Legal Research

Legal Resources News & Notes

Here are some new or updated legal resources that have recently been announced:

Overview of State Legislation Related to Immigrants and Immigration
New report from the National Conference of State Legislatures: "This report provides a first look at introduced legislation in 2008 and presents selected examples of enacted laws relating to immigrants and refugees. This process of legislative tracking and reporting is based on a comprehensive and inclusive methodology and captures all state legislation in which immigrants ? whether authorized or unauthorized, temporary migrants, aliens and refugees ? are affected."

American Lawyer Website Relaunched
AmericanLawyer.com gets a design makeover and enhanced site features. Visitors will have free unlimited access to the website through July to spend time and get acquainted with the dynamic, new and upgraded features that include:
*News and information updated on a daily basis
*Excerpts from the current month's magazine content
*A rich archive of past issues available on demand
*The Am Law Daily News Alert, a new daily newsletter sent to The American Lawyer's email subscriber base

Professional Reading: Using the Law Review Article Type Indicator to Make Publishing Decisions
Does Yale Law Journal review "all manuscripts anonymously, without regard to the author's name, institutional affiliation, prior publications, or pending publication offers" as claimed? Apparently not according to Jack Chin's post on PrawfsBlawg, at least not after the initial screening. Of course, Yale is not alone. Eric Chiappinelli (Seattle) suggests a tool for screening articles in Definite Articles: Using the Law Review Article Type Indicator® to Make Law Review Publishing Decisions (SSRN). Here's the abstract:

Each year close to two thousand law review articles are circulated among about two hundred student-edited law journals. As a result, law reviews around the country spend upwards of three thousand hours a year screening potential articles for publication. This process is exhausting for both authors and editors alike. The core problem in the law review article selection process is the information asymmetry between authors and law reviews. This article presents a tool, the Law Review Article Type Indicator (LRATI) that aims to reduce the information disparity, in turn making the article selection process less time consuming, more fruitful, and generally more pleasant for law review editors and authors. To achieve this end, the LRATI employs four bipolar scales that systematically evaluate both the author and the submission in an effort to ensure that law reviews only publish author's who are "stars" or "keepers", or at the very least "fillers" while eliminating with ease any and all "losers." This article argues that if law reviews implement the LRATI, the selection of law review articles will be quicker, more accurate, and will take place with less rancor and fewer interpersonal conflicts than ever before.

Commercial Law Bibliography
Michael Hillinger's "Commercial Law Bibliography" has been published in the DePaul Business & Commercial Law Journal (vol. 5, Fall 2006, no. 1, page 179). Now available in HeinOnline or Westlaw.

New on LLRX.com - Plain Language in Government Communications
The Government Domain: Plain Language in Government Communications: Peggy Garvin demonstrates the impact of the Plain Language in Government Communications Act of 2008 on the accessibility of content posted on e-government websites. ? Published May 20, 2008

Sources: Law Librarian Blog, beSpacific

Full post as published by LexLibris on May 28, 2008 (boomark / email).