February 09, 2010
$300 Million Florida Smoker's Verdict Overturned
Law.com: Daily Business Review article (Feb.9, 2009)
Answers.com: Tobacco Industry (with references)
Tobacco.org website
FindLaw: brief article on original verdict, with related links (11/23/09)
Digital Library of Tobacco Documents (over 11 million documents, hosted by Univ. of California at San Francisco
1996 article about publishing "The Cigarette Papers"
Andrew Dorchak at 10:21 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | categories: legal news
February 05, 2010
Tenth Amendment
WSJ Law blog (Feb. 5, 2010)
Legal Information Institute: CRS Annotated 10th Amendment
Doug Linder (UMKC Law), Exploring Constitutional Law (2009) "10th & 11th Amendment limitations of federal power"
Kurt T. Lash, THE ORIGINAL MEANING OF AN OMISSION: THE TENTH AMENDMENT, POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY, AND “EXPRESSLY” DELEGATED POWER (article, 2008)
Washington Times: Can the Tenth Amendment Save Us? (Nov. 3, 2009)
Thomas B. McAffee, Jay S. Bybee, and A. Christopher Bryant. The Tenth Amendment and state sovereignty: constitutional history and contemporary issues. (print book, 2006): OhioLINK record
ISBN # 0742518795
OCLC # 48383394
Tenth Amendment and State Sovereignty: Constitutional History and Contemporary Issues (print book, 2002): OhioLINK record
ISBN # 0742518795
OCLC # 48383394
Andrew Dorchak at 12:41 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | categories: none
February 03, 2010
ICC May Charge Sudanese President with Genocide
AP article (Feb. 3, 2010)
International Criminal Court: Al Bashir case (press release, Feb. 3, 2010)
Genocide Convention (United Nations, Dec. 9, 1948)
Domestic Laws Against Genocide (world-wide)
Raphael Lemkin and the Struggle for the Genocide Convention (print book at CWRU Law, OhioLINK, Palgrave McMillan, 2008)
Genocide Convention: Travaux Preparatoires (2 vol. print source)
Voice of America news (Feb. 3, 2010)
Andrew Dorchak at 02:14 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | categories: legal news
Free vs. Fee vs. "Free-To-You"
The “Just in Case” blog typically has highlighted free resources on cutting-edge, interesting topics. (We hope.) While free internet resources are a welcome addition to any researcher’s toolkit, efficient, in-depth research usually requires the use of fee-based, proprietary research resources. Quality of accessed information and time savings usually justify the use of proprietary databases. “Free-to-you” resources are already purchased and available to specific groups. For example, any citizen can obtain a public library card in order to access “free” books, research databases, and audiovisual material.
A CWRU Law student is a member of at least three additional groups: CWRU Law students; CWRU students; and OhioLINK, a consortium of over 100 Ohio (primarily academic) libraries. Of course, such resources are not “free”, but they have already been paid for with funds from tuition, taxes, etc. CWRU Law students have online access to proprietary resources such as Bureau of National Affairs publications, which offer current awareness newsletters on a variety of legal topics, as well as libraries in specialties such as labor law, health law, and intellectual property. CWRU students have access to HeinOnline, which offers a variety of domestic, and even international, legal resources. OhioLINK offers its patrons several research databases and the Electronic Journal Center (EJC), which offers current, multidisciplinary, full-text articles. Cited articles often are available for immediate download (especially in the EJC), and a majority of the articles include abstracts. A reference librarian can assist CWRU Law students with their 300+ “free-to-you” databases.
Andrew Dorchak at 12:00 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | categories: none
Don't Ask Don't Tell
Senate Armed Services Committee holds Feb 2 hearing on gays and lesbians in the military - watch on C-SPAN
Deborah Dennison at 10:18 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | categories: News
February 02, 2010
Volcker Rules
Reuters: President Obama's statement on limiting bank risk-taking (1/20/10)
MarketWatch: Volcker: Banks Should Not Be Hedge Funds (2/2/10)
WSJ Washington Wire Blog: Volcker Rules (2/2/10)
Washington Post: Volcker Rule Shifts Power Away From Geithner (1/22/10)
Answers.com: Glass-Steagall Act
Wikipedia:Glass-Steagall Act
Andrew Dorchak at 03:18 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | categories: legal news
Revamped Research (Lexis and Westlaw)
Law.com article (Feb. 1, 2010)
Law.com: Day 2 of LegalTech New York (Feb. 3, 2010)
NYT article (1/24/10)
WestlawNext promo: "Legal Research Goes Human" WestlawNext (featuring WestSearch) Coming to a law school near you (eventually).
- natural language searching *
- proprietary content
- folder and note capability
* Presumably without an "OR" default connector!
Compare to earlier effort at Lexis: Total Litigator (Lexis password required).
Compare to LoisLaw (law student or individual subscription required).
Attorneys can check with their state bar associations about Casemaker.
Google Scholar is emerging as a source for primary law
Andrew Dorchak at 02:10 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | categories: legal publishing and information
February 01, 2010
Budget
Budget of the U.S. Government, FY 2011 (Office of Management and Budget)
AP article on $3.83 Trillion Budget (Feb. 1, 2010)
Politico: 5 years, $5.08 Trillion in Debt (Feb. 1, 2010)
Plain Dealer article: Impact of Budget on Ohio (Feb. 1, 2010)
Congressional Budget Office's website
Columbia University Libraries: Budget Process (U.S. Gov't. Docs.)
Economic Report of the President (1947-2008)
Andrew Dorchak at 02:00 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | categories: News
50th Anniversary of the Greensboro, N.C. Sit-in
February 1st marks the 50 year anniversary of the Greensboro Four's peaceful and powerful sit-in at Woolworth's lunch counter that helped end desegregation in the South.
50th Anniversary of Sit-in Movement
Sit-In Museum Opens (Fox8 News: links to video and photos)
Deborah Dennison at 10:10 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | categories: News
January 29, 2010
Annotated State of the Union
How cool is this- the PBS NEWSHOUR has annotated President Obama’s 2010 State of the Union address. The links are to resources, such as newspaper articles, analysis, and video. Check it out- Annotated State of the Union.
Lisa Peters at 10:51 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0) | categories: none
Comments on Annotated State of the Union:
Very cool!
At risk of being redundant, I'd like to add a link to Deputy Chief of Staff, Mona Sutphen's Summary of Major Initiatives. (Thanks to Greta E. Marlatt of the Naval Postgraduate School for sending that link to the GOVDOC-L listserv.)
The Atlantic magazine has an "Annotated State of the Union" (on James Fallows' blog) as well.
January 28, 2010
Data Privacy Day!
cnet news: Why Won't People Pay for Privacy? (1/28/10)
Google Public Policy Blog (1/28/10)
Electronic Freedom Foundation: Six Ways to Protect Search Privacy (Sept. 2006)
FBI: Internet Fraud
European Union: Data Protection website
Mozilla FoxyProxy standard info ($10 suggestion donation. Other proxy services may be available.)
Andrew Dorchak at 11:05 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | categories: News
January 27, 2010
Electronic Books & the Apple iPad
Publishers Weekly: Digital Book World (e-book pricing & timing) (1/28/10)
Computerworld: Apple iPad: 6 pros and 6 cons (1/28/10)
eweek.com: Why Amazon Should Worry About Apple Tablet (1/20/10)
Read An E-Book Week (March 7-13, 2010)
Project Gutenberg (over 30,000 free ebooks)
E-Book Center for OhioLINK patrons
E-Media for Cleveland Public Library patrons (includes ebooks, audiobooks, etc.)
ebook reader reviews (top 10 of 13 available ebook readers, pre-iPad)
Macworld article (1/27/10)
Plain Dealer article and selected links (1/27/10)
PC World article (1/27/10)
NYT Technology live blog (1/27/10)
Brighthand.com on iPad (and cell phone reviews) (1/27/10)
TabletPCReview.com (reviews of tablet PCs)
Fast Company review (price ($499) is biggest innovation)
Sydney Morning Herald review of the Amazon Kindle DX (Jan. 27, 2010)
YouTube video: Sony ebook reader
Andrew Dorchak at 01:36 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | categories: none
January 26, 2010
Gov. Strickland's State of the State (Ohio)
link to text, highlights, and video (Jan. 26, 2010)
Ohio Operating Budget Materials (FY 2010-FY 2011)
GreenCityBlueLake blog: "Ohio renewable energy mandate kicks in" (1/18/10)
Andrew Dorchak at 09:32 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | categories: none
Justia Provides Regulatory RSS Feeds, Other Free Services
(This post will be the first of a regular series profiling and promoting freely-available, Web-based, research tools of note. A companion series of posts will highlight subscription resources.)
Justia.com describes itself as a "company focused on making legal information, resources and services easy to find on the Internet." The company, whose CEO Tim Stanley was a founder of now-Thomson-owned Findlaw, sells online marketing services to law firms while operating its own broad-based legal information portal. The practice area and legal research links on the front page, organized in a directory-type structure, are comparatively unremarkable, as is its basic offering of a word-searchable database of federal case law (with the useful addition of some civil case filing and docket information).
But Justia offers something truly unique and valuable to the free-research offerings for several of its databases - notably district court opinions, new civil filings, and agency regulations. Searches of these databases produce RSS feeds to which users may subscribe. The result is a highly functional, and potentially quite refined, primary-source clipping service and a useful tool for the researcher who is monitoring targeted new developments in the law. I've found the "Regulation Tracker" to be particularly useful.
The functionality goes well beyond being able to subscribe to an RSS feed of, say, each day's Federal Register (which the Office of the Federal Register allows directly on their portion of the National Archives' website)or even a broad cut such as all new regulations from a particular department or agency. Instead, Justica can generate a feed from a search limited to items that both pertain to a particular agency or department *and* include particular text keywords. For instance, one can use Justia's RSS feeds and an aggregator to monitor, for free, new EPA proposed regulations that mention "clean air." More, this is available without any formal subscription or information-sharing.
As a free current-awareness site, Justia demonstrates the power of coupling services built on readily available and relatively simple Web standards with access to bulk legal data -- delivering powerful new services to the legal information marketplace.
Andrew Plumb-Larrick
Carl Plumb-Larrick at 04:37 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | categories: FreeSearch
LL.M. handout (research resources)
Andrew Dorchak at 04:30 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | categories: none
LL.M. handout (international and foreign)
Andrew Dorchak at 04:28 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | categories: none
The Supreme Court of Ohio Adopted Amendments to Rules of Practice
In case you missed it during the holiday season: On December 29, 2009, the Supreme Court of Ohio adopted amendments to the Rules of Practice "that implement a new numbering system and section/rule citation style." The amendments became effective Jan. 1, 2010.
Judith Kaul at 02:43 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | categories: legal news
January 25, 2010
Ticketmaster and Live Nation merger
U.S. Dept. of Justice statement (Jan. 25, 2010)
Reuters article (Update 2, Jan. 25, 2010)
L.A. Times article (Jan. 26, 2010)
Andrew Dorchak at 03:33 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | categories: legal news