The January 2015 ABA Journal has these articles and more:
“Washington state moves around UPL, using legal technicians to help close the justice gap,” by Robert Ambrogi
“It’s unethical for prosecutors to allow debt collectors to use official letterhead, says ABA opinion,” by David L. Hudson, Jr. (ABA Formal Ethics Opinion 469)
“It Takes More Than a Dumpster to Build A Digital Law Library: 12 Critical Components For Digital Law Library Transformation.” from Dewey B Strategic,
12/10/14
“.… For the past two decades law librarians and legal information professionals have been assessing products and developing in house solutions to support virtual library resources. We have been sharing best practices and advising legal publishers on how to build the next generation of products that lawyers will be willing to use ….” [Link to full blog post.]
ABA launches online database of collateral consequences for each U.S. jurisdiction
“WASHINGTON , Dec. 16, 2014 — The American Bar Association Criminal Justice Section has completed the National Inventory of the Collateral Consequences of Conviction, an online database that identifies legal restrictions imposed upon individuals convicted of crimes that go beyond any sentence imposed by a court.
Available at www.abacollateralconsequences.org, the database lists federal and state laws and regulations that restrict employment, housing, and education benefits and other opportunities for people with convictions….” [Link to ABA article.]
Link to details from Gallagher Blogs: “Capital Punishment: Race, Poverty, and Disadvantage—Free Online Course”
“Stephen Bright is president and senior counsel at the Southern Center for Human Rights, a public interest law program that deals with human rights in the criminal justice and prison systems….
This course examines issues of poverty and race in the criminal justice system, particularly with regard to the imposition of the death penalty…. There are 40 videos, ranging from 18 to 45 minutes…. that’s a lot of instruction from one of the nation’s leading authorities on the death penalty….” [Link to blog post.]
Here’s a round-up of our Administrative Law research resources:
Library of Congress research guide: How to Trace Federal Regulations
Oregon lawyers and law librarians teach Continuing Legal Education (CLE) programs (for little or no remuneration). Two upcoming programs from NBI:
1) I’m teaching one unit of this Legal Research CLE (NBI), that will be held in downtown Portland:
Find it Free and Fast on the Net: Strategies for Legal Research on the Web
“Marijuana and health: A comprehensive review of 20 years of research,” by K.K. Repp, PhD, MPH and A.L. Raich, MS, MPH, October 20th, 2014
From the Executive Summary: “Rarely has there been such a divide between science and public opinion as there is with medicinal and recreational use of marijuana. The purpose of this review is to summarize over 20 years of of peer-reviewed publications from journals around the world, on the often complicated relationship between marijuana and health. With over 50 topics reviewed in detail throughout this report please reference the specific review section for recommended reading and citation of the studies summarized below.” [Link to full report.]
Not as obscure as you might think – and definitely in the public interest:
Final Incorporation by Reference Rule Implements Recommendation 2011-5 (from Legal Research Plus, with links to Fed Register)
“Today, the Office of the Federal Register (OFR) published its final rule on incorporation by reference. See Incorporation by Reference, 79 Fed. Reg. 66,267 (Nov. 7, 2014). The Freedom of Information Act allows agencies to incorporate by reference into federal regulations extrinsic materials that are “reasonably available to the class of persons affected.” 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(1). ….
I recently asked law librarians for alternate, non-proprietary, ways of saying “Shepard’s” or “KeyCite” (or Shepardizing or KeyCiting). Below you’ll find a short list and a long list of responses, and not a few “namemushs.”
We focused primarily on case citators, but keep in mind you can cite-check a lot of things, including law review articles, court rules, statutes, and regulations (to name only 4).
What’s a citator? We like this concise description of Online Citators, from the University of Washington Law School librarians.
No, Virginia, you can’t believe anything you read “on the Internet,” except of course that there is a Santa Claus.
And, from the Net for Lawyers blog: “The ‘Death’ of Judd Nelson, Eddie Murphy, Jeff Goldblum, et al: The Importance of Verifying Sources on the Internet”
Oregon Legal Research Blog