First Year Seminar- Basic Legal Research: Legal Advice

Can a librarian advise me?

• About research (finding sources)? Yes
• About legal matters? No. None of the librarians or library staff at Marshall University are attorneys, so we can help you find sources, but we can not legally:
  • furnish to another advice under circumstances which imply the possession of [or] use of legal knowledge and skill;
  • undertake to advise another in any matter involving the application of legal principles to facts, purposes or desires;
  • undertake to prepare for another legal instruments of any character; or
  • undertake to represent the interest of another before any judicial tribunal or officer, any executive or administrative tribunal, agency or officer otherwise than in the presentation of facts, figures or factual conclusions as distinguished from legal conclusions in respect to such facts and figures.

          Brammer v. Taylor, 338 S.E.2d 207 (W.Va. 1985), footnote 7