Legal Research

Full Acme Industries Catalog Will Be Boon To Personal Injury & Product Liability Bar.

Posted on May 16, 2008
As noted in a recent ZiefBrief post, the pressure of exams can lead to the need for some comic relief. One long-time favorite in the tiny realm of legal humor is the essay Coyote v. Acme by Ian Frasier, originally...

Full Acme Industries Catalog Will Be Boon To Personal Injury & Product Liability Bar

Posted on May 16, 2008
As noted in a recent ZiefBrief post, the pressure of exams can lead to the need for some comic relief. One long-time favorite in the tiny realm of legal humor is the essay Coyote v. Acme by Ian Frasier, originally...

Putting Today's Same-Sex Marriage Decision in Context

Posted on May 15, 2008
Those looking to build a law review topic out of today's California Supreme Court decision in In re Marriage Cases (No. S147999, Cal. May 15, 2008) [PDF; 172 pages] (News release [PDF; 7 pages]) might want to explore these research...

CA Supreme Court Rules on Same-Sex Marriage

Posted on May 15, 2008
The California Supreme Court ruled today that language within California laws designating marriage as a union solely between "a man and a woman" is "unconstitutional and must be stricken from the statute." A larger excerpt of the court's holding appears...

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The *?$%! Bluebook

Posted on May 14, 2008
Let's face it. The Bluebook can be a baffling, frustrating experience for first-time cite-checkers. Our wise colleague, Mary Whisner, at the University of Washington's Gallagher Law Library, has a helpful essay in the Law Library Journal on Bluebook woes, "The...

Lost and Found Items at Circ Desk

Posted on May 09, 2008
Did you ever wonder what happened to your travel coffee mug? Did you leave your phone charger behind somewhere? Are you missing a hat? Stop by the Circulation Desk and look through our Lost and Found items to see if...

McSweeney's List on Law School Classes

Posted on May 06, 2008
At this point in the semester, everybody needs a little dark humor, right? Check out this McSweeney's List of "Classes My Top-Tier Law School Should Have Offered As Warnings About the Profession." Thanks to Above the Law for posting this...

Group Study Rooms

Posted on April 30, 2008
Group Study Rooms are available for groups of 2 or more law students for one 2-hour study session per group per day. To reserve a room in advance, stop by the Circ Desk and get signed up in our book....

Learn How to Find U.S. Congressional Materials

Posted on April 28, 2008
A pair of librarians at U.C. Berkeley have put together a short series of informative tutorials to help you figure out how to find U.S. Congressional materials both on-line and in print. It is pretty basic stuff but it could...

Wireless Printing From Your Mac at USF Law

Posted on April 27, 2008
A question from a student and fellow Macintosh user reminded us at ZiefBrief that we've been wanting to post some handy instructions on how to print wirelessly from Macs at the law school here at USF. A hat-tip to our...

Clever Viral Video: Legal Research - The Movie

Posted on April 23, 2008
It takes a lot to make ZiefBrief chuckle at something on YouTube but our crack librarian-in-training/intern Suzanne Mawhinney shared this with us and we thought we would pass it along. The work of Stanford Law students, it is only NSFW...

Trouble With Food and Drink in the Library.

Posted on April 21, 2008
Due to growing complaints about the noise and odor that accompanies eating, the Zief Law Library is stepping up enforcement of the existing "no food" policy. We are trying to do it as unobtrusively and with as much good humor...

Finding Quotations on Google News

Posted on April 21, 2008
Google News just announced a nifty new feature -- if you enter the name of a prominent figure in the news in the Google News search box, you can (sometimes) retrieve quotations made by this person. You can also search...

The Librarians Are Reading (Part II)...

Posted on April 18, 2008
My personal reading has its own ebbs and flows -- some days I only want to read to escape, other times its heavy on the non-fiction, sometimes its nothing but biography. As it turns out, my recent reading list has...

Fifty Most Powerful Blogs

Posted on April 18, 2008
ZiefBrief's authors are shocked and dismayed to find that ZiefBrief has not made it onto the list of the "50 most powerful blogs," compiled by the UK publication, the Guardian. How could we have been overlooked? The top 5 on...

Some Non-Law Reading

Posted on April 17, 2008
Animals In Translation : Using The Mysteries Of Autism To Decode Animal Behavior by Temple Grandin and Catherine Johnson. Temple Grandin is autistic and is probably best known for her research and expertise in redesigning slaughterhouses in a more humane...

The Librarians Are Reading...

Posted on April 16, 2008
Beginning with last year's National Library Week, we've started a tradition of posting some of the librarians' favorite reads. Here are a few of mine from the first part of this year: The Yiddish Policemen's Union, by Michael Chabon. What...

Browsers, Lexis, and Westlaw

Posted on April 15, 2008
We just saw an announcement from Westlaw, warning users not to use certain older versions of browsers when researching on Westlaw -- here's the announcement: Starting in March, westlaw.com platforms will not support Web browser versions earlier than the following:...

Economic Prospects for Attorneys

Posted on April 08, 2008
The Chicago Tribune has a story this week about the financial realities of practicing law that's worth a read.

Westlaw and Lexis Summer Access

Posted on April 04, 2008
Most 1Ls are probably unaware that Westlaw and Lexis switch off law student access to most of their research systems during the summer. Only certain students qualify for continued summer access to the entire Lexis and Westlaw research systems. Westlaw...

Presentation on Cite-Checking Basics

Posted on March 26, 2008
We recently presented a few basic tips for law review and journal members who are getting started with cite-checking, and you can find the presentation here: Download journalcitechecking.ppt

New Internet Meme Would Make Great Law School Final Exam Question

Posted on March 25, 2008
What would you do if you came home one day and found a mob of 30 people looting your home? Robert Salisbury, a Jacksonville, Oregon contractor, faced such a crowd and it appears that the Internet is to blame. Someone...

The Man Behind the Curtain

Posted on March 25, 2008
The ABA Journal's April 2008 cover story on U.S. News & World Report's law school rankings includes an interview with the man who devised the ranking system, Bob Morse. After reading the article, I found out that Bob Morse has...

Google Scholar Indexing HeinOnline Journal Content

Posted on March 25, 2008
WisBlawg reports that you can now find law review article citations from HeinOnline mixed in with your Google Scholar search results. HeinOnline is the "world's largest image-based legal research database" and it features a very large law journal library...

Scalia's Oscar the Grouch Comment

Posted on March 20, 2008
A recent Law.com article notes that Justice Scalia mentioned Oscar the Grouch in his dissenting opinion in Washington State Grange v. Washington State Republican Party, released last Tuesday. When I was a kid, Oscar the Grouch was my favorite Sesame....

Scientists Re-evaluate Reliability of Child Witnesses.

Posted on March 18, 2008
An entry for the blog ScienceDaily explodes some long held assumptions about the reliability of testimony by child witnesses. Researchers now suggest that child witnesses see and recall events differently from adults. According to the article: "Scientists found that humans...

Meth Labs and Lawsuits

Posted on March 17, 2008
We've all heard of lawsuits over mold infestation or lead contamination within residential properties, but apparently, if you're looking for a new home, you need to worry about more than just mold, old paint, and other maintenance issues. You've also...

Revamping Third Year

Posted on March 12, 2008
Washington and Lee's law school announced recently that it is completely changing the structure of its third year curriculum by replacing all academic courses with experiential courses. According to the school's press release, "traditional classroom instruction will be replaced by...

Nuclear Non-Proliferation ? A New Way Forward from Prof. Jack Garvey

Posted on March 03, 2008
Addressing acknowledged flaws in the consensual regime of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, USF's Professor Jack I. Garvey calls for a New Architecture for the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. The keystone of the new architecture would be a United Nations Security...

California Supreme Court Hears Arguments Tomorrow in Same Sex Marriage Cases

Posted on March 03, 2008
The San Francisco Chronicle has an extensive article this morning about tomorrow's oral arguments on the same sex marriage cases at the California Supreme Court. Briefs by the parties can be found here. Interested in watching the arguments live? You....

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