The Law Library is dedicated primarily to supporting the academic and research needs of University of California students, faculty, and staff, serving as a key resource for the study and research of law. Visitors not affiliated with Berkeley Law may use the library for legal research purposes during designated public access hours; however, priority is given to Berkeley Law students, faculty, and staff.
While unaffiliated visitors may access and use library materials on-site, they are not permitted to check items out. The Library is exclusively open to Berkeley Law students, faculty, and staff on weekends and during law school exam periods. Entry at these times requires a Cal1 Card.
The Library staff cannot provide legal advice or discuss legal theories of pending cases. However, the Library does maintain a list of sources for obtaining general legal advice and referrals to attorneys.
A quiet environment must be maintained at all times in the Reading Rooms. For further information, you may also wish to consult the Library’s Code of Conduct.
Public Computing
For public patrons and other visitors, there are public computing terminals located throughout the Library which can be used to browse the Law Library Catalog and access other library databases and online legal research materials. There is a 15-minute limit for these computers when others are waiting.
These public terminals do not offer any word processing capabilities, and you must have a CalNet ID in order to do any general, non-research web-browsing on these machines. None of the campus libraries offer word processing capabilities to public patrons, but the Berkeley Public Library offers some computers with word processing capabilities.
If your research requires you to save digital content (journal articles or other documents) that you have accessed at a public terminal, you may save the file(s) to a USB key that you have brought from home. There are no printers available to public patrons and visitors.
Berkeley-Visitor is a Wi-Fi service intended for visitors to campus. It provides basic Internet access to websites and allows users to use VPN services to connect to their home institutions or enterprises. It does not provide access to proprietary databases and resources. No password or special configuration is required to access the CalVisitor network. Simply connect to the network and begin browsing. We do not provide technical support for this network.
The campus wireless network, Eduroam, requires a valid CalNet ID and passphrase.
For information on scanning/copying, please see the Scan and Print Services page.