Legal Research
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From the Florida State College of Law Library
Post Frequency: 6.5/day Last Entry: November 19, 2009 at 12:39:45 Recent Entries: 362
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H.R. 3590
Posted on November 19, 2009The Senate has released its version of the health care bill titled the Patient Protection Affordable Care Act. Read it here. Posted by Jon Lutz
Finding the laws that govern us
Posted on November 17, 2009You can now search case law on Google Scholar: Here's an excerpt from the Google announcement: Starting today, we're enabling people everywhere to find and read full text legal opinions from U.S. federal and state district, appellate and supreme courts...
Viruses Can Infect Computers with Child Porn
Posted on November 12, 2009According to a recent ABAJournal Law News Now article computer viruses can infect users computers with child pornography. Here's and excerpt: An infected computer may be the least of your problems, the Associated Press reports. ?An Associated Press investigation found...
Trade Talks Hone in on Internet Abuse and ISP Liability
Posted on November 04, 2009Interesting review in PC World of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement meeting in South Korea. Here's an excerpt: ISPs around the world may be forced to snoop on their subscribers and cut them off if they are found to have shared...
Global Trends 2025
Posted on October 27, 2009The National Intelligence Council has released its report Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World. Here are some of its preliminary assessments: The whole international system?as constructed following WWII?will be revolutionized. Not only will new players?Brazil, Russia, India and China? have...
USPTO Rescinds Controviersial Patent Regulations Package Proposed by Previous Administration
Posted on October 22, 2009The USPTO has rescinded a controversial patent regulation package. Here's an excerpt of the annoucement from the USPTO web page: WASHINGTON ? Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the USPTO David Kappos has signed a new...
Broadband Internet is Now a Legal Right in Finland
Posted on October 15, 2009Finland has become the first country to declare Internet access a legal right. Here's an excerpt from Mashable: The EU Parliament has on several occasions stated that access to the Internet is one of basic human rights. Now, Finland has...
Internet Has Never Been More Dangerous
Posted on October 02, 2009From InformationWeek an article reporting how malware and phishing schemes are becoming more common. Here's an excerpt: Between January and June this year, the number of fake antivirus programs detected grew by 585%, according to a report released on Wednesday...
Crime Reports
Posted on October 02, 2009A new crime reports mashup is available here. Posted by Jon Lutz
Worst of Recession is Over for Law Firms
Posted on September 24, 2009The worst of the recession may be over for law firms according to a PricewaterhouseCoopers survey. Read the ABAJournal Law News Now for more information. Posted by Jon Lutz
Why the White House is Hiring a Social Media Archivist
Posted on September 16, 2009The Whitehouse is attempting to archive its social media content. Here's an excerpt describing what they are trying to do: ?In order to comply with the Presidential Records Act, the White House New Media team is looking for a non...
Appeals Court Throws Out $358 Million Verdict in Microsoft Case
Posted on September 11, 2009A federal appeals court on Friday affirmed a jury verdict that Microsoft, with their Outlook calendar function, infringed an Alcatel-Lucent patent, but ruled that the $358 million dollars awarded to the software company was excessive. Read more about the case:...
Hackers Routinely Sell E-Mail Passwords
Posted on September 08, 2009From the ABAJournal Law News Now Hackers Routinely Sell E-Mail Passwords with Virtual Impunity; here's an excerpt: Think you're personal e-mail's secure? Think again. Hackers can obtain virtually anyone's password, experts say, and the penalties for doing so, in the...
Microsoft Wins Emergency Stay of Judge?s Ban on Word Product Sales
Posted on September 04, 2009From the ABAJournal Law News Now Microsoft Wins Emergency Stay of Judge's Ban on Word Sales. Here's an excerpt: A federal appeals court has granted Microsoft's emergency appeal of a Texas federal judge's order that would have banned the computer...
Computer Hacker Albert Gonzales Indictment
Posted on August 19, 2009In what is probably the biggest identity theft prosecution in US history, computer hacker Albert Gonzales has been indicted. His hacking may have exposed data from as many as 130 million credit and debit cards. You can see the indictment...
Microsoft Files Emergency Motion in Word Verdict
Posted on August 17, 2009On Friday Microsoft filee an Emergency motion with the US District Court for Eastern Texas to block a ruling that would make it stop selling Word. Here's an excerpt from an article in WindowsITPro: Tiny i4i sued Microsoft in 2007...
Legal Research Pits Casemaker vs. Fastcase
Posted on August 07, 2009Law.com LegalTechnology provides a comparative review of Casemaker and Fastcase. Here's an excerpt. Two legal research services are in a head-to-head competition to win the loyalty of America's lawyers. No, I am not talking about Westlaw and LexisNexis...
SCOTUS Insiders Discuss Changing Court Dynamics
Posted on August 03, 2009From the ABAJournal Law News Now the article: SCOTUS Insiders Discuss Changing Court Dynamics as Souter Exits. Here's an excerpt: The U.S. Supreme Court in the Obama era may be more conservative than under President George W. Bush because retiring...
Skype Future in Jeopardy
Posted on July 31, 2009Joltid developed some of the underlying p2p technology that Skype uses. They are claiming that Skype doesn't have a right to use that technoloyg. Skype's parent company EBay is suing Joltid for the continued use of that technology. Read more...
Yahoo Gives In to Microsoft, Gives Up on Search
Posted on July 30, 2009Microsoft and Yahoo have signed a ten year deal to become search partners. An article in the July 29th BusinessWeek asserts that while Yahoo will handle ad sales, Microsoft will get the real prize which is "data on who is...
Age Bias
Posted on July 16, 2009The ABAJournal Law News Now reports that age bias claims increased 29 percent last year. Read about it here. Posted by Jon Lutz
PLI Offers its Law Books on Kindle
Posted on July 10, 2009Practising Law Institute is now offering its publications on Kindle. More than 65 PLI titles are available. Read more about it in the ABAJournal Law News Now. Visit the PLI site. Posted by Jon Lutz
Yahoo to Launch New Research Tool
Posted on July 08, 2009Yahoo's Search Pad was released Tuesday July 7th. Search Pad allows users to save and take notes on search results which they can revisit later. Read about Search Pad on the WSJ Blog Digits here. Try Search Pad here. Posted...
National Institutes of Health Guidelines on Human Stem Cell Research
Posted on July 07, 2009In March of 2009 President Obama signed the executive order Removing the Barriers to Responsible Scientific Research Involving Human Stem Cells. The National Institutes of Health has issued guidelines on Human Stem Cell Research that become effective July 7, 2009...
Bing searches Twitter
Posted on July 06, 2009Microsoft Bing now searches Twitter in real time. Twitter has become increasingly important for keeping up on breaking news. Many corporations provide press releases via Twitter. LegalNews is available on twitter. Posted by Jon Lutz
Text Messages are Calls
Posted on July 02, 2009Text messages to cell phones in regards to the Telephone Consumer Protection Act are calls. The case arose from Simon & Schuster sending text message advertisements to cell phones. According to the recent case Laci Satterfield v. Simon and Schuster...
Michael Jackson Patent
Posted on June 29, 2009Did you know Michael Jackson has a patent on a shoe that allows the wearer to lean forward beyond their center of gravity thus creating an anti-gravity illusion? You can read about the patent on the United States Patent and...
Google Translate
Posted on June 19, 2009Google Translate is now translating Persian to English. Try it here. Posted by Jon Lutz
Battle of the Ducks
Posted on June 04, 2009An interesting article in the ABAJournal Law News Now reports that two companies that provide amphibious vehicle rides in the San Francisco Bay area use Kazoo like quackers to attract attention. One company has sued the other contending that it...
60 Years Later: Coming Through the Rye
Posted on June 03, 2009J.D. Salinger has sued to stop the publication of a sequel of sorts to his novel Catcher in the Rye. The new novel is titled 60 Years Later: Coming Through the Rye and written by John David California. Is the...
bing
Posted on June 02, 2009Try the new Microsoft search engine (Microsoft calls it a decision engine) bing. Microsoft describes the decision engine this way: We took a new approach to go beyond search to build what we call a decision engine. With a powerful...
Quantitative Finance Community
Posted on June 01, 2009Interesting website, Wilmott.com on the quantitative finance community. It requires registration to see some content. Posted by Jon Lutz
Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act of 2009
Posted on May 21, 2009The Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act of 2009 (S. 386: FERA) was passed by the Senate and signed by the President on May 20, 2009. Among other things the Bill makes changes to the False Claims Act. See more here...
Credit Cardholder's Bill of Rights Act of 2009
Posted on May 19, 2009The Credit Cardholder's Bill of Rights Act passed the Senate by a vote of 90 to 5. See the vote on Govtrack.us here. The House version of the Bill is here. Posted by Jon Lutz
WolframAlpha
Posted on May 18, 2009WolgramAlpha a new search tool has been released. Here's an excerpt from their website: Wolfram|Alpha's long-term goal is to make all systematic knowledge immediately computable and accessible to everyone. We aim to collect and curate all objective data; implement every...
Employer's Access of MySpace Group Page
Posted on May 04, 2009Interesting article on issues of freedom of speech and privacy relating to a password protected MySpace page. Two employees of a restaurant were fired after management gained access to a password protected MySpace account where employees had made derogatory statements...
Swine Flu Updates
Posted on May 01, 2009Swine Flu updates are available from Ebscohost: http://www.ebscohost.com/dynamed/h1n1/ Posted by Jon Lutz
Chrysler Ch. 11 Proceeding
Posted on April 30, 2009The Chrysler Ch. 11 petition is available from Scribd: http://www.scribd.com/doc/14802124/Chrysler-Ch11-Proceeding . Posted by Jon Lutz
End the University as We Know It
Posted on April 28, 2009Interesting article in the New York Times, End the University as We Know It. Posted by Jon Lutz
Inquiry onto the Treatment of Detainees in U.S. Custody
Posted on April 23, 2009The Senate Armed Services Committee released the report Inquiry onto the Treatment of Detainees in U.S. Custody on April 21, 2009. It can be viewed here. Posted by Jon Lutz
Juror Tweets During Trial
Posted on April 16, 2009From the ABAJournal Law New Now a story of a juror who twittered about the case during the trial. Here's an excerpt: "Juror Johnathan" may have been a bit of a twit, as the N.Y. Daily News said in a...
Iftikhar Chaudhry reinstated
Posted on March 25, 2009Iftikhar Chaudhry has been reinstated as Pakistan's Chief Justice. See earlier posts on Iftikhar Chaudhry here and here. More information on his reinstatement here and here. Posted by Jon Lutz
Psion counter-sues Intel over trademark infringment
Posted on March 12, 2009Thinking about buying a netbook, you might have to call it something else. Psion trademarked the name 'netbook' back in the early 2000s on a series of notebook computers. They didn't sell well and the line was ultimately discontinued in...
Google Target of Antitrust Lawsuit
Posted on February 20, 2009Trademark.com has filed suit against Google claiming they violated the Sherman Act by attempting to quash smaller company's business by raising search rates when keyword searches reach a certain number.You can read more about this here, here and here...
Textual Misconduct
Posted on February 20, 2009A recent article in Slate discusses the legal implications of sexting. Sexting is the name for sending nude photos via a cell phone. In a recent case in Greensburg, Pa. three teenage girls were arrested for sexting their boyfriends. The...
The End of BitTorrent?
Posted on February 16, 2009Some of the people who run the BitTorrent site Pirate Bay are going on trial for copyright infringement in Stockholm Sweden. BitTorrent is a massive peer to peer download site. Here's an excerpt: (Read the whole article here.) "It's not...
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009
Posted on February 13, 2009The compromise Senate stimulus bill can be viewed here. Posted by Jon Lutz
Google Executives Face Jail Time for Italian Video
Posted on February 04, 2009An interesting article posted in the New York Times reports that several Google executives may serve jail time for a video posted to Google Video. Here's an excerpt: The case involves a three-minute cellphone video, posted in 2006 to Google...
Digital Television Transition Extension Act of 2009
Posted on February 04, 2009The House has voted to delay the analog to digital TV transition from February 17 to June 12. You can see the bill here. Posted by Jon Lutz
Senate Stimulus Bill
Posted on February 02, 2009You can see the Senate Stimulus Bill S.336 here. Posted by Jon Lutz
Google Book Settlement
Posted on January 29, 2009Information about the Google Book Settlement has been posted on the web. Here's a statement from Google Book Settlement site: This is the settlement administration website for the Google Book Search Copyright Class Action Settlement. The purpose of this website...
Legal Education Commons
Posted on January 28, 2009CALI has created a Commons for sharing legal education materials. From their web page: The Legal Education Commons (LEC) is the place to find and share legal education materials including syllabi, podcasts, presentations, and more. Faculty and librarians from CALI...
Annotated Justinian Code
Posted on January 26, 2009For those interested in Civil Law, the University of Wyoming is hosting an English translation of the Justinian Code with annotations. See it here. Posted by Jon Lutz
What's a Legal Simulation
Posted on January 26, 2009Law School Innovation has an interesting post titled What's a legal simulation? Here's an excerpt:If Paul Maharg has his way, American law professors may soon have as much in common with the game referees in World of Warcraft than Prof....
Law Schools Customize Degrees to Students' Taste
Posted on January 23, 2009An article in the Chronicle of Higher Education discusses how law Schools are customizing law degrees. Here's an excerpt: The curriculum at law schools has undergone a major transformation in recent years, as many have set up niche programs to...
Barack's BlackBerry
Posted on January 23, 2009Obama may get to keep his BlackBerry after all. See an earlier post here. Read an update here. Posted by Jon Lutz
Survey Gets Law-School Students' Thoughts on Laptops
Posted on January 07, 2009The Chronicle of Higher Education has an article titled: Survey Gets Law-School Students' Thoughts on Laptops, Writing, and Ethics. The article discusses the role of laptops in law schools as well as writing and ethics and was based on a...
MSE360 search engine
Posted on January 06, 2009A new search engine mse360 is worth a try. It displays Wikipedia and blog results to the left, web results center and image results to the right. Posted by Jon Lutz
Sony Digital Reader
Posted on January 05, 2009The Kindle isn't the only digital reader, Sony also has an excellent digital reader. Here are some of its features: 6" Display E-ink paper-like touchscreen Built-in LED reading light Search, annotation, and highlighting capabilities Adjustable text sizes Long battery life...
Teknoids
Posted on January 04, 2009Teknoids is a Drupal enhanced web site about technology use within a law school or law firm environment. It can be viewed at www.teknoids.net/. The site is brand new and while they are migrating content over from the old site,...
Treatment of Detainees in U.S. Custody
Posted on January 03, 2009Senators Carl Levin and John McCain on December 11th released the Executive Summary and Conclusions of the Report on Treatment of Detainees in U.S. Custody.Read the Executive Summary here. More information can be found here. Posted by Jon Lutz
Investment Deficit in America
Posted on January 02, 2009The Campaign for America's Future Center has released the Report The Investment Deficit In America: Yesterday's Achievements, Today's Problems, Tomorrow's Solutions. Here's an excerpt: America?s future growth and prosperity depend on a secure supply of affordableand sustainable energy...
FERPA
Posted on December 16, 2008The Office of Planning, Evaluation and Policy Development, Department of Education has released the final FERPA regulation, effective as of January 8, 2009. Here's an excerpt: SUMMARY: The Secretary amends our regulations implementing the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act...
Google wants its own fast track on the web
Posted on December 15, 2008According to the Wall Street Journal Google is promoting a plan to the major cable and phone companies that would allow a fast lane for its own content. Here's an excerpt: The celebrated openness of the Internet -- network providers...
Google Books adds print magazines
Posted on December 11, 2008From a Washington Post article: Google took another step towards ingesting all the world's printed knowledge. In addition to books and newspapers, Google Book Search now archives millions of pages of magazines from New York Magazine and Ebony to Popular...
Courtport
Posted on December 05, 2008Courtport is a service for public record research. It is free to academic users. Here's an excerpt of what areas Courtport covers: Case information, criminal records, liens, recordings, vital records, and more. Case information includes docket sheets, filings, rulings, calendars,...
French Muslim Girls lose veil case at European court
Posted on December 05, 2008STRASBOURG, France, Dec 4 (Reuters) - Europe's human rights court on Thursday threw out a complaint by two French Muslim girls who were expelled from their school for refusing to remove their headscarves during sports lessons. France, which takes secularism...
2008 ABA Journal Blawg 100
Posted on December 04, 2008The ABA Journal has released its list of top 100 blawgs. You can see the list here. Posted by Jon Lutz
Hillary Clinton and the Emoluments Clause
Posted on December 04, 2008There is an interesting post on The Volokh Conspiracy Blog about Hillary Clinton and the Emoluments Clause. The emoluments clause states: No Senator or Representative shall, during the time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil office...
GLOBAL TRENDS 2025: THE NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE COUNCIL'S 2025 PROJECT
Posted on November 24, 2008Global Trends 2025 is a report prepared by the National Intelligence Council to look at global trends over the next 15 years. Here's an excerpt of their preliminary assessments: The whole international system—as constructed following WWII—will be revolutionized...
Iftikhar Chaudhry
Posted on November 24, 2008In late 2007 The National Law Journal chose deposed Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry as it's Lawyer of the Year for standing up for the preservation of the rule of law under the Presidency of Pervez Musharraf. in November 2007 Musharraf...
Chinese E-Commerce 2008
Posted on November 21, 2008An article on selling products in China titled Chinese E-Commerce 2008: An Introduction and How to for US SMEs by Lisa Conklin has been posted on the internet. A hat tip to the China Law Blog. Here's an excerpt from...
Obama's Blackberry
Posted on November 17, 2008President Elect Obama, who may be addicted to his Blackberry, may have to give it up when he becomes president. Email sent while president may be subject to public records law and can also be subpoenaed by Congress and the...
Experts Say Treasury Conflict Rules Are Unprecedented
Posted on November 12, 2008The AMLawDaily has an interesting article about client conflict rules in the Treasury Departments bailout of some firms. Here's an excerpt: When The Am Law Daily read the client conflict rules in the Treasury Department's $5.5 million bailout contracts with...
Federal Contracts by State
Posted on November 07, 2008Here's another great Mashup called Federal Contracts by State. It applies Federal contract data from Fedspending to charts created by Google Chart. You can click on any state to display data. Try it here. Posted by Jon Lutz
Blogs from the U.S. Government
Posted on November 07, 2008For a good list of government blogs try Blogs from the U.S. Government. Here are a few examples: CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) Injury Center Director's View ? The Director of the CDC Injury Center, Ileana Arias, blogs...
Search and Track the Federal Register
Posted on October 27, 2008You can search and track the Federal Registry at regulations.justia.com. For Example:And you can setup an RSS feed to have the results pushed to you. Try it at regulations.justia.com. Posted by Jon Lutz
Forensic Psychology and Lie Detection
Posted on October 23, 2008There is evidence that fMRI's (functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging) are more effective at detecting lies then traditional lie detector tests. Different areas of the brain show greater activity when someone lies then when they tell the truth. It's more work...
To keep or not to keep the Electoral College?
Posted on October 21, 2008Is it time to scrap the Electoral College. MIT is having a conference titled To keep or not to keep the Electoral College: New Approaches to Electoral Reform? Experts in six areas of electoral college studies, including: constitutional law, history,....
Closed Minds?
Posted on October 20, 2008The problem with American higher education may not be too much politics but too little, at least that seems to be the conclusion of a recent book: Closed Minds? Political Ideology in American Universities. The Chronicle of Higher Education recently...
OpenSecrets
Posted on October 17, 2008OpenSecrets is another great government mashup. Here's more information from their website: OpenSecrets.org is the nation?s premier independent website tracking the influence of money on U.S. politics, and how that money affects policy and citizens? lives...
Safe Road Maps
Posted on October 16, 2008SafeRoadmaps.org is a another great mashup of information that allows users to see on a map or satellite image all the road fatalities in any area of the country. From their website: Welcome to Safe Road Maps! This website is...
Worldnews
Posted on October 14, 2008Looking for more world news, try Worldnews; The World News (WN) Network was founded in 1995 and launched online in 1998, with the primary objective of being the most comprehensive, one-stop news resource on the Internet. Today, World News has...
OpenRegulations.org
Posted on October 13, 2008OpenRegulations is an alternative website to the government's regulations.gov site. This site is an alternative interface to the federal government's Regulations.gov service. It aims to present a simplified and easy-to-use index of federal register notices, including notices of proposed rulemaking...
Kidon Media Link
Posted on October 10, 2008Don't get enough 'news,' try Kidon Media Link: Here you can find links to 19,535 newspapers and other news sources from almost every country and territory in the world. Every country has its own integrated page. There are no separate...
Spokeo
Posted on October 09, 2008Spokeo is a search service based on social networks. Based on a users email address Spokeo looks at 40 different social networks to find information about that person. This is a good way to track all your friends activities on...
Follow the Money
Posted on October 09, 2008Another good government mashup is Follow the Money. Follow the money tracks political donations in all 50 states. It provides an overview of how much various organizations donate and then breaks down how much goes to each candidate. It also...
Authentication of Online Legal Resources
Posted on October 03, 2008Do you know what online legal resources are 'official' or 'authenticated?' Have a look at the State-by State Report on Authentication of Online Legal Resources.AALL?s follow-up State-by-State Report on Authentication of Online Legal Resources is essentially an answer to another...
OpenCongress
Posted on October 02, 2008OpenCongress, similar to Govtrack.us, also allows you to track action in the US Congress. You can track Bills, Senators, Representatives, Committees, Issues, etc. OpenCongress brings together official government data with news coverage, blog posts, comments, and more to give you...
govtrack.us
Posted on September 30, 2008GovTrack.us is an independent tool to help the public research and track the activities in the U.S. Congress, promoting government transparency and civic education through novel uses of technology. GovTrack allows you to setup an RSS feed to track membors...
The Mommy Track
Posted on September 24, 2008Does the alarm bell on your biological clock signal an end to your legal career? If you're contemplating an addition to the family, take a look at a book recently acquired by the Law Research Center. In "Staying at Home,...
Knol
Posted on September 11, 2008Try the Google encyclopedia Knol. Knol is similar to Wikipedia in some ways but one difference is that Wikipedia articles are usually anonymous while Knol articles are signed. Posted by Jon Lutz
Silobreaker
Posted on September 10, 2008Try out the new search engine Silobreaker. When you search in Silobreaker it will create a whole page of information on the topic searched. This works particular well with people where you'll get top stories, video, article volume, network of...
Professors' and Students' Political Opinions
Posted on August 21, 2008The Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia (USG) has published a the results of a student survey exploring students' experiences with the expression of political opinions on campus by students and by faculty. The press release is...
Big Screen Kindle
Posted on August 12, 2008Law Librarian Blog has in interesting post about the big screen Kindle. Here's an excerpt: Sometime ago I wrote, "while the Kindle buzz has stimulated interest in the legal academy, the development model will not follow along the lines of...
Danone v. Wahaha lawsuit
Posted on August 12, 2008China Business Law Blog has an interesting post on the Danone v. Wahala lawsuit. Here's an excerpt: .... In 1996, the two parties signed a trademark agreement, transferring the ?Wahaha? trademark from the Wahaha Co. to the then newly formed...
the future of reputation
Posted on August 01, 2008The full text of The Future of Reputation is now available online for free. THE FUTURE OF REPUTATION: GOSSIP, RUMOR, AND PRIVACY ON THE INTERNET by Daniel J. Solove Yale University Press (2007) Chapter 1. Introduction: When Poop Goes Primetime...
Seed Wars
Posted on July 31, 2008One of the library's new acquisitions is Seed Wars, a book about plant genetic resources and intellectual property rights. It can be checked out from the Florida State Law Research Center and will be found on the first floor at...
Books & Films on Law & Law School
Posted on July 30, 2008Books & Films on Law & Law School Law School 411: Books & Films on Law School is a multimedia bibliography of sources. It is prepared for students thinking about law school and for current students who are looking for...
Outsourcing: Now Hitting the Legal World
Posted on July 20, 2008Outsourcing has become ubiquitous in the business sector of most industries. But, in the July 21, 2008 article in Law.com titled "Tighter Budgets Make Outsourcing Attractive," it looks as if the trend is moving in the direction of the legal...
Is It Safer to Assume Selfishness?
Posted on June 23, 2008Offering monetary incentives for cooperative or altruism behavior can be counterproductive, according to a new article, here, that reviews multiple studies. In one example, women who were paid to donate blood did so less often that those who donated as...
The Attorney At Sea
Posted on June 03, 2008Planning a cruise ship vacation this summer? Settling into a deck chair with the bright Caribbean sun overhead, a frothy tropical libation in hand ... our thoughts naturally turn to the unique aspects of Cruise Ship and Admiralty Law. Some...
Lies, Damned Lies, and Official Federal Statistics
Posted on May 09, 2008In this article from Harper's Magazine, author Kevin Phillips argues that official federal policy has altered the way that the government collects and reports statistics in order to artificially lower the reported unemployment rate and the rate of inflation...
New Uses for DNA Evidence
Posted on April 21, 2008DNA evidence is in the news lately. The Washington Post has two articles on "Genes and Justice." This article discusses how law enforcement agencies are using DNA collected from people who are not suspected of a crime to identify relatives...
The Creative Heritage Project
Posted on March 25, 2008In today's technological society, digitization and the internet offer immediate access to all types of media. Formerly unavailable music, art, performances, designs, symbols, and stories from around the world are being disseminated and enjoyed. For educators, artists, and students this...
Is There an iCrime Wave
Posted on March 05, 2008The Urban Institute in Washington D.C. has issued the report: "Is There an iCrime Wave." The recent increase in violent crime defies easy explanation, and many hypotheses have been put forward for debate. In this brief, we propose that the...
journey through madness
Posted on March 03, 2008Elyn Saks, a professor of law and psychiatry at the University of Southern California, has written a memoir titled: The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness. Elyn Saks has suffered from schizophrenia since she was a small child and...
A "Digital Scarlet Letter" Hat-trick
Posted on February 27, 2008Remember the plight of Nathanial Hawthorne's fictional Hester Prynne? She was condemned to wear a red "A" for adultery as a shameful reminder of her past sin. George Washington University Law Professor and internationally known privacy expert Daniel J...
Free Access to Legal Documents
Posted on February 12, 2008Two Million pages of Legal Documents have been made available for free. Creative Commons announced tonight that in partnership with Public.Resource.Org and with legal representation from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, it has purchased and has now made available at no...
Sports Agency 101
Posted on February 06, 2008Do you aspire to be a sports agent, or have a student who does? Darren Heitner and his team of Blogging All-Stars have put together a lot of good information at SportsAgentBlog.com, a nifty Website subtitled "I Want to be...
PreCYdent
Posted on February 01, 2008PreCYdent is a new legal research search engine. Try it out here. Read an in depth interview with PreCYdent's Tom Smith on Law Librarian Blog here. Posted by Jon Lutz
Status of Forces Agreement
Posted on January 24, 2008About.com defines a Status or Forces Agreement as: An agreement which defines the legal position of a visiting military force deployed in the territory of a friendly state. Agreements delineating the status of visiting military forces may be bilateral or...
CVM and Animal Cloning
Posted on January 15, 2008On animal cloning, the FDA has issued a report that concludes that meat and milk from cow, pig and goat clones and the offspring of any animal clones, are safe. The FDA has produced a report titled: Animal Cloning: A...
Best Practices for Legal Education
Posted on January 08, 2008Best Practices for Legal Education by Roy Stuckey and Others has been posted to the Web. Read the report here. Posted by Jon Lutz
Cloned Livestock Poised To Receive FDA Clearance
Posted on January 07, 2008According to a Wall Street Journal online report the FDA is getting ready to declare that milk and meat from cloned animals is safe to eat. Read the article here. Posted by Jon Lutz
Lawyer of the Year
Posted on December 18, 2007The National Law Journal (subscription required) has selected Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry as its Lawyer of the Year. The article appears in the December 12th issue and is titled "Inspiration in a Troubled Land" Here's an excerpt: Chaudhry, the chief justice...
Evaluation and Validation of Election-Related Equipment, Standards and Testing
Posted on December 18, 2007The EVEREST: Evaluation and Validation of Election-Related Equipment, Standards and Testing: Final Report has been released. This is an Ohio study released by the Ohio Secretary of State and prepared by teams from Pennsylvania State University, the University of Pennsylvania...
International Conference on the Future of Legal Education
Posted on December 17, 2007From February 20-23 at Georgia State University College of Law. For its point of departure the Conference with examine the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching Educating Lawyers report. See this post for more information on this report...
The University of Google
Posted on December 07, 2007Joe Hodnicki had an interesting post on Law School Innovation on the book The University of Google: Education in the (Post) Information Age. Here's an excerpt: Angry, humorous and practical in equal measure, The University of Google is based on...
Designing Empirical Research Projects
Posted on November 20, 2007Bill Henderson at Empirical Legal Studies recommends a recent article on the design of empirical research projects, Methodological Fit in Management Field Research, as "a must-read for the legal empiricists who lack formal social science training." Read Prof...
Transforming Legal Education
Posted on November 19, 2007Transforming Legal Education: Learning and Teaching the Law in the Early Twenty-first Century by Paul Maharg. Highly recommended -- Joe Hodnicki on Law School Innovation. Posted by Jon Lutz
Most Cited Law Professors by Specialty, 2000-2007
Posted on November 16, 2007Brian Leiter's Law School Rankings has listed the 10 or 20 (depending on field) most cited faculty by specialty. FSU College of Law faculty J.B. Ruhl was listed under Environmental Law and Adam Hirsch was listed under Wills, Trusts and...
What's Your Google Reputation
Posted on November 15, 2007Be careful what you post on the web. Having damaging information online might be a deal breaker when applying for a job. A recent report indicated that 83% of job recruiters used search engines to learn about job candidates, while...
Reporters without Borders
Posted on November 09, 2007A recent press release from Reporters without Borders ranks countries for press freedom. Iceland scores the highest while Eritrea is last at 169th place. The US is in 48th place according to this report. Read the whole report here. Posted...
Trial Techniques in a Visual Culture
Posted on November 09, 2007New York Law School has created the Visual Persuasion Project to explore the effect of "visual rhetoric" on the representation of legal issues and to train students in more effective advocacy using visual technologies. In the Neuroethics and Law blog,...
10 Ways a Lawyer Can Benefit from Working with a Professsional Coach
Posted on November 06, 2007From the Blog Lawyer Information this post on how lawyers can benefit from having a professional coach. Here's an excerpt: Coaching is a collaborative process that is focused and results oriented. A Professional Coach can help lawyers overcome challenges, increase...
The Billable Hour
Posted on November 05, 2007A small Boston law firm has banned the billable hour and refuses to take clients who want to pay by the hour. This is discussed in a recent Boston Globe article. An excerpt is below: But the Shepherd Law Group...
Training Law Students for Real-Life Careers
Posted on November 02, 2007A recent New York Time's article discusses curriculum reform in Law Schools. Here's a quote from the article: For years, law students have focused on judicial opinions, explaining why a case was decided in a particular way. But many lawyers...
Knights Templar Exonerated
Posted on October 25, 2007A press conference is planned for today in Vatican City to introduce the newly published Processus Contra Templarios, an exclusive facsimile edition of the Chinon Parchment, dated August 17-20, 1308. "Misfiled" in the Vatican Secret Archives for over 700 years...
Play Ball!
Posted on October 23, 2007As the Rocks & Sox gear up for the 2007 World Series this week, our hearts and minds turn to baseball. For books to answer all of your questions regarding baseball and the law, browse the Research Center's collection at...
Path to Legal Academia
Posted on October 22, 2007This is a good review of a Harvard lunch time presentation by Prof. Daryl Levinson to students interested in entering legal academia. An excerpt: Instead of fancy grades, clerkships, and practical experience, the modern credential of choice for law school...
Magic and the Law
Posted on October 03, 2007Can magicians keep others from replicating a trick or illusion that they've developed? Or keep others from divulging the secrets behind the illusion that make it marketable? Magicians have an uneasy relationship with Intellectual Property Law. Copyright Law can protect...
Virtue Jurisprudence
Posted on September 26, 2007A new book titled Virtue Jurisprudence by Colin Farrelly and Lawrence Solum has just been published. Here's the publisher's description: In moral theory, virtue ethics offers a third way - an alternative to the deontological and consequentialist approaches that dominated...
"Everything I Want To Do Is Illegal"
Posted on September 20, 2007Author and "beyond organic" farming educator Joel Salatin recently visited North Florida, sparking local interest in his newly published book "Everything I Want to Do is Illegal." Expanding on his 2003 article in Acres (the national journal of sustainable agriculture),...
Blackwater USA - Legal Status
Posted on September 19, 2007The legal status in Iraq of security firms such as Blackwater is an interesting question. The laws of the US probably don't apply, since they are not members of the military military laws don't apply and due to Order #17...
California bans mandatory RFID implants of employees
Posted on September 18, 2007California has banned employers from mandating RFID implants in their employees. Read the bill here. Read a good overview of the issue here. Posted by Jon Lutz
Is There Anything Good About Men?
Posted on September 06, 2007This is the title of a thought-provoking address given at the American Psychological Association by FSU's own Dr. Roy Baumeister. Dr. Baumeister focuses on how culture exploits men and women in different ways, and how this influences behavior. (He also...
Lawsuit filed by Human Rights USA against Yahoo - Jailed Chinese Journalist joins lawsuit
Posted on August 31, 2007In April of 2007 the World Organization for Human Rights USA filed a law suit against Yahoo for complicity in sharing identification information of internet users with Chinese authorities. Two Chinese journalists are serving 10 year prison sentences for publishing...
NYPD's Report on Terror
Posted on August 17, 2007Time.com's article on Homegrown Terror notes that "the most sophisticated government analysis of the homegrown terrorism threat to be made public in the United States came out this week, and it didn't come from Washington ? not from the FBI,...
Law Professor Blogger Census 2007
Posted on August 01, 2007Daniel Solove on Concurring Opinions has posted his now annual Law Professor Blogger Census. This census reports on how many law professor bloggers there are, their breakdown by gender, which schools have the most bloggers, what proportion of bloggers are...
American Legal Ethics Library
Posted on July 12, 2007Cornell's Law School's Legal Information Institute has created a digital library containing the codes or rules setting standards for the professional conduct of lawyers. It also includes commentary on the law governing lawyers. It is organized on a state to...
Foxes, Hedgehogs, and the Legal Academy
Posted on July 11, 2007There is an interesting blog post by Lawrence Solum in the Legal Theory Blog titled Foxes, Hedgehogs, and the Legal Academy. The thread was started by Belle Lettre on whether, for an academic career, it's better to be a fox...
College and University Ranking Systems
Posted on July 10, 2007The Institute for Higher Education Policy has published a report: College and University Ranking Systems: Global Perspectives and American Challenges. Supported by Lumina Foundation for Education, this new report by the Institute for Higher Education Policy highlights the ongoing global...
Law Schools also Ranked by Blogs Now
Posted on June 29, 2007In the Wall Street Journal Online there is an interesting article Law Schools also Ranked by Blogs Now by Amir Efrati. The article discusses alternatives to the U.S. News & World Reports law school rankings. Posted by Jon Lutz
Law Schools Unlikely to Boycott Magazine Rankings
Posted on June 28, 2007The New York Times in the recently published article Some Colleges to Drop Out of U.S. News Rankings reported that dozens of liberal arts schools are no longer participating in the U.S. News and World Report college rankings. The commitment,...
The New Metrics of Scholarly Authority
Posted on June 27, 2007An interesting article, The New Metrics of Scholarly Authority by Michael Jensen, is in the June 15th, 2007 issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education. The article discusses the impact of the Web 3.0 standard on academic publishing. It's available...
Court Protects Email from Secret Government Searches
Posted on June 19, 2007Over the last 20 years, the government has routinely used the federal Stored Communications Act (SCA) to secretly obtain stored email from email service providers without a warrant. But a ruling yesterday found that the SCA violates the Fourth Amendment...
Trafficking in Persons Report 2007
Posted on June 13, 2007Trafficking in persons is a modern-day form of slavery, a new type of global slave trade. Perpetrators prey on the most weak among us, primarily women and children, for profit and gain. They lure victims into involuntary servitude and sexual...
Legal Digital Audio Content
Posted on June 08, 2007AudioCaseFiles describes itself as the leader in AudioCaseFiles. From their website: AudioCaseFiles provides law school students with digital audio recordings of the legal opinions they read to learn the law (patent pending). The company was founded on the principle that...
Tracking Immigration Enforcement
Posted on May 29, 2007With Congress making new efforts to pass comprehensive immigration reform, researchers have raised questions about the enforcement of the existing law. The TRAC (Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse) Immigration Project has analyzed records and produced reports on many aspects of enforcement...
The One-Stop Animal Law Shop
Posted on May 10, 2007Kudos to the Michigan State University College of Law! They've created a terrific Website dedicated to current and historical Animal Law, both in the United States and around the world. Federal and state statutes, and over 700 full-text cases are...
Obstacles to Career Advancement for Women Lawyers
Posted on May 08, 2007A study by the MIT Workplace Center of the career paths of women lawyers in large Massachusetts firms 2001-2005 indicates that family responsibilities still form a major obstacle to advancement. While firms may not hesitate to hire women, the time...
MySpace
Posted on May 07, 2007Be careful what you post to MySpace.com. Stacy Snyder was denied an education degree and teaching certificate by Millersville University in Pennsylvania due to a picture of her drinking out of a yellow Mr. Goodbar cup, and wearing a pirates...
Botanical Biodiversity Research at FSU
Posted on May 07, 2007Assisted by an NSF grant, FSU is leading a project to create high-resolution images of 100,000 plant specimens in the Deep South Plant Specimen Imaging Project. The East Gulf Coastal Plain, stretching from west of Gainesville to New Orleans and...
Stanford Center Advocates for Fair Use on Web
Posted on May 07, 2007npr has an interesting podcast on the Stanford Center's Fair Use Project. You can listen to it here: Posted by Jon Lutz
Ten Great Apps for the Treo Mobile Lawyer
Posted on May 04, 2007An interesting article on the Treo 700p is on www.law.com: Ten Great Apps for the Treo Mobile Lawyer by Richard M. Georges. Here is just one of the 10 great tips, number 4: If I absolutely have to look at...
The Woman Who Would Be President
Posted on May 04, 2007Belva Lockwood: The Woman Who Would Be President by Jill Norgren Obscured in the historical shadow by her colleague, Susan B. Anthony, Belva Lockwood became the first woman ever allowed to practice at bar of the U. S. Supreme Court...
Strategies and Techniques of Law School Teaching
Posted on May 03, 2007An interesting article had recently been posted to SSRN: Strategies and Techniques of Law School Teaching: A Primer for New Teachers by Howard Katz and Kevin O'Neill. Abstract: Much has been written about law school teaching. In our view, the...
Disability Harassment
Posted on May 02, 2007"Building on the insights of both disability studies and civil rights scholars, Mark C. Weber frames his examination of disability harassment on the premise that disabled people are members of a minority group that must negotiate an artificial environment of...
Economics of Climate Change
Posted on May 01, 2007In late 2006 Sir Nicholas Stern, Head of the [U.K.] Government Economic Service issued a comprehensive review, "The Economics of Climate Change." Stern describes his conclusions as "essentially optimistic... if we act now and act internationally." The report, along with...
Microsoft Corp. v. AT&T Corp
Posted on April 30, 2007The US Supreme Court ruled on April 30 that Microsoft cannot be forced to pay for patent infringement which has occurred when copies of Windows are made or installed on computers abroad. Excerpt: It is the general rule under United...
Dolphin Safe Labeling
Posted on April 30, 2007In an opinion from the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued April 27th, the court refused to allow a relaxed standard for the "dolphin safe" tuna label. This case concerns the practice of catching yellowfin tuna...
UN Opens Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities for Signature
Posted on April 26, 2007The United Nations opened the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities on March 30, 2007. The Convention is the first new human rights instrument of the 21st century. See the video of the press conference here: http://webcast.un.org/ramgen/pressconference/pc070330...
A Guide to Mooting
Posted on April 25, 2007The Art of Argument: A Guide to Mooting is for law students who want a step-by-step guide on how to ready themselves for an international mooting competition. However, the guidance Christopher Kee gives on "the process of developing, presenting and...
Lawyer Lingo
Posted on April 17, 2007What a lawyer means by "fact", "conclusion" and "opinion" (via Language Log) Posted by Toni Urquhart
The Physical Basis of Moral Judgments
Posted on April 03, 2007A recent study by Michael Koenigs, et al., Damage to the Prefrontal Cortex Increases Utilitarian Moral Judgments, published in the March 21, 2007 online version of Nature, demonstrates the effect of damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex on a person's...
Internet Research, Uncensored
Posted on April 02, 2007Computer scientists use social networking to help foreign scholars bypass their governments' Web filters. From the March 23, 2007 issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education. Read the article here. Posted by Jon Lutz
Email paranoia?
Posted on March 30, 2007The U.S. attorney general doesn?t send e-mails?and he?s not alone. From government to business, many powerful people are choosing not to use email. President Bush, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, CEOs and others do...
The Economics of Organ Donation
Posted on March 30, 2007The March 23, 2007, issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education has several articles on proposed solutions to the shortage of donor organs for transplantation. The use of "spare" kidneys from living donors has increased but is nowhere near meeting...
Where was the HMS Cornwall?
Posted on March 29, 2007The United Kingdom Ministry of Defence has released the location of the HMS Cornwall at the time 15 of its Marines were detained by Iran: "...the merchant vessel was 7.5 nautical miles south east of the Al Faw Peninsula and...
Educating Lawyers: Preparation for the Profession of Law (2007)
Posted on March 27, 2007The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching has released its Educating Lawyers: Preparation for the Profession of Law (2007). Abstract: The Foundation's two-year study of legal education involved a comprehensive look at teaching and learning in American and Canadian...
What makes a great reference librarian?
Posted on March 20, 2007What makes a reference librarian great? Two things are crucial: the will, which is almost an obsession, to find the right answer, and a love of helping others find the materials they need. For insight into the minds of five...
Neuroscience and Criminal Responsibility
Posted on March 15, 2007Criminal law assumes that actors are responsible for their actions except under strictly limited circumstances, but neuroscientists are challenging this view. "The Brain on the Stand" in the New York Times magazine discusses various implications of "neurolaw" for our legal...
Ethical Eye: Animal Welfare
Posted on February 28, 2007Animal Welfare Just how much do animals suffer? Does legislation make a difference to animal welfare and do economic factors hinder its improvement ? The treatment of animals has long been a subject of debate, yet attitudes towards animal welfare...
The Rescue of Joshua Glover
Posted on February 27, 2007The Rescue of Joshua Glover On March 11, 1854, the people of Wisconsin prevented agents of the federal government from carrying away the fugitive slave, Joshua Glover. Assembling in mass outside the Milwaukee courthouse, they demanded that the federal officers...
The State of Play: Law, Games, and Virtual Worlds
Posted on February 15, 2007What are the legal implications of virtual worlds, such as Second Life? Jack M. Balkin and Beth Simone Noveck examine the changing face of virtual reality and the associated legal issues in The State of Play: Law, Games, and Virtual...
The State of the World's Children 2007
Posted on February 15, 2007UNICEF has published The State of the World's Children 2007: The State of the World's Children 2007 examines the discrimination and disempowerment women face throughout their lives - and outlines what must be done to eliminate gender discrimination and empower...
Semantic tricks in the courtroom can confuse the reasonable person
Posted on February 14, 2007Trials are conducted under a strict set of conversational rules that are well-known to attorneys and judges but can turn out to be a confusing mire of potential tricks for even that mythical reasonable person that many of our laws...
International Laws of War
Posted on February 09, 2007On Kenneth Anderson's Law of War and Just War Theory Blog there is an interesting post on Bargain theory versus universalism in the law of war. Excerpt: - the basic condition of the law of war - is it a...
BIID
Posted on February 09, 2007BIID or Body Integrity Identity Disorder is according to Wikipedia "the overwhelming desire to amputate one or more healthy limbs or other parts of the body." The Leiter Reports: A Group Blog has an interesting post on the philosophical and...
Search Engine for Legal Research Guides
Posted on February 02, 2007Cornell Law Library has a new search engine which can locate online legal research guides by subject. Legal Research Engine searches for guides in approximately 20 different authoritative websites, many of them law library sites. The guides can be a....
The Threat of Open Access
Posted on January 26, 2007The Public Library of Science (PLoS) is the creation of a group of physicians and scientists who believe that scientific and medical research (much of which is publicly funded) should be freely available to the public. They publish several free...
Short Introductions
Posted on January 25, 2007Philosophy of Law: A Very Short Introduction by Raymond Wacks This lively and accessible introduction to the social, moral, and cultural foundations of law takes a broad scope-- spanning philosophy, law, politics, and economics, and discussing a range of topics...
Key Role of Law Student - Faculty Interaction
Posted on January 19, 2007"Engaging Legal Education: Moving Beyond the Status Quo," the 2006 report on the Law School Survey of Student Engagement is available on the LSSSE website. Among the report's findings: student-faculty interaction (including discussing ideas outside of class and getting prompt...
Client-Centered Legal Education
Posted on January 19, 2007The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching has issued a report urging law schools to revise the curriculum to place more emphasis on working with clients and on social and ethical issues, according to an article in the January...
The Power, Possibilities, and Pitfalls for Law Professor Blogs
Posted on January 10, 2007An interesting article, Scholarship in Action: The Power, Possibilities, and Pitfalls for Law Professor Blogs by Douglas A Berman has been posted to SSRN. Here's the abstract: At the heart of the debate over law blogs as legal scholarship are...
Code: Version 2.0
Posted on January 09, 2007Lawrence Lessig has updated his "minor classic" Code: Version 2.0. Here's a description from Amazon.com. The "alarming and impassioned"* book on how the Internet is redefining constitutional law, now reissued as the first popular book revised online by its readers...
The Kosher Phone
Posted on January 02, 2007Is a kosher phone possible? Almost it would seem, that is, until a rather large company allegedly slipped up, or "went behind the rabbis' back and switched the texting functions back on." The Kosher Phone defined: "A so-called 'plain vanilla'...
Castles in the Air
Posted on December 20, 2006With the burgeoning popularity of online roleplaying in the virtual societies of Second Life, Ultima, Entropia Universe, World of Warcraft and others, there is money to be made, and not just in Linden Dollars (the currency of Second Life). Where...
Fair Use Roundtable Discussion
Posted on December 18, 2006The Library of Congress Section 108 Study Group will hold a roundtable discussion in Chicago on January 31, 2007. The discussion will focus on the exceptions and limitations applicable to libraries and archives under the Copyright Act. Posted by Faye...
eDiscovery Costs
Posted on December 18, 2006Forrester Research predicts that eDiscovery technology spending will jump from $1.4 billion in 2006 to more than $4.8 billion in 2011. As enterprises struggle to create electronic discovery systems, the need for records management will create significant market growth...
Google Patent Search
Posted on December 18, 2006Google has added a patent search. Try it here. Google patent search help is available here. And Google advanced patent search is here. Posted by Jon Lutz
The United Nations News Centre
Posted on December 15, 2006Visit the UN News Centre at http://www.un.org/News/ for the latest UN statements and briefings, news conferences by the Secretary-General, and news by region. Be sure to check out News Focus, the latest news on a particular topic such as combating...
Electronic Discovery: Not So Scary?
Posted on December 13, 2006While the concepts underlying the new FRCP electronic discovery rules are simple, they represent a fundamental, complicated change in the actual practice of discovery. Dennis Kennedy, a lawyer and expert on the application of technology in the practice of law,...
DOJ's New Charging Guidelines in Corporate Fraud Prosecutions
Posted on December 12, 2006Paul J. McNulty, Deputy Attorney General, issued new charging guidelines in corporate fraud prosecutions today. Under the old guidelines (the "Thompson Memorandum"), a federal prosecutor, as part of assessing whether a corporation cooperated with a government investigation, could look at...
Battle Looms Over EPA Library Closure
Posted on December 12, 2006From the Humanities and Social Sciences Net Online: BATTLE LOOMS OVER EPA LIBRARY CLOSURE The battle in Washington is escalating over a move by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to close its nationwide network of scientific libraries. EPA began...
Organizational Structure of Large Law Firms
Posted on December 11, 2006The Law Blog at the Wall Street Journal, which is viewable without a subscription although its links are not, posted an interview on December 7 with James B. Rebitzer and Lowell J. Taylor, authors of "When Knowledge Is an Asset:...
Citing to Wikipedia
Posted on December 07, 2006I was recently asked whether law students should cite to Wikipedia in academic papers. The answer is No. Wikipedia itself says: ?Because Wikipedia is an on-going work to which in principle anybody can contribute, it differs from a paper-based reference...
3D JD
Posted on December 01, 2006Standford Law school has announced a new model for legal education, which is changing the law degree program into a three dimensional program. News.LawReader.com has a short article on the subject. Here's an excerpt: STANFORD, Calif.?(BUSINESS WIRE)?Stanford Law School today...
How do blogs change legal education?
Posted on November 30, 2006There is an interesting discussion on the blog Balkinization on the topic of how blogs change legal education. Read it here. Posted by Jon Lutz
Tenzin Tsundue
Posted on November 30, 2006Ask me where I'm from and I won't have an answer. I feel I never really belonged anywhere. Never really had a home. I was born in Manali, but my parents live in Karnataka. Finishing my schooling in two different...
Law of War
Posted on November 21, 2006The online version of the Jurist has recently published two op-eds on the laws of war by Geoffrey S. Corn. They are: When the Law of War Becomes Over-lawyered and For the Sake of Warriors: Accepting the Limits of the...
Geneva Conventions
Posted on November 21, 2006The Geneva Conventions a Reference Guide can be found on the Society of Professional Journalists web site. This includes both commentary and texts of the Geneva Conventions. It can be found here. Posted by Jon Lutz
Early Supreme Court Decision Dates
Posted on November 16, 2006Sometimes it's hard to determine the exact date of early Supreme Court decisions, because the date of the decision doesn't appear below the case name in the first 107 volumes of the U.S. Reports. But now there is a list...
Law School Curriculum: What is technology's role?
Posted on November 14, 2006There's an interesting article in the November 8, 2006 National Law Journal, The Law School Curriculum: What is technology's role? Here's an excerpt: Professor Charles Nesson, a pioneer in the use of technology in legal education and a founder of...
The "You Scratch My Back and I'll Scratch Yours" Business Model
Posted on November 09, 2006How Some Firms in India Succeed by Bypassing Entrenched Financial and Legal Systems And how things such as fictitious road repairs are getting a second look under the Right to Information Act (2005). Posted by Toni Urquhart
Law Blogs Creating Ethics Problem
Posted on November 08, 2006There may be as many as 2000 law blogs which discuss topics from bioethics, to legal theory, to environmental law and everything in between, but an ethical problem has arisen as to how much of the content is speech and...
Germline Patents
Posted on November 03, 2006The blog, Biolaw: Law and the Life Sciences, has an interesting post on a recent European Patent that includes a method of gender selecting for sperm. Biolaw points out that the patent not only applies to this method, but in...
Law School Curriculum
Posted on November 02, 2006Stanford Law School Dean Larry Kramer has a long post in the Blog Law School Innovation on the topic of law school curriculum: Ask any law school graduate what was the most significant intellectual experience he or she had in...
McGruff Goes Cyber to Stop Crime
Posted on November 01, 2006Eveyone's favorite crime dog is making special appearances throughout New York City to take a bite out of cybercrime! McGruff's website lists tips for adults and children alike in a series of tip sheets aimed at adult computers users, homes...
Baffling Bookhouse
Posted on October 31, 2006Turkmenistan has no private or foreign media, and the internet is inaccessible for most people. (via BBC) Yet now the country has 'The House of Free Creativity,' a baffling book-shaped building "devoted to press freedom." Hmm... Spookier things have happened...
Beijing's Bankruptcy Laws
Posted on October 26, 2006The Wall Street Journal Online, October 17, 2006, has an interesting article on China's new bankruptcy law titled, Beijing's Bankruptcy Law. Enacted in August by China's legislature, the National People's Congress, it comes into force next June 1. A formal...
Shift in Harvard Curriculum
Posted on October 25, 2006The National Law Journal, October 24, 2006, has published the article Shift in Harvard Curriculum Reflects Larger Trend Toward Global Law. Harvard Law School has announced sweeping changes in its first-year curriculum: Harvard's new course on legislation and regulation will...
From Network to Meaning
Posted on October 24, 2006Yesterday, in the wonderful 275-seat Microsoft Auditorium of the Seattle Public Library, I listened to interactive media specialist Linda Stone discuss her current thinking on ?continuous partial attention? and the coming shift to an era where we use our attention...
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Posted on October 18, 2006The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosopohy is a free online encyclopedia of philosophy. Here is a brief desciption from the encyclopedia website: Welcome to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP). From its inception, the SEP was designed so that each entry...
Remainders
Posted on October 17, 2006In describing an intuitive process native to novel writers, the author of Invisible Writer (Johnson, 1999, p.9) quotes American master of psychological realism, Joyce Carol Oates. Somehow, without knowing what I did, without knowing, in fact, that I was doing...
A Künstlerroman Causes a Stir
Posted on October 10, 2006Graphic novels are in; they?re hot. And to keep pace with a literary trend that sounds like fun, I decided to jump on the bandwagon and read one. I skipped the much acclaimed Persepolis and American Splendor, choosing instead a...
The Silencing of Ruby McCollum
Posted on October 06, 2006The Silencing of Ruby McCollum: Race, Class, and Gender in the South by Tammy Evans (Gainesville: University Presses of Florida, 2006). Evans is an adjunct professor of composition at the University of Miami's Bradenton campus. Silencing refutes the carefully constructed...
Digging Into the Roots of Research Ethics
Posted on September 27, 2006There have been examples of researchers violating ethical standards to enhance their own careers. However Kelly P. Bannister, an ethnobotanist at the University of Victoria went our of her way to protect the indigenous group she researched on their use...
Online Version of The Chicago Manual of Style
Posted on September 26, 2006Remember back when... In November 1906, a modest little book crept onto the publishing scene with a mouthful of a title. The Manual of Style: Being a Compilation of the Typographical Rules in Force at the University of Chicago Press,...
Living Speech for All
Posted on September 19, 2006No one can love and be just who does not understand the empire of force and know how not to respect it. ~Simone Weil This single sentence from Simone Weil?s essay on the Iliad triggered James Boyd White?s unwavering interest...
Neuroeconomics
Posted on September 15, 2006Neuroeconomics combines neuroscience, economics, and psychology to study how we make choices. Specifically it looks at the role of the brain when we make decisions, categorize risks and rewards, and interact with each other. Jedediah Purdy of Duke University School...
How Many Law Blogs?
Posted on September 13, 2006How many law blogs are there? According to the blogs Inter alia well over 1500 and Robert Ambrogi's Lawsites maybe around 2000. Posted by Jon Lutz
National Library of Scotland to Preserve Blogs
Posted on September 12, 2006The National Library of Scotland has decided that some new forms of digital source materials merit a spot in the library's digital collection. The websites and blogs of leading cultural figures, including writers such as JK Rowling and Alasdair Gray,...
'Snowbird' Law Practice Hits a Wall
Posted on September 11, 2006The definition of a "temporary" practice in a state where one is not licensed may be ripe for litigation and change. Morris Ronald Gould, a Florida resident who is admitted to practice law in New York but not in Florida,...
The Future of Legal Scholarship
Posted on September 11, 2006The Pocket Part, A Companion to The Yale Law Journal, is currently running a series of articles on The Future of Legal Scholarship. This includes submissions by Christopher Bracey, Ann Althouse, Paul Caron, Stephen Vladeck, Eugene Volokh and Jack Balkin...
The Curmudgeon's Guide to Practicing Law
Posted on September 06, 2006Mark Herrmann, a partner at Jones Day in Cleveland, has written a clever little book for the new associate. My favorite chapter, "How to Fail as an Associate," has a highly quotable section on the need to do background reading...
Lawyers for Companion Animals
Posted on September 06, 2006The New York Times has an article on the growth of companion animal lawyering. [...] these lawyers say they are concerned primarily with getting the legal system to acknowledge that animals have an intrinsic value beyond mere property, because of...
Legal Education Podcasting Project
Posted on September 05, 2006During the Spring semester 2006, CALI sponsored a project to investigate the efficacy of podcasting in legal education. Faculty from various schools recorded their lectures and posted them to the CALI website. Mary McCormick was one of the participants...
Advice for Incoming Law Students
Posted on September 01, 2006CALI's Pre-Law Blog had posted several podcasts for incoming law students: Advice for 1Ls from Prof. Douglas McFarland Preparing to Study Torts by Ron Eades Study Advice from Professors Joe Grohman and Ron Brown for 1Ls Also see my earlier...
Warning: Blogs can be hazardous to your career...
Posted on August 30, 2006Judge Reprimands Temp Prosecutor for Blog Posts A California attorney with the firm of Keker & Van Nest, while participating in a job swap with the San Francisco DA's office, was reprimanded by the judge overseeing a misdemeanor case he...
Fired Associate Wins $1.1 Million
Posted on August 28, 2006A former law firm associate won a $1.1 million judgment for wrongful termination and failure to accommodate his illness under California's Fair Employment and Housing Act. Warren Snider, the plaintiff, claimed he was fired after an illness caused him to...
Preparing for the Worst
Posted on August 25, 2006As we enter the traditional peak of hurricane season, the government is here to help you. Ready.gov is the official disaster planning site of the Department of Homeland Security. (The content of this site has been criticized as inadequate by...
Advice for the Incoming Law School Class
Posted on August 22, 2006Paul Caron of the TaxProf Blog has a great list of links to advice for the incoming law school class of 2009. It's here. And even more advice here from Concurring Opinions. Posted by Jon Lutz
Yale LJ's "Online Companion"
Posted on August 17, 2006The Yale Law Journal has created The Pocket Part as an "online companion" to the journal. It offers short versions of articles along with reponses from practitioners and scholars. The August 2006 issue has several articles about the forthcoming federal...
Contract Drafters: Comma Placement is Very Important
Posted on August 16, 2006Language Log offers an eye-opening example of the downside of careless comma placement. (link) Posted by Toni Urquhart
U.S. Law Schools news brief
Posted on August 15, 2006News Releases from Law Schools Nationwide is a service of St. Thomas University School of Law in Miami. Listings are available by region or individual state, and for seven topical areas, including Achievement, Current Issues, Newsmakers, Campus Speakers, Administration, Community,...
United States ex. rel. David Franklin vs. Parke-Davis
Posted on August 15, 2006Pharmaceutical companies spend a lot of money promoting their drugs. In 1996 an employee of Parke-Davis under the whistleblower laws filed a law suit against Parke-Davis claiming they were illegally promoting the drug Neurontin for off label uses. The Drug...
Obstacles to Educational Uses of Copyrighted Material
Posted on August 15, 2006A report by the Berkman Center for Internet Study and funded by a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation on copyright and education had been released. It's titled: The Digital Learning Challenge: Obstacles to Educational Uses of Copyrighted Material...
The Perfect Crime
Posted on August 11, 2006Brian Kalt, Associate Professor of Law at Michigan State College of Law, has written an interesting and provocative article, The Perfect Crime. This article was the fruit of his research on the Sixth Amendment vicinage requirement. Professor Kalt notes, "Venue...
Law Faculty Bloggers
Posted on August 10, 2006Prof. Dan Markel has been blogging on PrawfsBlawg for a little over a year. Recently, Prof. J.B. Ruhl joined Prof. Jim Chen's Blog Jurisdynamics, where he discusses the proposition that the legal system is a complex adaptive system for which...
Cases Citing Legal Blogs
Posted on August 09, 2006The blog 3L Epiphany has created a list of court cases that cite legal blogs. According to 3L Epiphany there are 32 citations of legal blogs from 27 different cases with 8 legal blogs being cited. You can view here....
A Taxonomy of Legal Blogs
Posted on August 07, 2006The blog 3L Epiphany has published A Taxonomy of Legal Blogs. This is a very useful list of law related blogs. The sheer number of legal blogs is astonishing. To list a couple of examples there are 60 blogs under...
Journals Struggle for Relevancy
Posted on August 03, 2006There is an interesting ABA Journal article which discusses how Law Reviews are adapting to the Internet, titled: Revising Law Review: Journals Struggle for Relevance in a Field Redefined by the Internet by Terry Carter. The article can by found...
Library Values
Posted on July 31, 2006The most valuable resource in the library may be the reference librarian behind the desk. Recent research by the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center found that patients were much more likely to find useful and accurate information if they...
The Economics of Attention
Posted on July 31, 2006In a recent book by Richard Lanham The Economics of Attention: Style and Substance in the Age of Information, Lanham suggests that in the future the most precious resource of the new information economy won't be information but style. There...
Pronunciation Guide
Posted on July 21, 2006Most of us probably see, in print, names of people or places that we don't know how to pronounce. VOA has a pronunciation guide. You can see a short list of names recently in the news here, or a longer...
A Curtain Falls on the Indian Blogosphere
Posted on July 18, 2006India's Department of Telecommunications has ordered Indian Internet service providers to block a few handpicked Web sites. The attempt to block specific sites has apparently run afoul of the agency's directive. Millions of domestic internet users could not access some...
Open Access Law Scholarship
Posted on July 17, 2006Many scholars are concerned that the commercialization of scholarly publishing, particularly in the sciences, serves as a barrier to progress. One proposed answer is "open access" publishing. Science Commons encourages more widespread sharing of scholarly information, including legal scholarship...
The Bioethics of Food
Posted on July 07, 2006Two recently published books discuss the bioethics of food. Eating with Conscience: The Bioethics of Food by Michael W. Fox. Fox discusses the inner workings of the national food industry, including the treatment of animals, the use of herbicides, the...
When a Lawyer Becomes Mentally Impaired
Posted on June 29, 2006A partner in a law firm has cause to believe that another member of the firm is mentally impaired and may not be able to competently and diligently represent his clients. In such a scenario, issues such as these may...
Presidential Signing Statements
Posted on June 28, 2006A blue ribbon American Bar Association task task force on presidential signing statements released a report on July 24, 2006. You can read a news release here or more from the American Bar Association here. Read the American Bar Association's...
Software Attacks Pose Threat to All Electronic Voter Machines
Posted on June 28, 2006The Brennan Center Task Force on Voting System Security at NYU School of Law has released a report and policy proposals concluding that all three of the nation's most commonly purchased electronic voting systems "have significant security and reliability vulnerabilities"...
Reading History
Posted on June 27, 2006Nate Oman, an assistant professor at the Marshall-Wythe School of Law at the College of William & Mary, has written a nice article on why he reads history. Posted by Toni Urquhart
Securities Settlement Values Skyrocket
Posted on June 23, 2006Private securities class actions fell in 2005. PriceWaterhouseCoopers' 2005 Securities Litigation Study reports that there were 168 new filings, the lowest number in nine years. Simultaneous with this drop, the average cost of a private securities litigation settlement rose to...
Lawsuit is Filed Over Banned Book
Posted on June 22, 2006Censorship is a cure worse than the disease. ~Howard Simon, Executive Director of the ACLU of Florida "The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Florida, Greater Miami Chapter today filed a lawsuit against the Miami-Dade County School Board challenging the...
Supreme Court Limits the Exclusionary Rule
Posted on June 20, 2006"The U.S. Supreme Court limited the time-honored exclusionary rule yesterday when it held that evidence seized in a home search may still be used for trial even after police failed to "knock and announce" before entering." Hudson v. Michigan was...
Polyheme
Posted on June 20, 2006Polyheme is a blood substitute. It has been used in clinical trials with trauma patients. While federal regulation requires the consent of subjects for clinical trials the regulation also allow a waiver of consent in certain cases which includes times...
Damages For Dented Pickup?
Posted on June 19, 2006A possible torts exam question? Facts: A, a city employee, is given a city vehicle to use. He drives his private vehicle, a pickup truck, to work and parks it in a city lot. After a New Year's Eve party,...
Biotechnology Law and Regulation
Posted on June 16, 2006Biotechnology Law and Regulation - The ASEAN Perspective by Sufian Jusoh and published by Cameron May surveys the law and regulations relating to biotechnology activities in the 10 member countries of ASEAN. Topics covered include biotechnology policies, access to genetic...
Congressional Votes Overriding State Laws
Posted on June 14, 2006In the last five years, Congress has voted more than 50 times to override state laws. "Most of the preemptive federal legislation passed by the House and the Senate over the last five years falls into four general categories: (1)...
Alabama's Pick & Choose Judicial Candidates Defeated
Posted on June 09, 2006"Four Republican candidates for the Alabama Supreme Court who claimed they could pick and choose which U.S. Supreme Court decisions they would follow?and said they were free to defy the rest?were defeated in Tuesday?s primary election. Led by Alabama Supreme...
The Wall Street Journal's Legal blog
Posted on June 09, 2006WSJ Online has a very informative blog on law and business, and the business of law. Peter Lattman, the lead writer, came to WSJ Online from Forbes Magazine. Before becoming a journalist, Lattman worked on Wall Street and as a...
The LRA and the "Night Commuters"
Posted on June 08, 2006During the course of the 20-year conflict in Northern Uganda, over 30,000 children have been brutally tortured and forced into years of servitude as child soldiers and sexual slaves. The rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) abducts children from their villages...
Transhumanism
Posted on June 02, 2006The philosopher Francis Fukuyama defines transhumanism as "to liberate the human race from its biological constraints." The book Nano-Bio-Info-Cogno Innovations: Converging Technologies in Society explores the legal, ethical, political and social implications of these emerging technologies and their impact on...
GARCETTI et al. v. CEBALLOS
Posted on May 31, 2006In a 5 to 4 vote the Supreme Court ruled Tuesday May 31st that free speech rights do not protect government employees, even whistleblowers, from punishment for comments made on the job. Read the Opinion here. Posted by Jon Lutz
The Asylum Primer
Posted on May 16, 2006The AILA Asylum Primer by Regina Germain, a veteran asylum attorney and former Senior Legal Counselor of the Washington Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, is one of the Law Library's latest print acquisitions. "AILA's Asylum Primer...
Complex Scientific Evidence
Posted on May 16, 2006Gene therapies, gene transfers, genetic screening, and new biotechnologies will give rise to many legal disputes. The legal issues are complex. Are trial jurors prepared to deal with the complexities of these issues? An article in Judicature, Genes and Justice:...
Lake Okeechobee Dike Report
Posted on May 15, 2006The South Florida Water Management District has released a report, found here, by three experts in dam safety and geotechnical analysis who evaluated Corps of Engineers documents concerning the structural integrity of the 140 mile-long Herbert Hoover Dike surrounding Lake...
Coming Soon: The Indian National Fruit
Posted on May 12, 2006The month of May marks the beginning of mango season. Here in the States, we'll soon be enjoying fruit from the Asian subcontinent: The Indian wing of DHL even offers a courier service specifically for mangoes, although the United States...
Marshall v. Marshall
Posted on May 05, 2006The United States Supreme Court, in a 9-0 opinion written by Justice Ginsburg, decided the scope and applicability of the probate exception to federal jurisdiction. "Once described by a 7th Circuit Court of Appeals judge as ?one of the most...
Which One Would You Choose?
Posted on May 04, 2006As "Mother's Day" approaches, thoughts turn to the powerful bonds of love between mothers and their children. It is this procession of generations that unites women of all cultures and time periods in our common humanity. Children and their mothers...
Google and Miró Family in a Mire of Copyright Unpleasantness
Posted on April 21, 2006While aiming for good cheer in honor of surrealist painter Joan Miró's birthday on April 20, Google has stepped on a few toes: "The family of Joan Miro was upset to discover elements of several works by the Spanish surrealist...
Documents in the News - Kansas Teen Privacy Opinion
Posted on April 19, 2006Judge J. Thomas Marten of the Federal District Court for the District of Kansas ruled yesterday (April 18, 2006) in a case that sought to prevent enforcement of Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline?s application of the state mandatory reporting statute,...
France's "Kafka Index"
Posted on April 18, 2006France has designed a red tape buster called the "Kafka Index." It will "measure the complexity of a project or law against its usefulness to cut red tape." "The index--referring to Franz Kafka's The Trial, which describes one man's fight...
Documents in the News - Lethal Injection
Posted on April 18, 2006An article in today's New York Times (page A14) describes an order entered in Willie Brown, Jr. v. Theodis Beck (E.D. N.C. 4/17/2006) allowing North Carolina to use a "bispectral index (BIS) monitor" to determine whether Mr. Brown is unconscious...
Secret Dockets
Posted on April 17, 2006For several years we have been hearing about "secret dockets" in federal courts - crime-related cases which do not appear in any public list of cases before the court. The practice was exposed in the Southern District of Florida in...
Federal Court Rule Revisions
Posted on April 14, 2006Proposed amendments to the various sets of federal rules can be found here, on the United States Courts website. The text of the proposed new Fed. R. App. Proc. 32.1, permitting citation to unpublished opinions, is here. The Pending Rules...
Archiving Web Pages
Posted on April 14, 2006Did you ever view a web page that had good content but when you went back to it later the content was gone or changed? Now Yahoo has an archiving feature that will allow you to archive an existing web...
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) Turns 60
Posted on April 12, 2006The International Court of Justice (ICJ) , the UN court with jurisdiction over international disputes, turned 60 on April 12, 2006. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, celebrating the occasion in the Great Hall of Justice of the Peace Palace in The Hague,....
Prisoner Bypasses Florida for Vermont
Posted on April 08, 2006Fast-acting folks have secured prisoner, and practicing Sikh, Satnam Singh?s right to retain an article of his faith: his unshorn hair, or ?kes,? along with his turban, or "dastaar." (See: "Common Misconceptions Regarding Sikhism.") Satnam Singh was ?scheduled to enter...
Federal Reserve Bank: Liber8
Posted on April 07, 2006Liber8 is a portal that links to economic information from the Federal Reserve System, government agencies, and international economic data sources. The site was designed for college students and university reference and government documents librarians...
This Time, We Have No Excuse
Posted on April 05, 2006Genocide in the Darfur region of western Sudan began in February of 2003. Government and Arab Janjaweed militias have systematically engaged in mass killings, executions, the burning of towns and villages, sexual violence. To date over 300,000 members of African...
Metalib Instruction Guide
Posted on April 05, 2006An instruction guide for using Metalib can be found here. Posted by Jon Lutz
Using Metalib to Search Across Databases
Posted on April 03, 2006Thanks to Jon Lutz, I now know how to access the FSU Metalib search page from here (a Strozier Library webpage) or here (the FSU Law Library Research page). Metalib allows you to search different kinds of resources such as...
New battery technology
Posted on March 29, 2006A new battery technology is expected to impact hybrid electric automobiles and other power hungry battery operated devices. Using nanotechnology, A123Systems has developed a Lithium-Ion battery that doubles the energy density of current Lithium-Ion battery technology, charges to 90 %...
The Truth about the Billable Hour
Posted on March 24, 2006Yale law school's Career Development Office has posted a page that all would-be law students, and current law students, would benefit from inspecting closely. The page, titled "The Truth about the Billable Hour," is a listing of the actual time...
Peak Oil
Posted on March 24, 2006We are hearing an increasing number of references to "peak oil," the theory that we have reached the point where, because oil is a finite resource, production will begin to decline and the cost of extracting oil will increase. The...
A New Judicial Biography
Posted on March 23, 2006The law library?s Acquisitions Assistant position has its perks: Clearly I have the advantage of a heads-up on titles ordered and titles arriving on an approval basis. Some of these items appeal to the lover-of-good-story in me and therefore get...
Simpsons Outdo First Amendment
Posted on March 09, 2006According to the results of a survey conducted by the McCormick Tribune Freedom Museum, one in five Americans can name all five Simpsons, but only one in a thousand can name the five freedoms under the First Amendment. A quick...
Game of Shadows
Posted on March 08, 2006San Francisco Chronicle reporters Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams chronicle their 15 month investigation into superstar athletes? use of steroids, growth hormones and other banned drugs. Their investigation shocked the nation and led to Congressional hearings...
The Federal Information Manual
Posted on March 03, 2006Stephen Gidiere's The Federal Information Manual: How the Government Collects, Manages, and Discloses Information under FOIA and Other Statutes will help any business understand how a company's sensitive information is handled by the government, when it might be released, and...
In Defense of Animals
Posted on March 03, 2006For these and other books regarding our relationship to the other creatures with whom we share the earth, browse the shelves at KF390.5A5 and the HV4700's. "We need another and a wiser concept of animals...We patronize them for their incompleteness,....
Making Decisions at the End of Life
Posted on February 21, 2006The President's Council on Bioethics has issued a report, "Taking Care: Ethical Caregiving in Our Aging Society," available in full text here. Many, perhaps most, of us will have the experience of being involved in decisions by and for family...
Transparency Still an Issue in U.S. Editor Trial
Posted on February 21, 2006Last week in Moscow, the trial of two men accused of killing a U.S. editor resumed behind closed doors after the presiding judge in the January 10th start date trial fell ill and was replaced. According to ISN Security Watch,...
U.N. Report on the Guantanamo Bay Detention Center
Posted on February 16, 2006The U.N. Commission on Human Rights has released a report on the U.S. Government's Guantanamo Bay detention center. Read the report here. Posted by Jon Lutz
Whistleblower Program Needs Improvement
Posted on February 14, 2006Whistleblowers act in many cases as the publics first line of defense against wrongful conduct of public officials. But a recent audit overseen by the Office of Financial Management for the State of Washington suggests that a lack of follow...
Striking a Balance: Drug Labeling and the FDA
Posted on February 14, 2006Today's pharamaceutical warning labels contain little useful information for consumers; rather, they attempt to over-warn of every potential side effect so as to protect manufacturers from getting sued. A new Food and Drug Administration labeling rule could provide better information...
Domestic Terrorism or Free Speech?
Posted on February 10, 2006Six Philadelphia-based animal rights activists went on trial this week in a federal courthouse in Trenton, N.J. for their alleged direct harassment of a contract research company with animal-testing labs in the state of New Jersey, Huntingdon Life Sciences...
The Trial of Saddam Hussein
Posted on February 10, 2006The Law Library of Congress has created a site, The Trial of Saddam Hussein, to monitor, analyze and report legal developments. A bibliography of reference materials and links to electronically-available materials will also be included. Posted by Faye Jones
DuPont Legal Model
Posted on February 07, 2006In the early 1990s, the legal department at DuPont launched an initiative to reduce the number of external law firms employed, streamline the management of more than 4,000 legal cases, and meet global litigation challenges. The DuPont experience can teach...
"Happy Birthday" Gets Cut?
Posted on February 03, 2006Documentary filmmakers may soon have cause not to say ?Cut!? every time they are filming at a party where everyone is singing ?Happy Birthday.? For a group of scholars who ?hope to breathe new life into a legal doctrine called...
Migratory Birds and the Law
Posted on February 01, 2006As migrating birds visit our North Florida woods and wetlands this winter, some people may question their welcome. Can wild bird populations spread the deadly Bird Flu virus worldwide? Some scientists say the spread of the virus has not been...
Pizza Law
Posted on January 30, 2006The niche law firm of Warwick & Seltz specializes in the growing, highly lucrative area of pizza rights. Partner Royce Warwick, the area's foremost practitioner, has been described as "simply unstoppable." A member of major pizza law associations, Mr...
The Case of Mimi the Cat
Posted on January 26, 2006After being shot at by a local villager just before sunrise, a black cat, which ?ducked and ran away,? goes missing for a couple of weeks. She returns home with a scratch on her paw. Two witnesses to the alleged...
Election Law Webpage
Posted on January 20, 2006Election law is a timely topic as we move into 2006 and hear more about midterm congressional elections. The Moritz College of Law at OSU maintains an excellent non-partisan website, Election Law @ Moritz, here, which covers controversies about issues...
Abuse of Trust
Posted on January 20, 2006Tamar Frankel?s Trust and Honesty: America?s Business Culture at a Crossroad was initially entitled ?Abuse of Trust.? Frankel says she chose a different title after her research indicated: ?It is that America is becoming used to abuse of trust and...
The U.S. Supreme Court Considers Standards for Reopening Death Penalty Cases
Posted on January 13, 2006This past Wednesday our highest court considered how to handle new evidence of innocence years after a conviction for a capital crime. The case of death row inmate Paul Gregory House marks the first time the Supreme Court has looked...
Happiness is the Home Office
Posted on January 12, 2006Home-based legal practice is growing rapidly and today's technology is making it easier. Read more here. Posted by Jon Lutz
Berkeley Electronic Press
Posted on January 10, 2006Our subscription to The Berkeley Electronic Press was recently expanded to full access to all materials on the website including two new law journals: International Commentary on Evidence and Muslim World Journal of Human Rights. Posted by Anne Bardolph
Integrating Psychology and Law into Instruction
Posted on January 10, 2006Interesting article on how aspects of psychology and law can be integrated into instruction, with examples and a bibliography, here. Posted by Jon Lutz
"Alito Revealed"
Posted on January 10, 2006The Washington Post provides a short bio of Samuel A. Alito, Jr.--a photo collection with audio. Posted by Toni Urquhart
Howard Stern Takes the First Amendment Into Orbit
Posted on December 20, 2005In a few weeks, Howard Stern will be joining Sirius, a satellite radio company, which is "betting $500 million (and, probably, its future) on Howard; it's given him two entire channels." With the number of Stern listeners surpassing the number...
National Security Documents
Posted on December 19, 2005The Federation of American Scientists maintains an extensive archive of federal documents relating to national security issues on their website, here. It includes information about terrorism, government intelligence, and U.S. and foreign weapons systems...
Law related RSS feeds
Posted on December 14, 2005Here are two excellent sources for finding law related RSS feeds: The Virtual Chase blawg Posted by Jon Lutz
Firefox
Posted on December 14, 2005Mozilla Firefox browser now supports RSS. This allows users to read RSS feeds without adding an additional program. Firefox users should upgrade to Firefox 1.5 at www.mozilla.com. Then click on Tools and then click on Extensions. At the bottom right....
Saving Newborn Lives
Posted on December 07, 2005Each year, 4 million babies die before they are a month old. To help stem this global heartbreak, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has donated 60 million dollars to Save the Children's "Saving Newborn Lives" initiative. This money will...
"Happier Meals: Rethinking the Global Meat Industry"
Posted on December 06, 2005Since the latest outbreak of avian flu began in southeast Asia, public health officials have referred to the threat as a "natural" disaster. However, avian flu, mad cow disease, and other emerging diseases that can jump from animals to humans...
ATLEASTXX( )
Posted on December 05, 2005One of my favorite search techniques, available on both LEXIS and WESTLAW is the ATLEAST field restriction. The format, in both databases, is ATLEASTXX(YYYYY), where XX is a number and YYYYY is a search term. The search term can be...
Wex
Posted on November 30, 2005Cornell's Legal Information Institute has redesigned their "Law About" pages into a Wikipedia-like online legal dictionary and encyclopedia named Wex. Intended for a broad audience, Wex provides brief definitions and overviews of a topic or term with relevant links to...
Polls on Westlaw
Posted on November 28, 2005Westlaw's DIALOG database, POLL, contains a "comprehensive collection of public opinion surveys conducted in the United States by major polling firms and the news media covering the full spectrum of public interest." Selected coverage begins in 1936; full coverage begins...
International Human Rights Lexicon
Posted on November 22, 2005The thematic approach used by a wonderful title recently acquired by the library, International Human Rights Lexicon, encourages a non-linear approach to a human rights vocabulary. Topics are arranged alphabetically, which "sidesteps the traditional categories of human rights law, to...
GlobaLex Research Guides
Posted on November 21, 2005The New York University School of Law Hauser Global Law School Program maintains GlobaLex, a website with links to guides to researching the law in other countries. Posted by Robin Gault
Nomination of Judge Alito
Posted on November 21, 2005The University of Michigan Law Library has set up a page of links on Judge Alito here. More information will be added when confirmation hearings begin in January. Posted by Robin Gault
Underneath Their Robes
Posted on November 18, 2005Underneath Their Robes, an irreverent blog on the federal judiciary, was recently shut down after The New Yorker magazine revealed that the blogger was an Assistant U.S. Attorney. Underneath Their Robes, which featured judicial beauty contests, gossip and commentary, caught...
The Google Print Controversy: A Bibliography
Posted on November 09, 2005Charles W. Bailey, Assistant Dean for Digital Library Planning and Development at the University of Houston Libraries, has posted this bibliography on his blog, DigitalKoans. The publications listed are freely available on the web and many of them focus on...
Military Commissions
Posted on November 09, 2005The National Institute of Military Justice is a great source for information on military justice, including documents on charges for detainees, DOD directives on interrogations of detainees, law review articles, and forthcoming scholarly papers, such as David W...
'CSI Effect'
Posted on November 08, 2005With so many CSI shows on TV, do juries now expect a 'CSI moment'? Is there a disconnect between what goes on in a real courtroom and the TV shows? On this topic Law Journal has an online panel discussion,...
Preparing for the Wave of Whistleblower Lawsuits
Posted on November 08, 2005An increase in federal funding for health care fraud and the False Claims Act of 1999 has had an influence on the number of whistleblower law suits. Read More: DWT Health Law Advisory Bulletin Posted by Jon Lutz
Careers in Forensic Psychology
Posted on November 08, 2005Forensic Psychology is the application of science and psychology to questions and issues related to law and the legal system. Read more: Careers in Forensic Psychology Posted by Jon Lutz
OpenDocument Format in Massachusetts
Posted on November 08, 2005The State of Massachusetts has proposed a policy that would mandate Open Document Format be used for all office documents within government agencies. An economic stimulus bill that went before the Massachusetts Senate on November 3rd had amended text that...
World Legal Information Institute
Posted on November 08, 2005The World Legal Information Institute offers free access to more than 500 databases from 55 countries. You can access it here. Posted by Robin Gault
Coursecasting, Podcasting & Webcasting: New tools for law schools
Posted on November 07, 2005Since mid-September, American University Washington College of Law has podcast or webcast classes and all law school events. As of November 3, there were 14,641 MP3 hits, with 13,395 of these since September 17th. For more on coursecasting, see Lectures...
New Fed Chief
Posted on November 04, 2005What can we learn about the likely policies of prospective Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke from the way he manages his own money? Plenty! Read about it here. Posted by Trisha Simonds
Documents in the News - Pandemic Influenza
Posted on November 03, 2005US HHS Pandemic Influenza Plan. The United States Department of Health and Human Services has released its "HHS Pandemic Influenza Plan." The Washington Post says that the plan "mentions only briefly the option of forcibly detaining infected people during a...
Doctors Without Borders
Posted on November 02, 2005Voices from the field: a surgical nurse setting up a trauma center in Haiti; an American doctor fighting to save severely malnourished children in Niger; a nurse from Colorado providing support to survivors of sexual violence in Liberia; a Somali...
Documents in the News
Posted on November 02, 2005The President's Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform has issued its Final Report. Today's Wall Street Journal has an article by Robert G. Matthews, "Tax Overhaul Proposal Gets Lukewarm Welcome," which, if you are part of the FSU community, you...
US Constitution: Analysis & Interpretation
Posted on November 01, 2005The U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO) has released the 2002 Edition of and 2004 Supplement to The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis & Interpretation, prepared by the Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress. The text, available in...
Hurricane Katrina Litigation
Posted on October 31, 2005On October 17, 2005, Maples & Kirwan filed suit on behalf of Rocco and Thomas Tommaseo (1:05-cv-01119-SGB) in the Federal Court of Claims against the United States, alleging that the Army Corps of Engineers' creation of the Mississippi River Gulf...
New Tutorial for International Legal Research
Posted on October 27, 2005Students of international law wanting to develop their legal research skills will want to visit International Legal Research Tutorial, a new online tutorial developed by two law librarians from University of California, Berkeley and Duke University. "This tutorial is designed...
Illegal Beings
Posted on October 25, 2005One day human cloning may be possible, and once so, there will be no way of stopping this technology. People--infertile couples and others--will choose to use cloning even if it breaks the law. The Island, a provocative movie that makes...
Lawyers in Blogland
Posted on October 24, 2005Florida lawyers are joining the blogging bandwagon, and they're finding that it enhances their work. See Lawyers in Blogland in The Florida Bar News October 15, 2005 issue. Posted by Faye Jones
Genetic Privacy
Posted on October 21, 2005In 2003 Iceland's Supreme Court ruled in a controversial case that had to do with the development of a genealogical database of the Icelandic population, a genetic database of DNA sequence and other information produced from blood samples and most...
MS Word Help
Posted on October 20, 2005For help with Microsoft Word, there is an online guide here. The guide covers basic word features such as: setting margins, adding bullets, modifying autocorrect settings, adding symbols, adding a watermark, adding pagination including x of y numbering, footnotes and...
Publishers sue Google
Posted on October 20, 2005A group of publishers sued Google yesterday, alleging that Google's Print Library Project violates federal copyright law. Posted by Mary McCormick
New Bankruptcy Law
Posted on October 17, 2005The Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 takes effect today. There is a great deal of information about this act, including a redline summary showing changes from the previous law (here) as well as other bankruptcy news,...
Child Offenders Sentenced to Life
Posted on October 14, 2005A new report published jointly this week by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watc h finds that 2.225 child offenders have been tried as adults and sentenced to life in prison. The report, The Rest of Their Lives: Life without...
Leak of Identity of CIA Operative Valerie Plame
Posted on October 14, 2005Federal Prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, is in the final stage of his investigation into the outing of CIA officer Valerie Plame. The grand jury will be ending its session on October 28th. To access documents and reports related to this case,...
more on Healthcare Whistleblowing and Ethics
Posted on October 13, 2005An interesting article online here, discussing healthcare whistleblowing and virtue ethics. Practical virtue ethics: health care whistleblowing and portable digital technology From the Abstract: The authors examine whether healthcare whistleblowing should be considered central to any medical ethics emphasising professional...
RSS
Posted on October 12, 2005Really Simple Syndication RSS is a format for syndicating news or any other content that can be broken into discreet parts. Many news sites or other content sites provide an RSS feed. The RSS feed will 'push' content to the...
"Intelligent Design" in Public Schools
Posted on October 12, 2005In December 2004 eleven parents filed suit against the Dover (Pennsylvania) Area School Board in federal district court after the school board established a policy that biology teachers must read a statement about Intelligent Design at the beginning of the...
Trial of Saddam Hussein
Posted on October 11, 2005The trial of Saddam Hussein will begin on October 19, 2005. The Frederick K. Cox International Law Center at Case Western Reserve University School of Law has launched 'Grotian Moment: The Saddam Hussein Trial Blog'. The blog features key documents,....
Is There Life After Rankings?
Posted on October 10, 2005An article in Atlantic Monthly explores the ranking system of American institutions of higher learning, with a focus on the U.S. News and World Report's ranking system. Atlantic Monthly November 2005 Posted by Jon Lutz
Freakonomics
Posted on October 07, 2005"Which is more dangerous, a gun or a swimming pool? What do schoolteachers and sumo wrestlers have in common? Why do drug dealers still live with their moms? What kind of impact did Roe v. Wade have on violent crime?...
TCNY: Not a Matter of Settled Law
Posted on October 07, 2005The New Yorker has released its entire archives in an eight-DVD set. Every article and cartoon that the magazine has published in the last 80 years--this is material covering over 4,000 issues--has been condensed into this one volume. (Here's a...
FSU Classical Music
Posted on October 05, 2005FSU's Warren D. Allen Music Library has a campus-wide classical music subscription. It is not, alas, yet available via off-campus access. Posted by Mary McCormick
State of the World's Mothers 2005
Posted on October 05, 2005Mothers are the first teachers of the next generation, yet in many developing countries there are barriers to the education of the young girls who will become those mothers. Poverty, cultural norms and religious customs can discourage girls from learning...
Baseball - spectator injuries - limited duty rule
Posted on October 03, 2005The New Jersey Supreme Court has ruled that while a baseball fan assumes a risk of injury, ?[o]nce the fan has disengaged him--or herself from the activity on the field and has left the stands, that individual is no longer...
Breaking Silence
Posted on September 29, 2005Richard Alan White's Breaking Silence: The Case That Changed the Face of Human Rights tells the story of Joelito Filártiga, of his brutal torture and murder, and the demand for justice sought by his father. It documents the landmark legal...
Just Words
Posted on September 27, 2005John M. Conley and William M. O'Barr have published the second edition of Just Words: Law, Language, and Power, in which they "tackle the question of how an abstract entity exerts concrete power; focusing on what has become the central...
Free and Fee Based Appellate Briefs
Posted on September 26, 2005Michael Whiteman, Associate Dean for Law, Library Services & Information Technology, Chase College of Law, Northern Kentucky University, has posted "Free and Fee Based Appellate Court Briefs Online" at LLRX (Law Library Resource Exchange, LLC). Posted by Mary McCormick
Intelligent Design
Posted on September 23, 2005A federal judge in Pennsylvania will hear arguments Monday September 26 in a lawsuit that could establish how students are taught science for years to come. The case is Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District. Here is a copy of...
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NY Jets join Cincinnati, Dallas, Green Bay, Houston & Seattle #NFL teams offering branded state lottery games
On 08-12 at 12:43PM
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