Articles Posted in General Legal Research Resources

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The good news out of the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Oregon is that overall bankruptcy filings for the district were down in 2011 compared to 2010.  There were 17,151 cases filed in 2011, compared with 19,741 in 2010.  If you compare the 2011 numbers with the total case filings from 2005 (32,168 total case filings), the 2011 statistics appear promising.  However, we still receive many questions about filing for bankruptcy.  So, we’ve created a new legal research guide on bankruptcy, available on the Washington County Law Library’s website.  As usual, if you can’t find a document on our website, check out our handy, alphabetical document index.    

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We work with a lot of public library reference librarians and library assistants and are always on the lookout for materials that could help them help their public library patrons who ask legal reference and legal research questions.

One day we’ll write that quick and dirty legal reference guide for public libraries, but in the meantime, the Drake Law Library in Iowa has linked to, and annotated, a list of many of my favorite guides at their website that explain the unauthorized practice of law, differences between legal information and advice, and legal research techniques:

Self-represented litigant resources

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Malcolm Gladwell and the Freakonomics Guys aren’t the only ones who want to burst a few of your bubbles and shake up your world of assumptions:.

I’ve come into close contact (!) with these 3 books & writers in the past few weeks and thought I’d note their titles here for my book-loving readers:

1) “Quiet” was terrific (and was written by a lawyer), but none of the reviews I’ve read so far have mentioned how funny the author is when she lets her droll sense of humor loose:

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If you’ve been following the news regarding the proposed administrative rule eliminating Native American mascots in Oregon public schools, and wanted to know more administrative rules and administrative law in general, you’re in luck. The Washington County Law Library has a brand new administrative law legal research guide available on its website.  You can find more Oregon Legal Research blog posts on administrative law, including an invaluable post on researching the history of an OAR, using the “administrative law” tag.  As always, many other legal research guides are available on the law library’s website, and you can always peruse the document index for quick document retrieval.

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Bob Ambrogi’s LawSites blog post on the new book, A Thorough Guide to Freelance Lawyering, by Alaska attorney Kimberly L. Alderman, will intrigue a lot of lawyers – and law librarians (!).

Freelancing is not for everyone, but if you have an adventurous spirit and can figure out how to pay the bills until your practice is up and running, this book might be a good place to begin to plan for the future.

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Yes, it’s Oregon Birthday, but we’re going to focus on lawyer love, instead.  Sad, I know, and perhaps ultimately futile, but one must try.

We will start with the “The Restatement of Love,” which was published in the Yale Law Journal (full cite: 104 Yale L.J. 707 (1994)).  (If you can’t find a copy online, check with local library databases or email us here at Oregon Legal Research Central.)

Next, let’s laugh at the language of the legal profession – and if you’re not having enough laughter in your job then it’s time to rethink your career choice.

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Law in the News alerts us (on 2/3/12) to this provocative article:

Colbert v. the Court: Why, in the battle over Citizens United, the Supreme Court never had a chance,” Dahlia Lithwick, Slate dot com, Thursday, Feb. 2, 2012

Excerpt: “…. When a 91-year-old former justice is patiently explaining to a comedian that corporations are not people, it’s clear that everything about the majority opinion has been reduced to a punch line….” [Link to full Slate article.]

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Yes, Charles Dickens was very hard on lawyers, but he also had at least one lawyer hero (albeit a rather reluctant one, but definitely endearing rather than greedy or diabolical) and maybe more than one.

My favorite Dickens novel, “Our Mutual Friend,” has a nice-guy lawyer hero – 2 in fact – and as fabulous an array of characters as you’ll find in any Dickens’ writing.

Visit: Charles Dickens Museum or Wikipedia Charles Dickens

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A former Speaker of the House is addressed, and referred to as, Mr. x, not Speaker x.  The current President of the United States is addressed, and referred to as, President, not Mr. x.

Do not assume other public officials, candidates for public office, radio or TV news hosts, newspaper reporters, or others know correct forms of address.  Look it up yourself.  It’s fun!

You will find authority for these pronouncements in any number of respected forms of address manuals, e.g. to name only two:

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If U.S. Supreme Court Justices can rise above their Green Bag bobblehead replicas, and state court judges survive becoming piñatas, then surely the Department of Homeland Security can survive Justice Bedsworth’s forked tongue (and the Peter Principle)?

“Weaponized Snow Cones,” by Justice William W. Bedsworth, A Criminal Waste of Space, February 2012:

“I am not cut out to be an administrator. I have neither talent for, nor interest in, things administrative.

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