Legal Research

New Yorker Airport Security Cartoons

Posted on November 29, 2010
I had the good fortune to avoid Thanksgiving travel that involved any contact with the TSA, but I realize that others were not so lucky. For those of you who had to choose between the full-body scanner and the TSA...

Ninth Circuit OKs TV Coverage of Prop 8 Hearing

Posted on November 23, 2010
Recently, the Ninth Circuit granted C-SPAN's request to televise the December 6 Proposition 8 hearing. Coverage will begin at 10 a.m. on Monday, December 6. The entire first hour of the hearing will be devoted to considering the question of...

Alumni Access to Law Library

Posted on November 17, 2010
I was helping a student with a research project the other day and she said, "What am I going to do after I graduate when I need research help?" I reminded her that she will still have access to the...

Good Luck, USF Grads!

Posted on November 16, 2010
Bar Result Friday is this Friday, November 19. We hope that all of our graduates receive good news when they sign on at 6 pm on Friday!

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Veterans Day

Posted on November 11, 2010
Today is Veterans Day, and ZiefBrief wishes to extend a big "thank you" to all of the men and women who have served our country. A few websites that you may want to check out: A PDF of Dwight Eisenhower's...

Richard Leo on Frontline

Posted on November 11, 2010
Professor Richard Leo appeared on Frontline's November 9 program, The Confessions, which chronicles the ordeal of four men wrongfully convicted of murder, The Norfolk Four. Professor Leo is the co-author of a book about The Norfolk Four case, The Wrong...

Zief Law Library Helps San Francisco Opera

Posted on November 10, 2010
Recently the Zief Law Library was contacted by the San Francisco Opera regarding their production of the Makropulos Case, a Czech opera featuring the Finnish soprano Karita Mattila. They were in need of law books for the set of their...

From Pro Athlete to Law Firm

Posted on November 08, 2010
NYT's City Blog had an interesting post last week about pro athletes who transitioned from locker rooms to law firms. Not surprisingly, a lot of ex-athletes end up as litigators, including Kevin Clauson, a former pro hockey player who received...

First Star Trek, Now Monty Python Cited by Courts

Posted on November 08, 2010
Last week we Tweeted a blog post about a recent decision that included a reference to Star Trek's Mr. Spock. In a concurring opinion Texas Supreme Court Justice Don R. Willet quoted Spock's maxim that it was only logical that...

The Wire and Legal Scholarship

Posted on October 27, 2010
One of my favorite TV shows of all time is "The Wire," so it was great to see on CrimProf Blog that Professor I. Bennett Capers of Hofstra University has posted an essay on SSRN entitled "Crime, Legitimacy, Our Criminal...

Selling Class Notes Illegal in CA

Posted on October 20, 2010
We've blogged before about provisions in the California Education Code that make it illegal to sell term papers in California. Now a new service, NoteUtopia, that allows students to buy or sell class notes online is coming under fire from...

Law Professor Support For Prop 19

Posted on October 14, 2010
Wondering which California law professors support Proposition 19, the ballot initiative that would legalize marijuana under California law? You'll find the list on the Yes on Prop 19 website.

National Coming Out Day

Posted on October 11, 2010
October 11th is National Coming Out Day, an internationally observed day of awareness and pride for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community. The term "coming out" stands for coming out of the closet or coming out of hiding....

Snyder v. Phelps Roundup

Posted on October 07, 2010
It seems like everyone in the legal blogosphere is talking about oral arguments in the SCOTUS case, Snyder v. Phelps, which concerns whether the First Amendment protects protesters at military funerals from liability for intentional infliction of emotional distress...

Part-time Student Research Assistants needed at Zief Law Library

Posted on October 06, 2010
Get valuable research experience working for law faculty. Interested candidates should log-in to www.USFLawLink.com to view the job posting under "Internship/Job Listings".

Richard Leo Featured in False Confessions Article

Posted on October 05, 2010
New York magazine recently published Robert Kolker's article, "I Did It," which explains how false confessions happen in our criminal justice system. Professor Richard Leo's research on false confessions is featured in the article.

What You Say On Facebook Can And Will Be Used Against You.

Posted on October 04, 2010
ZiefBrief has commented in the past on the pitfalls of Facebook and other social networking sites when it comes to becoming a lawyer. Now the incomparable Bruce Schneier's blog at Schneier on Security has uncovered a new service calling itself...

Perez v. Lippold Anniversary Today

Posted on October 01, 2010
Westlaw Insider's Jon Hanke has a very interesting post today about the California Supreme Court decision, Perez v. Lippold, 32 Cal. 2d 711, which voided California's ban on interracial marriages on October 1, 1948, 19 years before the US Supreme...

A Cautionary Wikipedia Tale

Posted on September 20, 2010
Librarians use Wikipedia, but because we know that anyone can edit a Wikipedia entry, we are cautious about relying on its contents until we find another source that confirms an entry's statements. Apparently, Rush Limbaugh's staff is not so careful....

Prof. Freiwald Posts About Cell Location Privacy Decision On Concurring Opionions Blog

Posted on September 13, 2010
As posted earlier, USF Law Professor Susan Freiwald filed a friend of the court brief and participated in oral arguments in an important case before the Federal Third Circuit Court of Appeal. This morning she posted her take on the...

Google Books: Faulty Metadata?

Posted on September 09, 2010
Laura Miller at Salon has written a fascinating and troubling article on Google Books. Miller interviews UC Berkeley professor Geoffrey Nunberg who wrote earlier about finding "endemic" errors in Google Books in an article for the Chronicle of Higher Education...

Third Circuit Hands Down Decision On Case Briefed and Argued by Professor Freiwald

Posted on September 08, 2010
As reported earlier, University of San Francisco School of Law Professor Susan Freiwald authored an amicus brief and took part in the oral arguments before the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. The case involves the compelled...

Law School Survival Manual

Posted on September 03, 2010
Over at the law professor blog, The Faculty Lounge, Professor Laura Appleman recommends the recently published, Law School Survival Manual, by Nancy Rapoport and Jeffrey Van Niel, for OneLs and the law professors who advise them. Many books that advise...

Google Realtime Allows Social Media Content Searching

Posted on September 03, 2010
Google recently announced a specialized search page, Google Realtime, which allows you to search social media content from Twitter, Facebook, and more. Read about it on the official Google blog. Thanks for the tip, WisBlawg!

NYC's New Bedbug Law

Posted on September 02, 2010
San Francisco is known for its offbeat legislation. We are the only city in America with an ordinance requiring cell phone retailers to post radiation emission information with the cell phones that they sell. We were the first city in...

Free Electronic Copies of Casebooks

Posted on August 26, 2010
A few professors have decided to create their own electronic versions of casebooks for their classes, which they are willing to share with others at no charge. Eric Johnson just posted the first volume of the Torts casebook that he...

You Can't Do This With a Kindle

Posted on August 24, 2010
One of the Seattle Public Library bloggers reports on how a library patron used his stack of library books to thwart a purse-snatcher: Recently, my sister was living in Los Angeles and visiting her neighborhood library every day to use...

Rent a Casebook from West

Posted on August 09, 2010
If your professor assigns a West-published casebook for your class, you may have the option of renting the casebook and saving a bit of money. According to West, you can write and highlight in your rented casebook, and you won't...

Law Library of Congress Blog

Posted on August 06, 2010
The Law Library of Congress has a new blog, In Custodia Legis.

SCOTUSblog Roundup of Coverage of Prop 8 Decision

Posted on August 06, 2010
SCOTUSblog has compiled a thorough post with links to the major news stories and commentary about the landmark Prop 8 ruling issued by a Northern California federal district court this week. You can find more about the case on the...

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