Articles Posted in General Legal Research Resources

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May is Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. Therefore, we will highlight an important intersection of legal history of significant impact to the Japanese-American community: the Japanese internment camps, the Korematsu v. US Supreme Court case, and its subsequent legal treatment.

On February 19, 1942 President Franklin Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, authorizing the removal of Japanese Americans from the west coast of the United States, which resulted in their relocation to internment camps.

The legality of this order and removal was challenged by Fred Korematsu, and the related curfew challenged by Minoru Yasui of Oregon and Gordon Hirabayashi. In all three cases the Supreme Court upheld the right of the government to exclude Japanese Americans and impose a curfew on them.

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As a techno geek I’ve been fascinated by the concept of Artificial Intelligence (or “AI” as it also known). Maybe it’s the Star Trek-iness of it, but the I like idea of having a bot do some of the work for me. The advertising for Google’s Bard AI system says it can help you write your novel. In a recent article a Londoner asked Bard to plan a weekend in London (including what they should wear!). Even if you don’t get the information you were hoping for, at least it provides for an amusing anecdote.

Lately I’ve seen articles published about using AI to aid in legal research and was wondering what the consensus was about using an AI platform to do legal research.

Above the Law has an interesting piece on how AI is transforming legal research, including a brief history of legal research all the way back to the “Unwieldy Rocks” of Hammurabi’s Code.

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Your local law library may provide some online resources you can access at home. Below are some examples from Washington County, Oregon. You can check with your local county law library to see what they offer.

The Washington County Law Library offers LexisNexis Digital Library. Patrons can sign up using an online form. Once registered they can access the digital titles subscribed to via a web link or the Digital Library app. LexisNexis Digital Library is relatively easy to use, and they offer robust online help to navigate the platform. It is important to remember this is an eBook platform, not a legal research platform. Among the titles patrons can access are Oregon Evidence, Employment in Oregon, LexisNexis Practice Guide: Washington Family Law, Military Family Law, Understanding Bankruptcy, The ABA Spanish Legal Phrasebook, and Trial: A Guide from Start to Finish.

The Washington County Law Library also subscribes to HeinOnline. Anyone with a Washington County Cooperative Library Services library card can access it remotely via the WCCLS HeinOnline page. If you don’t have a WCCLS card you can sign up for their digital card. HeinOnline has a large collection of law journals, federal legal materials, and subject specific collections (such as LGBTQ+ rights or gun laws).

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How did we answer that?

By Paula Simon

We had a younger patron come into the library who was interested in the process to become emancipated from their parents. What is emancipation? According to the Washington County Juvenile department, emancipation means “that a 16- or 17-year-old person can be given certain rights and responsibilities of an adult or 18-year-old person.”

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How did we answer that?

Sometimes someone comes in and what they want is outside of the scope of what we offer, or we have a very limited ability to help. So, what do we do when that happens?

I had a patron come in a couple of weeks ago wanting to know if the person named in a case was the same person he knew. He had found an appeal online where the name matched someone he knew. The appeals court was in a small Midwest area not highly populated and the name in the case was not common to the area and he was wondering if there was a way to confirm an identity match. He had all of the vital statistics of the individual including an address.

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How Did We Answer That?

We had a patron whose mother died in Kentucky. This was during the pandemic so travel from Oregon to Kentucky was not very practical. His sister still lived in the area, so he contacted us asking for ideas on how to help his sister with the estate. He wanted to do some research on finding a lawyer, being an executor of the will, and if there was anything he could do to help remotely.

Even though he was interested in Kentucky procedures, there were still some things we could point him to here in our library that he could read and let his sister know about. There are many NOLO books (which both law libraries and public libraries usually carry) dealing with wills and estate planning. Since NOLO books are not state specific these were a good primer for the patron and his sister. In Oregon we have access to NOLO books online thanks to the State of Oregon Law Library. A public library may have information about a similar problem in another state.

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How did we answer that? #NeighborLaw #FenceReplacement

We had a patron come in asking if a neighbor could compel the other neighbor to pay for half a fence. According to our patron, there was an old fence on the property line but it wasn’t in bad condition and didn’t need replacing. However, the neighbor replaced the fence without talking to our patron and now wants our patron to pay for half of the cost. Our patron was wondering what their rights were and if they would have to pay.

So, how did we help? Most of the situation our patron was describing was around the subject of neighbor law. We started our patron on the Nolo book called Neighbor Law: Fences, Trees, Boundaries & Noise. Nolo Press titles are excellent resources because they present legal information with easy to read and understand language. While they are not Oregon specific, they provide a good foundation for further research if needed. They also explain legal language and terms so that when using more technical resources, it makes those more understandable. Nolo titles are available in many law libraries and public libraries as well as through the State of Oregon Law Library as ebooks.

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We were recently asked about finding previous versions of the Oregon Administrative Rules and the Oregon Bulletin.

The Oregon Administrative Rules Compilation is an annual online publication containing complete text of Oregon Administrative Rules (OAR) effective January 1 of the compilation year. The Secretary of State ceased print publication after 2017.

The Oregon Bulletin is a monthly online supplement containing rule text adopted or amended as well as Notices of Proposed Rule­making and Rulemaking Hearing. The Bulletin also includes certain non-OAR items when they are submitted, such as Executive Orders of the Governor and Opinions of the Attorney General (Oregon Bulletin, 2017).

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Our Oregon Historical Society, and its Oregon Encyclopedia, commemorate the 80th Anniversary of the President’s Executive Order 9066 (2/19/1942).

Visit the OHS Oregon Encyclopedia for this and other documents on the incarceration of Japanese people during World War 2. (Use the Explore tab for an A to Z index.)

Primary Source documents: Overview: Japanese American Wartime Incarceration in Oregon

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Librarians advocate reading widely, especially outside one’s usual fields of interest or even research. (This is the opposite of what most “social media” (aka anti-social media) forces on their customers.)

I came across the phrase “blinded by guilt” in a lighthearted mystery novel and when I did a random search for the phrase, I came across the following article in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. (The “Butt-dialing the devil” article was just a bonus, listed in the “recommended articles” sidebar. Remember this rule: Always Read the Whole Screen.”

Litigators, civil and criminal, and litigants might find some value in the research, if only to store away for future reference.

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