Articles Posted in General Legal Research Resources

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We have a new legal research guide on Estate Planning available on the law library’s website. You can find previously posted information on estate planning through the “estate planning” tag at the bottom of this post or through this link. Along those same lines, The Oregonian published an interesting article last Sunday, March 27, on estate sale fraud:

“Complaints to the DOJ concerning estate sellers, secondhand stores and auction houses have doubled since 2008. Among those lodging complaints are an elderly widower, a woman with breast cancer trying to fund her care and adult children selling the family home. All told the state they were never paid for heirlooms, which were either sold at garage sale prices or simply vanished. But when things go wrong, many people don’t know where to turn — and don’t want to shell out as much for legal fees as they’re looking to recoup.”

Consumers with complaints about Oregon businesses, including estate sellers and auction houses, can contact the Financial Fraud/Consumer Protection section of the Oregon Department of Justice’s Civil Enforcement Division. The Attorney General’s Consumer Hotline (1-877-877-9392) is available between the hours of 8:30 am and 4:30 pm. Consumers can also search the DOJ’s consumer complaints database for complaints filed after January 1, 2008.

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We frequently have patrons requesting small-estate affidavit forms (it was also a very popular request when I worked in Texas). Here are a few places you can find small-estate affidavit forms and information:

1) Check with the applicable circuit court’s website for the form and/or information on filing a small-estate affidavit. Our circuit court does not offer a small estate form, but they do provide information on filing an Affidavit of Claiming Successor, including the related statutes. Marion county’s circuit court does provide a small estate affidavit form, as do Deschutes and Clackamas (be sure to check your county’s circuit court website as I did not check every county).

2) A common referral for frequently-used forms is the Stevens-Ness Law Publishing Company. They sell Oregon-specific small-estate affidavit forms for both testate and intestate estates (in paper and electronic formats).

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Gustbuster_Top

The Washington County (Oregon) Law Library is scanning the 1953-1987 Oregon Revised Statutes (ORS).

These particular volumes are also known as the “Gutbusters,” because the pages are filed in 7-10” gut-busting (to lift) loose-leaf binders.

Read the project description and view a sample 1955 Chapter:

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Legal Research for Parents of Adult Children with Disabilities
Questions from parents about adult children with disabilities can cover a very wide range of legal issues. The following resources (and our new Disability Law Legal Research Guide) cover a few popular topics.

Special Needs Trusts:
1) The Arc of Oregon has a website on the Oregon Special Needs Trust. The Oregon Special Needs Trust is a “pooled trust” fund that provides supplemental needs to disabled individuals.
2) The National Special Needs Network offers answers to Frequently Asked Questions about Supplemental Needs Trusts.

State and county resources:
1) The Oregon Department of Human Services has a list of County Developmental Disabilities Programs and a Support Services Brokerages List by county/region.
2) The Washington County Developmental Disability Program offers a number of useful agency links on their website.
3) Lifespan Respite, from the Oregon DHS, provides information for families and providers about caring for a child or adult with special needs.

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Beer is a hot topic in this year’s 2011 Legislative Session. You can find beer bills, so to speak, by using the search engine at the Legislature’s website: I found these today:

HB2100
HB2262
HB2588
HB2644
HB2924
HB3145
HB3110

And then there is 2011 Senate Bill 444, which doesn’t pop up in the Legislature’s search-engine, which is a puzzle, but not the first time we’ve noticed the problem.

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I was able to answer a reference question the other day with a Jack Ohman cartoon – the one about redistricting in Sunday’s (2/6/11) Oregonian – very funny. The patron was pleased.

I’m not the only law librarian who says that “reference” duty is the best job in a library. It also helps if you read widely, including political cartoons. (I grew up, so to speak, with Herblock and it’s nice now to be in Jack Ohman territory (Oregonian-home).

Political cartoonists are amazing people – political, literary, artistic, comedic, disquieting, and not infrequently sources of reference information.

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It all started with a simple citation. One of our patrons had a case from the Oregon Court of Appeals and was looking for previous history information. The first thing that should have set off my radar that this would not be a simple request was the patron’s mention that the case was affirmed without opinion. Not knowing the twisting path before me, I happily set off on my journey.

Day 1:

  • I started with a LexisNexis search using the provided citation. Sadly, Lexis offered a paucity of prior history information. However, I did learn the case was an appeal from the Oregon Employment Appeals Board (EAB). Locating the original EAB decision (from 1985) was now my goal.
  • I next checked our library’s collection, where I found Employment Relations Board decisions, but nothing from the EAB.
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“Abandoning Law Reports for Official Digital Case Law,” Cornell Legal Studies Research Paper No. 11-01, Peter W. Martin, Cornell Law School

As you’ll see when you read and think about this, there are good ways to go about shifting to digital and there are irresponsible ways.

(Thank you to Legal Research Plus for the lead.)

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Also from the excellent Gallagher Blog:

“What Judges Think of the Quality of Legal Representation”

Excerpt: “How well do lawyers represent their clients? It’s a hard question to answer. One approach would be to ask the judges who observe the lawyers at work, and that’s just what Judge Richard A. Posner and Professor Albert H. Yoon have done: What Judges Think of the Quality of Legal Representation, 63 Stan. L. Rev. 317 (2010)…” (Link to full blog post.)

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