Each of the Law Library's reference librarians has a J.D. and a Masters of Library Science. We assist students, faculty, staff, and other Columbia and public patrons with their reference questions and research projects. We teach the legal research component of the 1L Legal Practice Workshop and LL.M. Legal Research & Writing courses during the fall semester, as well as the upper-level seminar L9117 Advanced Legal Research Techniques during the spring semester. We also provide specialized research training sessions for seminars, clinics, internship programs, moot court teams, and research assistants.
Mariana Newman has been a Reference Librarian at Columbia Law School since 2017. She enjoys the satisfaction of tracking down hard-to-find sources for professors and teaching administrative law research each year in the Advanced Legal Research Techniques seminar. Before coming to Columbia, she earned an M.L.I.S. with a specialization in Law Librarianship from the University of Washington, a J.D. from UCLA Law, and an A.B. in History from Georgetown University. Mariana's research interests include legal history, constitutional law, and tax.
Josh Freeman has been a Reference Librarian at Columbia Law School since 2022. He teaches introductory legal research classes as part of the first-year Legal Practice Workshop. Prior to joining Columbia, he served as the Foreign, Comparative, and International Law Librarian at LSU Law. Josh's research interests include comparative law and information privacy.
Rebecca Dent has been a Reference Librarian at Columbia Law School since 2022. She teaches introductory legal research classes as part of the first-year Legal Practice Workshop. Prior to coming to Columbia, Rebecca was the Reference and Instructional Services Librarian at New York Law School. She earned her BA and JD from Boston University and her MLS from Queens College. Her research interests include the digital divide, civil procedure, and special education law.
Jey Hernandez has been a law library specialist at the Law Library since 2022. They teach introductory legal research classes as part of the first-year Legal Practice Workshop and are in the process of earning their Masters degree in library science. Before changing careers to law librarianship and legal instruction, Jey worked as an immigration attorney with the New York Legal Assistance Group (NYLAG) and the Sex Workers Project at the Urban Justice Center. They earned their J.D. from Columbia Law School in 2014 and a B.A. in philosophy from the College of New Jersey in 2011.