Legal Research

AALL Student Essay Contest

Posted on November 04, 2008
The Legal History and Rare Books Special Interest Section of the American Association of Law Libraries announces the first annual Morris L. Cohen Student Essay Competition. The American Association of Law Libraries promotes the value of law libraries to the...

Global Presidential Poll

Posted on November 03, 2008
What if the world voted for America's next president tomorrow? Some people say it should be able to since the president's decisions often greatly impact citizens of other nations. Well, Reader's Digest conducted a poll in 17 countries (including the....

Has Google's Tentative Copyright Settlement Made It More Difficult for Others To Compete With Its Book Search Service?

Posted on November 03, 2008
The Washington Post's James Gibson reviews the anti-competitive effects of Google's tentative copyright settlement in Google's New Monopoly? See also LLB's Google Reaches Tentative Settlement of Book Search Copyright Class Action. [JH]

ALA Requesting $100 Million in Stimulus Funding for Public Libraries from Congress

Posted on November 03, 2008
The American Library Association is requesting $100 million from Congress to aid the nation's public library system to allow them to continue to provide critical library services to it's constituencies. ALA?s recommendation for stimulus funding seeks "support for basic library...

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Windows 7 is coming

Posted on November 03, 2008
In the ever annoying advertising battle between Apple and Windows it appears that Windows is not spending all that money on advertising as the commercials imply. Some of it appears to have been spent on Windows 7 which is on...

Diebold Accidentally Leaks Results of 2008 Presidential Election

Posted on November 03, 2008
Diebold's PR spokesperson reports that "we will be pretending to count votes" on election night for the benefit of TV viewers. Hat tip to Ron Jones. [JH] Diebold Accidentally Leaks Results Of 2008 Election Early

Election 2008: The Whole World is Watching and Blogging

Posted on November 03, 2008
In his Washington Post article, The Election That Has the Whole World Blogging, Jose Antonio Vargas observes that "foreigners have paid attention to America's presidential elections through newspapers and television in the past. But the continued mainstreaming of the Internet,...

Bush Leaves His Stamp on the Federal Appeals Court Bench

Posted on November 03, 2008
Republican-appointed judges, most of them conservatives, control 10 of the 13 circuits, while judges appointed by Democrats have a dwindling majority on just one circuit according to Charlie Savage's New York Times article, Appeals Courts Pushed to Right by Bush...

The Insurance for Troubled Assets Provisions of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008

Posted on November 03, 2008
The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 (EESA), P.L. 110-343, is intended to address recent instability in the financial market through a variety of measures, including an insurance program for "troubled assets." This insurance program would provide U...

Committee Holds Hearing on the the Role of Federal Regulators in the Financial Crisis

Posted on November 03, 2008
The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform held a hearing entitled, ?The Financial Crisis and the Role of Federal Regulators?. The hearing examined the roles and responsibilities of federal regulators in the current financial crisis. A preliminary hearing transcript...

Google and NASA To Test Web Surfing in Space

Posted on November 02, 2008
Google and NASA are partnering up to let astronauts surf the web while in orbit. The project, called Interplanetary Internet, will be tested aboard the International Space Station in 2009. If it works out, space missions in the future will...

Colleges Spending Significant Dollars to Address the Issue of Illegal Peer-to Peer Filesharing

Posted on November 01, 2008
According to a new report from the Campus Computing Project, colleges are spending in excess of $150K to curb students from downloading copyrighted music and movies. In Campus Costs of P2P Compliance, "the Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2008 imposes...

Spooky Law Review Articles

Posted on October 31, 2008
According to Amy Burchfield, Access & Faculty Services Librarian, Cleveland-Marshall College of Law, five of the top twenty spookiest law review articles ever written are: Caveat Spiritus: A Jurisprudential Reflection Upon the Law of Haunted Houses and Ghosts 28 Val...

Are Retirement Savings Too Exposed to Market Risk?

Posted on October 31, 2008
According to a new report from the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, maybe so. In Are Retirement Savings Too Exposed to Market Risk? Alicia Munnell and Dan Muldoon look at the shift from a defined benefit plan to...

Writing Contest: What I Wish Everyone Knew About Librarians

Posted on October 31, 2008
Smart Poodle Publishing is conducting the writing contest which is open only to librarians of public, private and school/university libraries in the United States and who are legal residents of the Unites States. Grand Prize $500 2nd place Prize $100...

Friday Fun: The Computers Are Panicking!

Posted on October 31, 2008
By now most of us with TIAA-CREF accounts have reviewed our latest quarterly statement and have calculated how many extra years we will have to work to make up for the losses. CNBC pundits are saying it will take 10-15...

CiteGenie for Bluebooking Westlaw

Posted on October 31, 2008
CiteGenie is a new extension for the Firefox web browser that creates Bluebook formatted pinpoint citations from Westlaw. Haven't tried it yet but Marc Hershovitz gave CiteGenie a fairly comprehensive test drive. He reviews CiteGenie and explains how to install...

Promoting Women?s Human Rights: A Resources Guide for Litigating International Law in Domestic Courts

Posted on October 31, 2008
From the introduction: "Promoting Women?s Rights: A Resource Guide for Litigating International Law in Domestic Courts was designed as a practical tool to help lawyers and other legal advocates use international law to advance the promotion and protection of women?s...

How Justice Thomas Reads the Constitution

Posted on October 31, 2008
In How to Read the Constitution, the Wall Street Journal published an excerpt of Justice Clarence Thomas's remarks to the Manhattan Institute, including the following: [T]here are really only two ways to interpret the Constitution -- try to discern as...

Legal Aid Programs Facing Huge Budget Cuts

Posted on October 31, 2008
From the National Law Journal: "Legal aid programs throughout the country are facing budget cuts of up to 50%. With the economy likely headed into a recession and coastal areas in Texas and Louisiana still struggling with the aftermath of...

Tracking Pre-election Polls for Political Junkies

Posted on October 31, 2008
The Wall Street Journal has an interactive guide for tracking pre-election polls nationwide and in key "battleground" states. Over 25 polls are represented including: Pew; Zogby/Reuters; Times/Bloomberg; Gallup; CNN; and Fox. Tracking began back in June and is updated daily...

Christian Science Monitor To Abandon Daily Print Edition, Shift to 24/7 Web Publication

Posted on October 30, 2008
In April 2009, the Christian Science Monitor will become the first nationally circulated newspaper to replace its daily print edition with its website. The 100 year-old news organization will also offer subscribers weekly print and daily e-mail editions...

HeinOnline Launches United Nations Law Collection

Posted on October 30, 2008
HeinOnline's United Nations Law Collection presents exact reproductions of major United Nations legal publications, including the complete collection of the United Nations Treaty Series, the Statement of Treaties and International Agreements, International Court of Justice, Reports of Judgments Advisory Opinions...

Open Access to Government Documents

Posted on October 30, 2008
In honor of Open Access Day 2008, Stephen Schultze (fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University) discusses the open access movement with regards to government publications that not even Google can find. Namely, federal court...

VersusLaw's New Almost Completely Free Legal Research Service

Posted on October 30, 2008
VersusLaw's free legal research service, FindACase is a bit funky. As noted in the below product description, search results do not provide citations or docket numbers. For that information, you have to buy the document but the charge is reasonable,....

Empirical Examination of Agency Rulemaking, 1983-2003

Posted on October 30, 2008
Anne Joseph O'Connell (Berkeley) has deposited Political Cycles of Rulemaking: An Empirical Portrait of the Modern Administrative State in SSRN. The article provides the first comprehensive empirical examination of agency rulemaking, with and without prior public comment, from President Ronald...

Yahoo's Inquisitor Available for Firefox and Internet Explorer

Posted on October 30, 2008
This nifty little plugin not only autocompletes your searches, but it also directly display the results of your search as you type, which can be a real time saver. The developers claim that Inquisitor tailors the results based on how/what...

John McCain: Terrorists and Judges Who Legislate from the Bench Are Threats to Public Safety

Posted on October 29, 2008
With the election just days away, The National Law Journal, has invited the major presidential and vice presidential candidates to write about the legal issues facing the next administration and to offer their views on such topics as the rule...

Rock the AALL Vote

Posted on October 29, 2008
Ballots must be submitted by 11:59 p.m. Central Time, Monday, December 01, 2008. Here's the AALL Online Election Voter's Login. [JH]

Google Reaches Tentative Settlement of Book Search Copyright Class Action

Posted on October 29, 2008
Google has reached an out-of-court settlement with the Authors Guild and the AAP over Google's Book Search digitalization program. The settlement, if approved, includes a $125 million payment by Google plus the establishment of a new licensing system...

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