Oregon Legal Research BlogAlso from a Stark County Law Library blog post, here’s the (new) legal writer blog with a link to a digital Black’s Law Dictionary.
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A Digital Black’s Law Dictionary
Articles Posted in
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Pocket Guide for Judges on the State-Secrets Privilege …
beSpacific posts this, New Publication Helps Judges On Classified Information.
Excerpt from beSpacific post/:
“… This pocket guide is designed to familiarize federal judges with statutes and procedures established to help public courts protect government secrets when courts are called upon to do so. The guide provides information about the Classified Information Procedures Act (CIPA), information security officers, and secure storage facilities….”
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Deep Repositories of Scholarship (and “Information”)
beSpacific also posts about the University of California’s eScholarship Repository, which is an amazing collection of scholarship, commentary, research, wisdom, and I’m sure even foolishness.
I’ve blogged before about the University of Oregon’s Scholars’ Bank.
Universities were at the forefront of web content management, which the legal community appreciates greatly (see e.g. Cornell, Michigan, and hundreds of other educational institutions that have been adding value to the web since there was a world wide web to manage – and making the information freely available).
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What is an Oregon Deadbeat Dad?
Steve Duin’s column in the Oregonian today, Jan. 15th, 2008, “Separating the dads from the real deadbeats” will have a lot of lawyers and law librarians nodding their heads. We’ve all heard about this problem from the people who cross our thresholds.
The case referred to in Duin’s column is ARVIDSON v. KURAHASHI, (A131107).
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State Public Records Databases
Here is an easy to use, nicely laid out, compilation of state public records databases, from BRB Publications, which has lots of free stuff.
It’s not free for them to take the time and expertise to compile these lists in user-friendly format and post the information on their web pages so we thank the publisher for this public service.
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Legal Research Search Engines
It takes a lot to rock a law librarian’s boat, but a nifty search engine for legal research guides, and other research resources, comes close to doing so.
See BoleyBlogs, Jan 11th, 2008, post about Cornell’s new and improved InSITE current awareness service and the Legal Research Search Engine.
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Law Library Thing: Tarlton, Yeshiva, U Penn, Los Angeles Co, and MORE
Liz, who keeps us abreast of law-related goings-on at one of our local public libraries, points out that LibraryThing now has a LAW Library Thing going-on with lots of law library catalogs making their appearances, including some of the biggies around the county.
LibraryThing is an excellent teaching tool (for grade school on up) and an invaluable cataloging option for many small libraries and especially private collections. It also keeps growing, and growing, as Things tend to do, though not necessarily insidiously.
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Full-tilt Legal Research Resources for Ordinary People
I’ve blogged before about HeinOnline, but still run into local attorneys and legal historians and legal researchers who don’t know what HeinOnline is and who don’t know they have free access to it using their public library card (see below for who is eligible):
Contains full-text databases, including:
* Law journals (issues back to their inception)
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ISO the Right Search Engine for the Job
The December 2007 Tip from Mary Ellen Bates, of Bates Information Service, is on All the OTHER Search Engines, and you know what that means.
Excerpt from the December Tip (see also the archive of her Research Tips):
“Yes, we all Google, although I have recently started Yahooing more than I Google. But there are far more search engines out there than Google, Yahoo, Live.com and Ask.com. It is almost impossible to keep track of all these other search tools; fortunately, other people have taken that job on. Note that the sources I have described below are not meta-search engines such as Dogpile.com; that is, they do not execute a search across a number of search engines. Rather, these are tools to identify the search engine that may best meet your research needs….”
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Outsourcing Legal Research
The Legal Process Outsourcing blog has an interesting post about outsourcing legal research.
Excerpt from the post:
“… Legal research in the practice of law is time-consuming, difficult and often times expensive-both for the lawyer and certainly for the client. Because the law is anything but clear-cut and simple, good and effective legal research takes time. While efficiency is an essential characteristic of a good lawyer, legal research requires both efficiency and thoroughness. Often times, an attorney will have to research an issue a number of times before she feels comfortable with the result of her research.Research also requires adequate tools to be effective and efficient. A basic subscription to Lexis® or Westlaw® is usually not sufficient and attorneys need specialized databases to find answers to complex questions in a timely manner. These tools are expensive, and often times they are not used frequently enough to justify the expense for a law firm. …”
I think I will print this in a large font, laminate it, and post it at the law library’s reference desk for people who think their lawyers charge too much or that the law librarian should “answer my question with a yes or a no.” Some lawyers may charge too much and there are a few yes and no answers to legal questions, but not many.