Legal Research

Don't Mess with Librarian Bloggers

Posted on August 08, 2008
A Magistrate Judge recently issued an opinion harshly condemning an lawyer for his subpoena described by the court as "breathtakingly broad." The discovery requested all documents pertaining to the setup, financing, running, research, maintaining a website from an non-party to...

The Proposed AALS Meeting Boycott: Much Ado About Something, But What?

Posted on August 08, 2008
Dave Hoffman thinks the proposed AALS boycott being promoted by the Legal Writing Institute, SALT, and several AALS sections, including the Section on Legal Writing Reasoning and Research, the Section on Teaching Methods, and the Section on Sexual Orientation and...

Does Law Professor Quality Matter?

Posted on August 07, 2008
Adjuncts, tenure-track, or senior law faculty, who are "better" at teaching which courses? Hat tip to Mitchell Rubinstein, Adjunct Law Prof Blog, for calling attention to David Lander's Are Adjuncts a Benefit or a Detriment?, 33 U. Dayton L. Rev....

Tomorrow's Line-Up for The Law Librarian Internet Radio Program

Posted on August 07, 2008
Check in Friday afternoon at 1 PM (Eastern Time) for a next segment of The Law Librarian, the call-in internet radio talk show hosted by Nebraska's Richard Leiter and Brian Striman. From 1:00 to 2:00 PM (Eastern) the program's special...

To access this complete feed in the blog feed reader login or register for free.

Video Resources for Legal Educatiors

Posted on August 07, 2008
The 1000 Voices Archive is a new online teaching resource for law educators. On Elder Law Prof Blog, Kim Dayton (William Mitchell) writes that this recently launched national collection of video stories was created by filmmakers and communities across the...

Save the Date: Symposium to Examine Post-WSIS Issues on Internet Governance

Posted on August 07, 2008
Symposium on The Internet: Governance and the Law MONTRÉAL, Québec: October 26, 2008 ? October 29, 2008 McGill University will host the 3rd biennial symposium on The Internet: Governance and the Law in cooperation with the Center for International Legal...

Politicized Hiring at the Department of Justice

Posted on August 07, 2008
Hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee: Testimony Glenn A. Fine, Inspector General Member Statements Patrick Leahy, Chairman, Senate Judiciary Committee Click here for the webcast. See LLB's earlier post DOJ Releases Report on Politicized Hiring in Ofc of Attorney General...

Party On, Political Dudes Attending Nominating Conventions

Posted on August 07, 2008
Thanks to a new Sunlight project, called Party Time, Quinn Gillespie & Associates has identified 370 parties, receptions and other unofficial events sponsored by Fortune 100 companies, beltway associations, etc., for attendees of the Democratic and Republican nominating conventions...

Innovative or Insulting, the Anime Torts Casebook

Posted on August 07, 2008
The ABA Journal is reporting that California Western law prof and assistant dean James Cooper wants to produce an animated casebook "to help make the law more accessible," explaining "I'd take the top 15 cases of tort law--famous cases in...

Kudos to Bob Ambrogi

Posted on August 07, 2008
The American Society of Business Publication Editors has awarded Bob Ambrogi its national silver award for best contributed column in a publication with a circulation under 80,000. He received the award for his Law Technology News "Web Watch" column. Bob...

Which Fictional Attorney is the Most Unrealistic?

Posted on August 07, 2008
Take the Above the Law poll. Your choices are: Jack McCoy (Law and Order) v. Bobby Donnell (The Practice) Michael Clayton (Michael Clayton) v. Vincent Gambini (My Cousin Vinny) Elle Woods (Legally Blonde) v. Ally McBeal (Ally McBeal) Jack Brigance...

Strongly Agree, Agree, Neutral, Disagree, Strongly Disagree: Student Evaluations of Law Profs are Reliable

Posted on August 06, 2008
Despite the consensus among educational researchers that student evaluations are reliable and useful, law profs often complain that they are not and are impaired by student biases. In Student Evaluations of Law Teaching Work Well: Strongly Agree, Agree, Neutral, Disagree,...

Not Just Another Gitmo Book

Posted on August 06, 2008
Reviews such as the following make one sit up and take notice that Jonathan Mahler's The Challenge: Hamden v. Rumsfeld and the Fight Over Presidential Power (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, August 5, 2008) is not just another Gitmo book: ?I...

New Bookmarking Tool From HeinOnline

Posted on August 06, 2008
Check out MyHein, a new feature from HeinOnline. Once you create a user account, MyHein allows the you to bookmark search results as well as save their search queries. Check out the MyHein User's Guide and MyHein Video Tutorial for...

Textbook Piracy Grows Online, Prompting a Counterattack From Publishers

Posted on August 06, 2008
Interesting article from the Chronicle: "College students are increasingly downloading illegal copies of textbooks online, employing the same file-trading technologies used to download music and movies. Feeling threatened, book publishers are stepping up efforts to stop the online piracy...

Blank NSA Forms or How a FOIA Request Took 4 Years

Posted on August 06, 2008
Russ Kick, publisher and editor of The Memory Hole, reports that his FOIA request for copies of blank forms used by the National Security Agency only took about four years to be fulfilled. He finally received 400-plus forms. The NSA...

Military Jury Convicts Guantanamo Detainee

Posted on August 06, 2008
From WSJ.com: "A U.S. military jury found a Yemeni national guilty in the first Guantanamo war-crimes trial. Salim Hamdan, a onetime driver for Osama bin Laden, had been charged with conspiracy and providing material support for terrorism. He was captured...

Is Your Library Blog Listed?

Posted on August 06, 2008
The Blogging Libraries Wiki has several great blog directories. Is your library blog listed in one of them? Academic Library Blogs Public Library Blogs Special Library Blogs Blogs for Internal Library Communication Library Association, Consortia, and Conference Blogs Library Director...

White House Aides Cannot Ignore Congressional Subpoenas

Posted on August 06, 2008
In Committee on the Judiciary, U.S. House of Representatives v. Miers, No. 08-0409, 2008 WL 2923350 (D.D.C., 2008), the court ruled that top advisers to the President cannot ignore Congressional subpoenas. Check out Balkinization's analysis of the decision for more...

Slaw, the Canadian Cooperative Weblog on Things Legal

Posted on August 06, 2008
Slaw has been in my feed reader since the day I discovered the blog. Since its inception, Slaw has been a great Canadian blog covering legal research, legal information, and legal technology with an excellent line-up of contributors. Yesterday, Simon...

Preparing Job-Ready Attorneys: Bridging the Gap Between Desired and Actual Research Skills

Posted on August 05, 2008
With the new academic year just around the corner, it may be worthwhile to review some of the results of West's 2008 Expectations for New Associates survey. The survey sought to answer two key questions: 1) What do law school...

Will Online Collaboration Rewrite How Governments Govern?

Posted on August 05, 2008
In a recent op-ed on Politico.com, Expecting More from Your E-government, Andrew Rasiej and Micah Sifry (founder and editor of the Personal Democracy Forum, respectively) make the case for why Americans should demand more from government Websites. Two recent publications...

A Critique of National Security Courts

Posted on August 05, 2008
New report from the Constitution Project: "Recently, some scholars and government officials have called for the creation of ?national security courts??specialized hybrid tribunals that would review the preventive detention of suspected terrorists (both within and outside of the territorial United...

ACS Conference Panel on the U.S. Supreme Court Term Review

Posted on August 05, 2008
From C-Span: Journalists who cover the Supreme Court discuss major decisions from the recent term in America & the Courts. See also: DC Bar Panel Discussion on 2007-2008 Supreme Court Term, C-Span. [RJ]

First Malware Attack to Target Twitter Users Reported

Posted on August 05, 2008
The BBC is reporting what is believed to be the first attack to target Twitter. A fake Twitter profile with a malicious payload has been spotted by Kaspersky. Kaspersky Lab is also reporting that a new worm is spreading via...

Was Hamlet a Law Student?

Posted on August 05, 2008
Yes, according to Jonathan Uffelman (Georgetown Law Class of 2008) because "Hamlet questions, equivocates, and demands proof before he ultimately achieves his ends. Most importantly, he delays because, like the law, Hamlet deeply distrusts his emotions and works to suppress...

LLB Poll: Are you satisfied with management's recent decisions regarding your library?

Posted on August 05, 2008
AmLaw's recent survey of firm law librarians included a question we thought would make an interesting survey open to all librarians. By "management decisions", we are referring to decisions that impact library operations and budgets made by executives and administrators...

Research Resources from UK Parliament

Posted on August 04, 2008
Excellent resource for UK legal research: Commons Library Research Papers: Research papers on subjects of current interest, compiled for MPs by the staff of the House of Commons Library. Lords Library Notes: Research notes on subjects of current interest, compiled...

Law Firm Electronic Resources Expenditures and Cost Recovery Survey Results for 2007

Posted on August 04, 2008
From Am Law's seventh annual law firm librarian survey (librarians from 94 of the Am Law 200 law firms responded): Electronic Resources excluding LexisNexis and Westlaw 2007 2006 Average $929,308 $970,782 Median $592,375 $406,659 Westlaw Research 2007 2006 Average $1,998,674...

The Conservative Experience in Law: Think Tank Battles for the Hearts and Minds of the Legal Establishment

Posted on August 04, 2008
"Teles' major stories pivot around the formation and evolution of the Federalist Society, the emergence and institutionalization of law and economics as part of law school curriculums, the Center for Individual Rights, and the Institute for Justice. Nested within these...

Bloggers, promote your law blog by nominating your blog for inclusion in USLaw.com's Law Blog Directory and RSS Reader. Benefits described.