Legal Research

Massachusetts Acts and Resolves

Posted on January 22, 2009
The Massachusetts Acts and Resolves from 1876-2008 are now available online through the State Library. This makes doing historical research on Massachusetts Law much easier. A wonderful resource.Source: Massachusetts Law Updates

President Obama Resources

Posted on January 22, 2009
If you missed it the first time or just want to relive history, watch the inauguration here: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/inaugural-address/.Get news on Barack Obama's first days in the White House:Huffington PostChicago TribuneSee the Daily Compilation of Presidential Documents for executive orders of the President...

Dianne Wilkerson Affidavit and News Coverage

Posted on October 29, 2008
Yesterday Dianne Wilkerson, Massachusetts state senator, was arrested on charges of attempted extortion and wire fraud. The following are some links to the affidavit and news coverage.AffidavitPhoenix article (including photos)Timeline of Sen. Wilkerson's Troubles (Boston Herald)

Senate Passes Emergency Economic Stabilization Act

Posted on October 02, 2008
Yesterday the U.S. Senate passed the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008. You can find the full-text of the latest version of this bill on the website of the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. This web page also contains a one page summary and a section by section analysis...

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Beyond LexisNexis and Westlaw

Posted on August 22, 2008
Legal research doesn't begin and end with LexisNexis and Westlaw. Broaden your horizens by coming to a database training session for an overview of law library databases as well as research tips and strategies. Could be the most productive half hour of your semester!Trainings will be held in room 725 in the library on the following dates:Tuesday, August 26th at 2pmWednesday, August 27th at 5pmThursday, August 28th at 3pmQuestions? Stop by the law library reference desk on the 6th floor of the library, email lawref@suffolk...

Welcome Back!

Posted on August 18, 2008
It's the start of a new year, and the law library has some help as you ease (or jump) back in.First, we'll be offering "roaming reference" services on the 4th floor near the cafeteria today (11-1 and 5-6), tomorrow (12-2 and 5-6), and this Thursday (11-2 and 5-6)...

ORIENTATION

Posted on August 12, 2008
Welcome! We'll be giving brief library tours to new law students between 7:00 and 9:00 PM on Tuesday, August 12. Please stop by the law library on the 6th floor for a tour.And stop by the reference desk any time with questions, research help, or just to get pointed in the right direction!

MCAD: Men Eligible for Maternity Leave

Posted on June 10, 2008
In what has been described as a "bombshell," MCAD Commissioner Martin B. Ebel recently stated that MCAD will in the future apply the Massachusetts Maternity Act in a gender-neutral fashion. This means that men, as well as women, may be eligible for maternity leave, despite the fact that the Act specifically applies to women...

Help With Your Summer Legal Writing

Posted on June 10, 2008
Need to write a client letter or legal memo and not quite sure how to go about it? Check out the law library's recently posted legal writing list on our Topics A-Z site. It's a recommended list of books covering various types of legal writing. Most of them have sample documents (e...

Summer Reading

Posted on May 30, 2008
Summer's a great time catch up on your reading. Over the next three months I'll periodically list miscellaneous articles that seem worth reading. Here's the first batch:Breaking News! 2d [Circuit] Issues Major Student First Amendment Decision Involving BlogsChildhoood Lead Exposure Linked to Adult CrimeUN Report: Soaring Food Prices: Facts, Perspectives, Impacts, and Actions RequiredUnder Pressure, White House Issues Global Change Report, plus the report itself,Scientific Assessment of the Effects of Global Change on the United StatesSources: Adjunct Law Prof Blog, USA Today, Food Law Prof Blog, Washington Post

Oceans Act of 2008

Posted on May 29, 2008
Yesterday Governor Patrick signed the nation's first comprehensive ocean planning law. The Oceans Act of 2008 requires Massachusetts to create a plan to manage development in its coastal waters, balancing natural resource preservation with traditional and new uses, including renewable energy...

PODCASTS!

Posted on May 28, 2008
Check out the new Suffolk Law LPS podcast series Transitioning from One-L to Summer Legal Work. Nineteen podcasts delivered by legal writing professors from across the country cover "real world" practice tips on topics like creating a research file, editing your work, and effectively delivering legal information...

More Summer Tips

Posted on May 23, 2008
Check out the Law Library's new Summer Resources link on the Library's home page. For even more real-world, practical tips on landing a job, check out this list: Top Tips for Summer -- before you worry about resumes and cover letters. Also important to consider: 5 stages of working with support staff...

Writing for law reviews

Posted on May 16, 2008
Trying to write-on to a law review? Already on, and writing a note? In either case, check out Academic Legal Writing: law review articles, student notes, seminar papers, and getting on law review, by Eugene Volokh. A well-respected source that is well worth your time...

Voter ID Upheld

Posted on April 30, 2008
Yesterday the U.S. Supreme Court upheld an Indiana statute that requires voters to show government-issued identification at polling places. Whether the controversial decision in Crawford v. Marion County Board, 553 US __ (2008) will end up disenfranchising otherwise eligible voters who do not possess government-issued ID -- such as poor, elderly and disabled individuals -- will be quickly tested in next week's presidential primary in Indiana...

You have a job offer -- now what?

Posted on April 30, 2008
For a practical and productive list of things to consider, check out Responding to a Job Offer. Could be just the advice you need.Source: Career & Professional Development Blog

Summer Help

Posted on April 29, 2008
The reference librarians have prepared a one page handout covering Westlaw and Lexis summer access, other electronic resources you can use this summer, and tips on landing a job. Copies are at the reference desk. Stop by and pick one up.For job tips you can also see this guide, or check out the display case outside the fifth floor reading room...

New Rule Requires Privilege Log

Posted on April 29, 2008
Effective April 1, 2008, the Mass. Rules of Civil Procedure were amended to include a new section, Rule 26 (b) (5), governing claims of privilege or protection of materials during discovery. The amendment requires that the party withholding material prepare a privilege log, as further specified in the Rule...

Online access to Early Mass. Reports

Posted on April 18, 2008
A new resource for those looking to access the earliest Mass. Reports. The Google Books Project has scanned full text copies of Volumes 1-238 of Massachusetts Reports, which means they are now freely accessible on the web. And to make it simpler, the Mass...

News + Museum = Newseum

Posted on April 18, 2008
Recently opened in D.C. , the Newseum bills itself as the "interactive museum of news...where news comes to life." Sounds like a great place to visit the next time you're in D.C. But in the meantime, definitely check out its website. Every day it displays online copies of the front pages of over 600 daily newspapers from 58 countries...

Bankruptcy filings up--again

Posted on April 18, 2008
More tough economic news. Total US bankruptcy filings increased by 6% for the first quarter of 2008, over the last quarter of 2007--and a whopping 24% over the same quarter in 2007. For the actual numbers, see Credit Slips.Source: BankruptcyProf Blog

* Dream Jobs *

Posted on April 16, 2008
Currently showing in the fifth floor display case: Tips for Landing the Job of Your Dreams . Playing to the end of the semester.Reviewers say "A must see!" "An invaluable resource!"Stop by and see it for yourself. It's loaded with concrete tips to help you in your job hunt.

Mass. Employment Law Update

Posted on April 15, 2008
A new law mandating triple damages in the event an employer violates the Mass. weekly wage statute went into effect yesterday. For responses from both proponents and opponents of the new law, see the articles in today's Boston Globe and Boston Herald...

Public Interest Law: Pro Bono Opportunites

Posted on April 08, 2008
Looking for experience? Have you seen The Pro Bono Opportunities Guide, published by the Mass. Bar Association? It's an online, comprehensive listing of statewide agencies that need pro bono assistance from attorneys, law students or paralegals. Definitely worth a look...

One Less Worry

Posted on April 04, 2008
It's Friday afternoon and time to relax. Would you be less worried if you won a $10,000 law school scholarship for the 2008-2009 academic year? Check out the One Less Worry contest being run by student lender Access Group. Create a short video about what worries you in law school, upload it to YouTube, fill out the entry form, and you could be on your way...

Public Interest Law: Earthjustice

Posted on April 04, 2008
Earthjustice is a non-profit law firm specializing in environmental work. Founded in 1971 as the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund but renamed in 1997 as Earthjustice, the firm employs 55 attorneys at nine offices nationwide and represents hundreds of clients without charge...

Suffolk Law Databases

Posted on March 25, 2008
By now you?re all familiar with Westlaw and Lexis. But have you looked at the wealth of databases offered by the Law Library?A very useful place to start is Law School Research Databases by Subject. Set up in question and answer format (If you?re researching X?, try using Y databases), this page quickly gets you to the most useful databases...

Pro Bono in Boston

Posted on March 24, 2008
Check out the interesting article in the March 17 Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly discussing pro bono work at large firms in Boston. A new trend is to have a full time pro bono manager, and even full time pro bono attorneys.Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly

Public Interest Law

Posted on March 24, 2008
On a related note, have you seen the new display case on the fifth floor of the Library? In keeping with its Public Interest Law theme, we?ll be highlighting some Public Interest Law web sites over the next few weeks, starting this Wednesday.

Let Them Eat Clones -- Take Two

Posted on March 20, 2008
A Freedom of Information Act request from the Center for Food Safety together with several other groups has turned up a report commissioned by the FDA descriptively titled ?Focus Groups on the Public?s Perception on the Health Risk Associated with Products from Animal Clones?...

Mexico and the Caribbean

Posted on March 05, 2008
Does the upcoming spring break bring thoughts of Mexico or the Caribbean? Check out these two useful resource guides, recently posted on LLRX.com: Mexico & Its Legal System Research Guide and The Caribbean Court of Justice Research Guide.Source: LLRX...

BLUEBOOK now online!

Posted on February 27, 2008
The Bluebook is now available online. It's not free, but the subscription-based service makes searching easy, allows you to make and share bookmarks, and includes "Blue Tips", described as "authoritative guidance to reasonable questions on subjects covered by The Bluebook...

EEOC Discrimination Cases

Posted on February 14, 2008
The U.S Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) recently instituted theE-RACE Initiative, "designed to improve EEOC?s efforts to ensure workplaces are free of race and color discrimination. " As part of the E-RACE Initiative, the EEOC has compiled a list of significant EEOC race/color cases in both the private and federal sectors...

Public Library of Law

Posted on February 14, 2008
You may be familiar with Fastcase, a subscription legal database. Now Fastcase has released a free online version, The Public Library of Law, self-described as "the most comprehensive free resource for legal research online." The free library contains cases from the U...

Notable Legal Websites: 2007

Posted on January 23, 2008
Law.com has published its list of the five most notable legal sites of 2007, which it describes as "the sites that made news or should have made news -- not necessarily the best or the worst, but the ones that most altered the online legal landscape." The background and discussion about each site make this a must-read...

Economic Stimulus Package

Posted on January 22, 2008
In light of the current economic turmoil, it's worth looking at a collection of links discussing the pros and cons of tax rebates as part of a proposed economic stimulus package. Also check out the Joint Committee on Taxation's document titled Overview of Past Tax Legislation Providing Fiscal Stimulus and Issues in Designing and Delivering a Cash Rebate to Individuals (JCX-4-08)...

RetrieveLaw from home

Posted on January 16, 2008
The Mass. Trial Court Law Libraries are offering a useful new service. RetrieveLaw allows Trial Court Law Library cardholders to remotely access Massachusetts and Federal primary law, including Mass. SJC and Appeals Court cases, Mass. General Laws, CMR, Mass...

FDA: Cloned animals safe for food

Posted on January 15, 2008
The FDA has issued a controversial report concluding that foods from healthy cloned animals and their offspring are as safe as those from ordinary animals. Even more controversially, the FDA does not call for such meat to be labeled or tracked. As reported in the Washington Post, this removes the last U...

Diverging Interest Rate Policies?

Posted on January 15, 2008
For a look at the startling differences between the Fed's current policy of cutting interest rates and the European Central Bank's consideration of raising interest rates, see yesterday's article in Central Banker. A recent New York Times article also looked at the different approaches, discussing whether it is realistic or possible for Europe to "decouple" its economy from the United States...

Mass Jury Duty Web Site

Posted on December 18, 2007
The Commonwealth launched a new web site devoted to jury duty services - http://www.massjury.com/. On this site you can find general information about juror service in Massachusetts, information about serving jury duty if you are summoned, and forms for jurors...

New Jersey Abolishes Death Penalty

Posted on December 17, 2007
Today Governor Jon S. Corzine of New Jersey signed a bill abolishing the death penalty in New Jersey. Passed last week by the New Jersey Assembly and Senate, the bill is the first legislative abolition of the death penalty since the Supreme Court reauthorized the death penalty in 1976...

Ask.com Now Allows Erasing of Searches

Posted on December 11, 2007
Ask.com unveiled AskEraser today. When it is enabled, "AskEraser will completely delete your search queries and data from Ask.com servers, including: your IP address, User ID and Session ID cookies, as well as the complete text of your search query--all within a matter of hours...

Gall v. US and Kimbrough v. US Resources (addressing federal sentencing)

Posted on December 11, 2007
The following are some resources for Gall v. US [opinion] and Kimbrough v. US [opinion], both of which addressed issues in federal sentencing:SCOTUSblog Posts: Commentary: Gall and Appellate Court Transparency, Commentary: A Justice-by-Justice Review of Gall and Kimbrough, Commentary: Winners and Losers in Gall and Kimbrough and Commentary: Gall Advances the Booker Revolution, But Also Leaves Fodder for the Court of Appeals Counter-Revolutionaries...

Civil Procedure Changes

Posted on December 06, 2007
Civil Procedure will never be the same.First, the rewritten Federal Rules of Civil Procedure went into effect on December 1, 2007. Characterized as comprehensive "style-only" revisions, the changes make style and terminology consistent throughtout the Rules...

HeinOnline Offers Help

Posted on December 05, 2007
HeinOnline, one of the law schools legal databases, now offers live help through the "Help" button found in the upper right hand corner, on the welcome screen, and in the technical and training sections of the home page.HeinOnline offers access to full text of hundreds of recent and older legal periodicals, English Reports, Code of Federal Regulations, Federal Register, U...

Fakes and Counterfeits

Posted on November 19, 2007
Check out stopfakes.gov, a useful government web site focused on protecting intellectual property . Practical and business-oriented, it provides webinars, an IP Quarterly Update, a link to the Top 10 Ways to Protect Yourself, and country-specific toolkits containing how-to?s on protecting intellectual property rights in Brazil, China, Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru, Russia and Taiwan...

New Protections Against Identity Theft

Posted on November 19, 2007
Also worth checking out-- the Final Rules relating to Identity Theft Red Flags, recently published in the Federal Register. Requiring financial instututions and creditors to set up identity theft protection programs, the rules were adopted under the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act (FACTA)...

House votes to prohibit employment discrimination based on sexual orientation

Posted on November 08, 2007
The U.S. House of Representatives just voted to pass H.R. 3685, a bill to prohibit employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. The bill now goes to the Senate for a vote.

Federal Circuit has a new Webpage

Posted on October 22, 2007
The Federal Circuit is relocating its web page. The notice from the court reads: "The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit is relocating its Internet Web page to its own in-house servers. As part of this process, the court's Web page address and domain name will be changed to www...

Supreme Court Year End Round-Up

Posted on July 13, 2007
Scotusblog is a great source of information on the Court all term long but at the end of the term, they post not-to-be-missed year end statistics. There are also some interesting posts about the Supreme Court decisions under the Commentary and Analysis tab.

Immigration Reform Bill Guide

Posted on June 20, 2007
Georgetown Law Library has put together a very informative, up-to-date guide to the The Immigration Reform Bill of the 110th Congress. It contains links to congressional documents and news and commentary.Source: Law Librarian Blog

New Guides on GlobaLex

Posted on June 20, 2007
There are new research guides available on GlobaLex, including one updating The Croatian Legal System and Legal Research Guide and another updating Swedish Law on the Internet. GlobaLex is a great resource for authoritative research guides on international, comparative, and foreign law.

Tips for Law Review Notes

Posted on June 12, 2007
See another great post by Betsy McKenzie focused on law review writing. Also, stop by the reference desk on the 6th floor of the law library for a handout on finding circuit splits.

Studying for the Bar this Summer?

Posted on June 12, 2007
Betsy McKenzie, the director of the Suffolk Law Library, has some really helpful tips posted at her blog, Out of the Jungle

SJC Opinions

Posted on May 17, 2007
You can now search opinions of the SJC and Massachusetts Court of Appeals from 2001-present on the web page of Office of Reporter of Decisions of the SJC. The opinions can be found in the opinion archive and you can search by party name, docket number, or keyword...

Massachusetts Trial Court Site on E-Discovery

Posted on May 08, 2007
The Massachusetts Trial Courts have posted a fairly new web page on E-Discovery: http://www.lawlib.state.ma.us/e-discovery.html. Check it out for print and online resources on this topic.

Justia Regulations Tracker

Posted on May 08, 2007
Justia has developed a new U.S. regulations tracker: http://regulations.justia.com/. You can search for regulations, orders, proposed rules, and notices for the last three years by keyword. You can also browse by federal agency (documents are in reverse chronological order using the browse feature)...

New FDS Website

Posted on May 08, 2007
The FDA has launced a new website geared to consumers: www.fda.gov/consumer. This website contains easy to read publications, information about medicine, vaccines, and food. It has a featured topic section, for example one of today's topics is about generic drugs and consumer updates, such as an update on the FDA's investigation of tainted animal food...

Latest Edition of the Law Library Newsletter

Posted on April 30, 2007
The latest issue of Legal Ease, the Suffolk Law Library Newsletter has been posted to our website.This issue has a lot of tips for graduating students and students working at law firms over the summer. For instance, seeMust-Know Sources for Associates for some tips on indispensable Massachusetts Legal resources...