Legal Research

Above the Law posted today about a recent article in CommonWealth magazine that discusses online term paper trafficking services.  The article alleges that a Massachusetts attorney, employed as a staff attorney for the Massachusetts Appeals Court, responded to the journalist's Craigslist ad and offered to write a paper for $300.  The article's author, Colman Herman, reports that the attorney assured him that such a transaction was not illegal under state or federal law.  Unfortunately for the attorney, a Massachusetts statute specifically bars the sale of "the written results of research, knowing or having reason to know that such theme, term paper, thesis or other paper or research results or substantial material therefrom will be submitted or used by some other person for academic credit and represented as the original work of such person." Mass. Gen. Laws chap. 271, s. 50 (2009).

Does California have a similar statute?  A very quick and easy natural language search revealed that we indeed have a statute containing an almost-identical prohibition. California Education Code Section 66400 states:

It will be interesting to see how the Massachusetts Board of Bar Overseers responds to this report.  Will they launch a disciplinary investigation?  I would assume so.  At the very least, the Board should investigate whether he has the necessary skills to practice law since his legal research skills don't seem quite up to snuff.