Creativity must be the It word of the year – not a bad thing at all See these latest salvos in the creativity push:
1) Boley Blogs: The 100 Most Creative Moments in American Law, posted May 23rd, 2008
2) Ernie the Attorney: Know Your Brain, posted 5/29/08
Whenever lawyers ask my advice on blogging, I usually refer them to what I call “real lawyer blogs” (and real lawyer web pages – yes, “real lawyers do have web feet” – uh, especially here in Oregon :-).
There are a lot of them and many are excellent. (And I’ve blogged about them here and here.) But you do need to find the ones who “speak to you.”
One blawger always on my list of lawyer-blogger referrals is Jim Calloway. See his recent post on “Your Website: Getting the Attention of the Search Engines.” But put Jim’s blog on your own Check Regularly (or RSS) blog list. (And see his post on RSS feeds if you are feeling peckish and want to put on a newsfeed-bag but aren’t sure where to begin.)
See Oregonlive story, “Looks like recount for Measure 53,” by Michelle Cole, Wednesday May 28, 2008, 4:23 PM. (Other Politics and Elections news from Oregonlive.)
From the SOS Elections webpage, as of 10:49 a.m., 5/29/08:
State Ballot Measure No. 53
Amends Constitution: Modifies Provisions Governing Civil Forfeitures Related To Crimes; Permits Use of Proceeds by Law Enforcement.
I’m a big believer in reading widely, from A to Z, from potboiling genre fiction to the turgid Russians (though I do tend to avoid what has been coined, Misery-Lit). (I posted about reading widely here too – especially the Delgado article.)
A story in today’s (5/28/08) Willamette Week Murmurs column reminded me again of the value of this reading pattern for lawyers. The story (excerpt):
“A man doing 25 months in state prison for assault is seeking $6.75 million in a lawsuit against Multnomah County and a Philadelphia-based food distributor for serving food he says led to a near-fatal heart fibrillation. In a federal lawsuit, Richard Orr, 46, of Wilsonville, claims he was subjected to “criminal inhumanity” in 2007 at the county’s Inverness Jail, where he says food did not comply with the low-fat diet prescribed by his cardiologist.” (read full Murmur)
Three Oregon attorneys have new books out (two reviewed this week in the Oregonian and elsewhere and one on the verge of release):
1) John Kroger, “Convictions.” Oregonian review, “Oregon AG candidate’s book shows zeal as NY prosecutor, “ Sunday, May 25, 2008, by Steve Weinberg.
(Local readings at Powell’s Books.)
2) Phillip Margolin, “Executive Privilege.”
Oregonian review, “An election to die for,” Sunday, May 25, 2008, by Holly Johnson. (Local readings at Powell’s Books.)
From the Secretary of State’s office, Filing in Oregon dot com:
“The Secretary of State has issued a new Oregon Administrative Rule, effective May 1, 2008 OAR 160-100-0210 Information Required to Be Recorded in Notarial Journal. This rule addresses protections for Notaries and the clients they serve, by helping Notaries comply with the Oregon Consumer Identity Theft Protection Act.
The Oregon Consumer Identity Theft Protection Act went into effect January 1, 2008. “The purpose of the bill is to provide a level of assurance to consumers that their personal information will be safeguarded, and decrease incidents of identity theft in a meaningful way.
SB 583 contains strong standards for safeguarding personal information, requires notification to consumers if there is a breach of security that may result in a disclosure of information, and gives consumers the right to request a security freeze of their credit file to provide some protection against an identity thief obtaining credit in their name. The law [applies] to all entities that handle personal information, whether they are in the public or private sector.” The Department of Consumer and Business Services (DCBS) …” (read full story)
The print 2007 ORS has a printing error affecting §ORS 680.505.
The online version or the ORS has been corrected. Legislative Counsel has a PDF document with the correct text that can be inserted into the 21-volume print set.
In case you were wondering, yes, these things do happen, which is why one should usually take a quick look, or a longer one as the case may be, at the session law, at least in those instances where something doesn’t seem quite right about the code.
June 19th, 2008, hearing in Salem, on this copyright dispute. (I last posted about this dispute here.) No details yet about time, where, or who.
Letter here (via Public Resource dot org).
SCRIBD documents on this matter are located in this Scribd group, also courtesy of Public Resource dot org.
What are Orphan Works and why does anyone care about them? (No, this is not a post about Charles Dickens and the working orphans who populate his novels. I’m an Our Mutual Friend fan myself – see here about these digressions. Sorry.)
1) “Orphan works” described here and here.
2) Why does anyone care? The usual: Life, art, money, legislation, and Justice, Truth and the American Way.
3) A sampling of websites on the subject, though there are, as you would expect, zillions of others:
If you are following this dispute (and I last posted about it here), you might want to do a little reading about copyright, the history of commercial and official legal publishing, and vendor neutral citation (yes, all of these are entertwined) – unless you want to sound ill-informed (or worse) when you Comment about the issue on the various blogs and news sites that are running stories about this dispute.
1) For fun, start with Bound by Law, the copyright comic book by Keith Aoki, James Boyle, and Jennifer Jenkins.
2) A very interesting, provocative, and readable article: “Neutral Citation, Court Web Sites, and Access to Authoritative Case Law, by Peter Martin, 99 Law Library Journal 339 (Spring 2007) will give you an idea how much and how long these issues have been debated. (Quite a few of the articles in this issue are equally provocative, including an update to one of my favorites: “Why Do We Ask the Same Questions: The Triple Helix Dilemma Revisited,” by Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic.)
Oregon Legal Research Blog