Yakima Valley Libraries provides legal reference services to patrons through premium databases, WestlawNext, legal forms and resources available online, and print material curated in our collection.
The Legal Information Reference Center is a premium database with access to U.S. legal forms for business, family, immigration, financial, patent, real estate, and wills.
Here you will find forms that are used statewide in Washington Courts. This is not a complete list of all forms. Your Court may have forms you must file in a case. Please check with your local court to confirm. Additionally, you may want to check the local court rules for forms and for more information.
The Washington State Bar Association is part of the judicial branch, exercising a governmental function authorized by the Washington State Supreme Court to license the state’s nearly 35,000 lawyers. The WSBA both regulates lawyers under the authority of the Court and serves its members as a professional association – all without public funding. As a regulatory agency, the WSBA administers the bar admission process, including the bar exam; provides record-keeping and licensing functions; and administers the lawyer discipline system. As a professional association, the WSBA provides continuing legal education for attorneys, in addition to numerous other educational and member-service activities.
The WestlawNext resource is available to patrons at our Yakima Central Library on one library owned computer. Using the WestlawNext resource, patrons can look up case law, state and federal statutes, administrative codes, newspaper and magazine articles, public records, law journals, law reviews, treaties, legal forms, and other information resources.
The Revised Code of Washington (RCW) is the compilation of all permanent laws now in force. It is a collection of Session Laws (enacted by the Legislature, and signed by the Governor, or enacted via the initiative process), arranged by topic, with amendments added and repealed laws removed. It does not include temporary laws such as appropriations acts. The official version of the RCW is published by the Statute Law Committee and the Code Reviser. The online version of the RCW is updated twice a year, once in the early fall following the legislative session, and again at the end of the year if a ballot measure that changes the law passed at the general election. Copies of the RCW as they existed each year since 1973 are available in the RCW Archive.
WashingtonLawHelp.org English/Spanish provides free legal information and a guide to free and low cost legal help to low-income persons and seniors in Washington. If you are looking for free or low-cost legal services, start by clicking “Find Legal Help” on the blue bar that runs across the top of each page. You can browse legal aid organizations in an alphabetical directory or search for a provider in your area. Searching the Legal Aid Directory will give you a listing of legal aid organizations in your area, how to contact them and a description of the services they provide.
Looking for additional legal reference resources? Search our catalog for legal reference materials.