PORT ANGELES — Clallam County is hoping to expand general access to legal resources by relocating the county law library to the Port Angeles and Forks branches of the North Olympic Library System.
Once agreements are finalized, most county legal resources will only be available via two terminals, or legal resource centers.
“Really, what we’re looking at is dedicated space for digital access,” County Administrator Todd Mielke told the three commissioners during their Monday work session.
The county is working to ensure the available resources are those that will be most needed. That likely will include divorce, landlord/tenant, wills and probate estate law, Mielke said.
The hope is that the county’s partnership with the North Olympic Library System (NOLS) will expand access to these resources.
The state requires any counties with populations more than 8,000 to have a law library. However, the law library is only mandated to be available to judges, state and county officials and members of the bar. As in Clallam County’s case, it can be made available to others with approval by the Law Library Board of Trustees.
Historically, Clallam County’s law library has consisted of about 150 boxes of hardback books and two computer terminals with access to the legal research platform Lexus Search Advantage, Mielke said.
Currently, the library is located in the county courthouse basement and is open from 10 a.m. to noon on Wednesdays, or by appointment.
That setup was providing “very, very limited access to the audiences we are required to provide access to,” Mielke said.
Now, the county is hoping to have a digital-only legal resource library available whenever the library is open.
One terminal will be located in the Port Angeles branch, and the second one will be in the Forks branch, due to physical space availability. Mielke said neither the Clallam Bay branch nor the Sequim branch have space.
The Port Angeles and Forks locations will be able to serve both the east and west ends of the county, NOLS Executive Director Noah Glaude said.
In preparation for the transition, the county gave away or disposed of almost all of its hardback books. The remaining books will be disposed of once the terminals are functioning at the two NOLS locations, Mielke said.
The county commissioners will vote on signing the Memorandum of Agreement with NOLS at their regular meeting on March 4. After that, the county will purchase necessary hardware and move the terminals to the NOLS locations.
In addition to dedicated terminals for access to Lexus Plus (the updated version of Lexus Advantage), the county is looking into a second legal resource, the Lexus Library. That resource, which likely would be hosted on the NOLS website, could be accessed through any device rather than being constrained to a specific terminal. It would give individuals access to an array of legal resources and links to external free legal resources.
Total annual costs for Lexus Plus will be about $5,100, Mielke said. The additional resource would cost about $2,400 a year for the platform fee, with additional costs depending on which packages the county would choose to subscribe to.
The county also will pay NOLS a $5,000 administrative fee to support the operation of the Legal Resource Centers.
The law library is funded by filing fees for probate and civil actions in the county district and superior courts.
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Reporter Emma Maple can be reached by email at emma.maple@peninsuladailynews.com.
