorce, bankruptcy, patent law, criminal procedure, and landlord/tenant law. Each subject is divided into sections that address topics pertinent to that particular area of practice. Designed with an eye towards today’s busy practitioner, most of the chapters include overviews of the basic law, suggest additional resources, define commonly used terms, and describe pertinent procedural matters. The convenient outline format, the inclusion of practical check lists, and the easy-to-locate case and statutory cites are other features that make the Desk Reference a great tool for the attorney who needs answers right away. Practicing attorneys have praised the Desk Reference for its usefulness as a first overview and a starting point for research, its ability to provide readers with quick “working knowledge” of unfamiliar practice areas, and its presentation of topics in a user-friendly format.
The fourth edition of the Desk Reference has been updated with recent case law, statutory citations, and websites to give you current information. The final chapter, How to Cite, has also been updated to reflect publication of the 19th edition of The Bluebook, so you can be confident that you’re providing accurate citations in your briefs and memoranda.
Wisconsin Attorney’s Desk Reference is available in print to members for $175 plus tax and shipping. Subscribers to the State Bar’s automatic supplementation service will receive future updates at 10 percent off the update price. Annual subscriptions to Books UnBound™ start at $129 per title and $649 for the full library (single-user prices; call for firm pricing).