Research Washington State Gift Certificate Laws - Get a Treat!

So you're starting law school and you're organizing a budget for your spending.  Mom worries that you'll suffer from malnutrition while studying (or as some of us call it: stuDYING) at Gallagher Law Library subsisting on Doritos so she generously provides you with a gift certificate to your local grocery store. While you probably should use the gift certificate for nutritious things like bananas and zucchini - you might find that over the course of the quarter, your bar review funds begin to dwindle (to be clear, a bar review is when you go to a bar and "review" it).

Here is an example of a bar review in progress.

You wonder if you might be able to take your gift certificate back to the local grocery store and exchange it for cash.  Time for some legal research!



Did you know that the Revised Code of Washington (RCW) covers "Gift Certificates"? If you're new to Washington state and you want to start developing some familiarity with researching the RCW, check out Gallagher Law Library's research guide on Washington State Legislative History and give this a try:

• Start at the Washington State Legislature website where the RCW is available.  (Print versions are available at Gallagher Law Library!)
• Click on "Search RCWs"

• You enter gift certificates in the "Search Term(s)" box and see 24 results, one in particular corresponds with an entire chapter:

As you read through the chapter, you notice a section in particular dealing with remaining value. The first 10 UW Law Students to locate the section number, make a note of it and share it with a friendly reference librarian in the Reference Office by Friday (9/27) will receive a little treat!  Reference Office hours can be found here!