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Home > Allegheny County Law Library > Policies > Circulation
Allegheny County Law Library Circulation Policy


The Allegheny County Law Library is a free, public law library open to the public.

With the approval of the Law Library Committee and the Board of Governors the following circulation fee structure as been implemented:

An annual borrowers' fee will be charged to each user for checking out library materials for home or office use. The amount of fees charged is consistent with the norms practiced by other similar public law libraries in the country (e.g. Minneapolis, Seattle, and San Diego).

The borrowers' fee structure is based on the premise that research performed by one attorney in an organization benefits the entire company. Therefore, law firms and corporate legal departments are thus required to pay the annual borrowers' fees for the total number of attorneys in the company, if it intends to check out library materials from ACLL and Duquesne law libraries.

Schedule of Annual Borrowers' Fees:

1. Attorneys of Allegheny County (both private and governmental):

Firm Size Fee
X-Large (101 +) $6,600
Large (61-100) $4,400
Medium (31-60) $2,000
Small (1-30) $65/attorney

2. Attorneys outside of Allegheny County: $130 per person.

3. General Public of Allegheny County: $65 per person.

4. General public outside of Allegheny County: $110 per person.

5. Judges (federal, state, and local) will not be required to pay borrowers' fees. Other governmental law departments are not excluded.

The library has implemented a single, online catalog and circulation system for both libraries. In addition to the Allegheny collection, the Duquesne library collection will begin to circulate to library patrons, who will be able to take out up to seven books at a time and will be able to return them to either library.

The fine system will remain at $1 per day, while books at Duquesne will be charged $.50 per day. A patron who loses books must pay market value of the book, plus a processing fee of $50 per book.

The Borrowers' Application Form is available in PDF format. The free Adobe Acrobat Reader must be downloaded and installed as a browser plug-in to open PDF documents. Click on the appropriate link to download the documents.

If you have any questions, please call Dr. Joel Fishman or Paul Recht at (412) 350-5353.