Legal Research

Business Directory Scams

Posted on September 10, 2009
We hear they are at it again (or even still), so put your shields up - and alert anyone who answers the telephone for your business.FTC Sues to Halt Three Cross-Border Business Directory Scams?The Federal Trade Commission has filed suit to halt the illegal operations of three telemarketing boiler rooms in Montreal, Canada...

Susskind?s End of Lawyers: Annotated with Links

Posted on September 10, 2009
Law librarian colleagues brought a Legal Informatics Blog post to my attention: Susskind on the End of Lawyers.There are a zillion links to commentary on the book. I found Carolyn Elefant?s 3/24/09 My Shingle blog post and Comments particularly interesting - and practical: And what it means for solos.

Free Directory Assistance Numbers (and Texting)

Posted on September 10, 2009
Jim Calloway blogs about 3 free directory assistance numbers to program into your phone.I?ll add at least one more: your public library?s quick reference line. It will be useful only during those hours your public library has reference hours, but in some places that?s a lot of your working hours...

Beware the Fill-in-the-Blank Power of Attorney Form, Please

Posted on September 08, 2009
If you?ve read the recent (last week, last year, last decade, last century) stories about relatives, caregivers, and others who are charged with theft, elder abuse, and other crimes against the fragile or elderly people they are allegedly caring for ?,If you ever wondered why public law librarians and lawyers go pale when people use Fill-in-the-Blank forms for things like Powers of Attorney and Advance Directives, to name only a couple ?,Here?s an excellent article from the Oregonian?s Brent Hunsberger?s It?s Only Money column (Sunday, 9/7/09, Business section, p...

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Land Use, Oregon, and the U.S. Supreme Court

Posted on September 08, 2009
This National Law Journal article about the case, Stop the Beach Renourishment v. Florida (S. Ct. Docket number: 08-1151) caught my eye:"Setting boundaries for property rights: The Supreme Court will decide whether Florida ran roughshod over beachfront landholders," by Timothy Sandefur, August 31, 2009Excerpts: 'The U...

Oregon Debt Collection Research Guides

Posted on September 08, 2009
I recently posted about the King County (Washington State) debt collection research guides and woefully neglected to link my readers to the excellent OREGON debt collection legal research guides at the Lane County Law Library. Use their Research Guide Index to find Debt Collection and many other useful guides.

Legal Research Database Metrics: Jumping Over Recalcitrant Vendors

Posted on September 04, 2009
Many years ago a teacher of management reminded his students that the people least in the loop, the ones who don?t know what is going on in their companies (or government agencies), are the ones at the top, its managers and directors. He, of course, had many excellent examples of this...

Oregon Small Claims Court, TurboCourt, and eCourt

Posted on September 03, 2009
Some (maybe all?) Oregon courts are offering TurboCourt online document preparation for Small Claims litigants. I haven?t seen TurboCourt in action.Visit the Washington County (Oregon) Circuit Court website and their TurboCourt link. Or, visit your own county's Circuit or Justice Court to find out if they too have TurboCourt...

Debt Collection Lawsuit Research Guide

Posted on September 03, 2009
The King County (WA) Law Library has an excellent: Debt Collection Lawsuit Research Guide. The state law links are to Washington State laws, but the other information and federal law links apply to everyone. There is also a podcast with additional information on this subject...

Book Binding in Oregon: The Monk Way

Posted on September 01, 2009
Libraries don?t bind their own books and journals anymore, at least most of us. (Some rare book libraries do - book conservation and preservation is super-specialized and skilled work.)If you ever wondered about who does bind books (other than creative types who do it themselves), here?s a great story (from Oregon Business dot com) about a popular bookbinding operation for Oregon libraries and beyond: O Clients, Where Art Thou?

Finding U.S. Supreme Court Records and Briefs

Posted on September 01, 2009
You might think that these are all online, but they are not! Here are the briefs research guides I use:1) Tried and true, if you are near a library with this print set: Gerhard Casper and Kathleen M. Sullivan, eds., ?Landmark Briefs and Arguments of the Supreme Court of the United States: Constitutional Law?2) Library of Congress guide3) Official U...

A Public Speaking Scam?

Posted on September 01, 2009
From the Great Public Speaking blog, news of a scam (September 1, 2009, post):Public Speaking Scam: Beware of this email letter, **This letter is being emailed to numerous public speakers. The church knows of none such person or event. Please beware!**Curious.

One Flu Over the Top? ?Swine? Flu in Oregon

Posted on August 28, 2009
If you want information about ?Swine? Flu and you want information that doesn?t SCREAM at your or PANIC you or otherwise make you a basket case (maybe related to this handbasket), check out your county health department?s websites. For example:1) Washington County2) State of Oregon Flu website3) See also these for more lessons learned (we hope):Are we morally ready for another great pandemic? Preparing for swine flu raises ethical issues ? including questions of who gets treated and who doesn?t, by Peter Korn, The Portland Tribune, Aug 27, 2009,and,Spanish flu epidemic hit Portland hard: Heavyhanded tactics might have created a backlash against rules, by Peter Korn, The Portland Tribune, Aug 27, 20094) Previous OLR Flu blog posts.

U.S. District Court of Oregon Cases NOT Available on a Free, Public Website

Posted on August 26, 2009
Why should Oregon (and some other states) federal District Court cases be available only to people with access to paid subscription databases such as PACER, Lexis, Westlaw, etc.?With all the loose (i.e. uninformed) talk about ?it?s all online? and PACER possibly becoming free and open (with all those unredacted documents - maybe yours?), I expected to find all judicial opinions, or at least federal court opinions (they have bigger budgets than the states) online...

Oregon Condo Law and Lawyer Blogs

Posted on August 26, 2009
The list of Oregon law blogs is growing. Check out Justia?s Oregon Law Blogs list and my own sidebar list of Oregon law blogs. Neither is absolutely complete and non-Oregon bloggers also write about Oregon law.I recently added to my sidebar list the NW HOA Law Center, which has an excellent blog where lawyers write detailed posts on condo and HOA legal issues...

Oregon Tax Court (don?t follow the yellow brick road)

Posted on August 26, 2009
It takes skill to navigate a website, especially one chock-full of information and one under (re)construction.You might think that if you go to OJD Judicial Opinions and then select Tax Court Magistrate Division that you?ll get the Tax Court Magistrate Opinions...

100 Terrific Tips and Tools for Bloggers (especially Librarians)

Posted on August 26, 2009
Has any librarian not linked to and blogged about this post on 100 Terrific Tips and Tools for Blogging Librarians? Most of these tips will be useful to anyone who wants to be a good blogger.Writers write about writing and bloggers blog about blogging...

Law Dictionary: Oregon Legal Glossary

Posted on August 26, 2009
Check out the latest Oregon Legal Glossary at Oregon Laws dot org. It?s a fun, easy to navigate, and the sidebar list of links to other Oregon (and 9th Circuit) glossaries is super-handy.

Happy Hour in Oregon and More Difficulties with Legislative Drafting

Posted on August 25, 2009
Hard on the heels of my last post on legislative drafting, we have another story and example:OLCC revisits restriction on happy hour ads, by Bill Graves, The Oregonian, August 20, 2009Excerpt: '... The happy hour restriction annoys restaurants and bars and frustrates state officials who question whether it's effective and find it difficult to enforce...

Without Clothes in Oregon: the Art and Craft of Drafting Legislation

Posted on August 24, 2009
Naught vs. Naughtiness: The OLR blog is not prudish, but spelling out certain words on the Internet attracts attention from unwanted quarters, e.g. spammers and other undesirables, so forgive my word replacement choices - it is for my own sanity.This quote, in this article, Ashland city attorney to examine nudity ban (by the Associated Press, August 20, 2009) caught my attention:??Oregon does not have any laws restricting nudity or have a crime of indecent exposure...

Oregon Legal Research Guides: Traffic, Landlord-Tenant, Debt Collection and MORE!

Posted on August 21, 2009
Take a look at the Lane County Law Library Index to Legal Research Guides. It?s excellent and will just get better and better. They link to useful legal research guides from Northwest law libraries:· Adoption· Oregon Administrative Rules· Bankruptcy· Obtaining Birth Certificates· Border Crossing Guide· How to Find Oregon Appellate Court Briefs · Consumer Information/Protection· Criminal Law and Procedure in Oregon· Debt Collection--Creditor's Rights· Foreclosure, Repossession and Liens· Oregon Forms· Landlord/Tenant· How To Find A Lawyer In Oregon· Oregon Legal Ethics· Researching Oregon Legislative History· Oregon Legislative Records· Medical Malpractice Issues: Research Sources· Name Changes in Oregon· Using the Oregon Revised Statutes· Finding Public Records in Oregon· Small Claims Court and Procedures· Traffic ViolationsAnd, if you?re a Northwest law librarian with a legal research guide not included in this list, let the Lane County Law Librarian know!Lane County Law Library Index to Legal Research Guides

Authority of State (Oregon) to Enforce Federal Funeral Service Regulations

Posted on August 20, 2009
For a detailed description of the statutory and administrative framework for the regulation of funeral services, read this recent Oregon Court of Appeals case:Olson v. State Mortuary And Cemetery Board (A136781)Judge Landau: "... On review, petitioners advance eight different assignments of error, ranging from a challenge to the authority of the board to enforce federal funeral service regulations at all to arguments about the propriety of the board's interpretation and application of state and federal funeral service regulations in various particulars...

How to Find an Oregon Administrative Rule History

Posted on August 19, 2009
Finding the history of a judicial opinion or a statute is relatively straightforward, if only because we do that research so often. This is not the situation when researching the history of a regulation or other administrative rule, especially at the state level...

Basic Oregon Legal Research Resources

Posted on August 17, 2009
This is a shortlist of some basic, and frequently overlooked, Oregon legal research resources (and one non-Oregon title), for the new Oregon attorney or legal researcher. Most of these are in print version only, not online.You don?t need to buy these, but you should know about them...

Reading Saves Consumer Time, Money, and Lives

Posted on August 17, 2009
Lots of people clip coupons, swallow pills, or spend hours scanning the "over-the-counter pharmacy" shelves at the store, without doing their homework first. How do you know that product is safe or if you really want that one rather than another one (or none at all)?Consumer, or shopping, homework doesn't just mean reading the ads or looking for "reviews" on the web...

Are Oregon County Counsel Opinions "Public Record"?

Posted on August 14, 2009
In the late 70's through 1980's Oregon county counsel attorneys prepared formal opinions on significant issues, sort of like Oregon Attorney General opinions. These opinions were open to the public, but used infrequently because many were soon out of date and potentially misleading to those who didn?t work with these sorts of documents on a regular basis...

Training: Confidentiality, Paralegals, and other Legal Office Staff

Posted on August 10, 2009
The Pacific Northwest Paralegal Association (PNPA) is offering this course:An ethics program, Confidentiality: A Responsibility of Legal Staff, presented by Beverly Michaelis, JD, of the Professional Liability Fund. The registration form is available at http://www...

Orphan Works: Best Practices Guide, from Archivists

Posted on August 07, 2009
Law Librarian blog post: Orphan Works: A Statement of Best Practices links to the report (PDF) from the Society of American Archivists.There is another post about this on a July 22, 2009 post at the Library Law blog: At last! Guidance for users of Orphan Works(And while you?re at that blog, don?t miss Peter Hirtle?s July 5, 2009 post on: They Myth of the pre-1923 Public Domain)

Oregon Bicycle Survey: Have Your Say!

Posted on August 05, 2009
BTA wants to hear from riders AND non-riders, so have at it.Act soon - it?s anyone?s guess how long the Survey will be kept up on the website.1) Portland Tribune story: Group seeks opinions on region?s bike issues: Bicycle Transportation Alliance conducting online survey, The Portland Tribune, Aug 4, 2009Or,2) Visit the Bicycle Transportation Authority website for more information and another link to the Survey.

Baseball Law!

Posted on August 05, 2009
Who couldn?t use a book on Baseball Law? We sure could here in the Portland-metro area.A summary of what you?ll find in ?The Little White Book of Baseball Law,? by John Minion and Kevin Cole.My previous (and favorite) post on baseball, and don?t forget f/k/a?s baseball haiku.

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