Articles Posted in General Legal Research Resources

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I have written before about how you cannot prepare for a serious court proceeding using just the resources you find on the “free” web. (And, aren’t all court proceedings serious?)

That is, if you have an adversary who knows how to research law and legal procedure, if you will appear before a judge in a court of record (as opposed to, e.g. a small claims court or traffic court where you are not expected to know “the law”), if you want a fair shot a winning your case, then:

You need to do the research – and that means researching case law and statutes, And, that is just the BEGINNING:

(And, even in small claims and traffic court it helps to do your research.)

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From Robert Ambrogi’s Law Sites 9/23/10 post: Thomson Unveils Global Hub for Free Legal Help:

Excerpt: “At an event today in New York City, Thomson Reuters will formally announce the launch of TrustLaw, a Web-based service that is intended to promote “the culture and practice of pro bono” around the world….” (Link to full blog post)

The TrustLaw site says: “TrustLaw is a global centre for free legal assistance and anti-corruption news, run by Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of the world’s leading provider of news and information, Thomson Reuters.

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Dewsnup v. Farmers Insurance Company of Oregon, (SC 057895), decided September 16, 2010:

Supreme Court Media Release:

“…Today, the Oregon Supreme Court ruled that, based on plaintiffs’ expert’s affidavit, the question whether a roof, after a homeowner has begun to disassemble and repair it, remained a “roof” for the purposes of a homeowners’ insurance policy, was a question of fact that must be decided by a jury rather than being determined by a judge on summary judgment….” (Read full 9/16/10, Media Release or full opinion.)

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The OSB has had a winning line-up of new books released this year, and the latest one “Rights of Foreign Nationals“is as welcome to lawyers and law librarians as the previous titles were, which include:

1) Interpreting Oregon Law

2) Oregon Trial Objections

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The excellent (and fun!) Mighell Marker, a Legal Technology Weekly, Volume 11, Issue 26 September 12, 2010, alerts us to this:

Marcus Zillman’s Factchecker Directory (homepage):

“The Directory of Fact Checkers is a Subject Tracer Information Blog designed to be a comprehensive listing of the available fact checkers and sources on the Internet and is being compiled and edited by Internet expert and guru Marcus P. Zillman, M.S., A.M.H.A. and Executive Directory of the Virtual Private Library” (link to Directory)

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After highlighting Yale Law School Dogs in a previous blog post, I would be remiss if I omit a blog post on their rare book exhibit on Courtrooms in Comic Books.

(From the exhibit, “Superheroes in Court! Lawyers, Law and Comic Books“, curated by Mark S. Zaid, Esq., and on display Sept. 4-Dec, 16, 2010 in the Rare Book Exhibition Gallery, Level L2, Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School.)

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Suppose you want to find out what lawsuits a business or an individual has filed in Oregon against another business, a customer, or an individual. How and where do you look that up?

1) Here in the U.S., if you are searching state court records (rather than federal court records), you will generally look to a courthouse docket, database, or other lists of “lawsuits filed.” These lists will sometimes be kept in statewide databases, but not always. For example, when the court is local, not statewide, it is possible that the only listing of parties sued, or being sued, will be held by the Court – and they may still be in print only.

2) NOT ALL COURT RECORDS ARE ONLINE. In fact, not all ANYTHING is online. (Sigh – except maybe those documents “born digital.”) And even if the court records are stored in a digital database, this does not mean access to it is free or available to everyone.

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The Law Librarian Blog (LLB) has an interview with the Quid Pro Books publisher:

Law Prof as Independent Law Book Publisher: An Interview with Alan Childress, Founder of Quid Pro Books:

Excerpt “… Wait a minute, a law prof as independent law book publisher?! When I saw that Alan’s corrected and annotated version of Holmes’ The Common Law was available in eight digital formats and in paperback and read the Publisher Information page about Quid Pro, LLC, sidebar, right, my interest peaked. This isn’t some law prof who has gone the self-publication route because no major publisher would accept his 2010 edition of Holmes’ The Common Law. Quid Pro Books is a new venture that publishes eBooks of original manuscripts in law and law-and-society, in addition to classics, for worldwide distribution….” (Link to full LLB blog post and to Quid Pro Books.):

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People who work in the legal community don’t generally ask us this question, but ordinary mortals do. I am an ordinary mortal too, mostly, so the question seemed well worth a blog post on the subject:

Before trying to track down that transcriptionist, aka transcriber, or even doing it yourself:

1) First, make sure you know what is on the CD and how it was recorded. For example, Oregon Courts use FTR (“For The Record”) to record trials. Is that what is on your CD?

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That little old “space key” or its absence can matter, a lot.

Abbreviations can drive one crazy, especially when searching online, either on the free web or in subscription databases. Those of us in the digital searching world know that searching for something by its abbreviation is an exercise in frustration. (Librarians (almost) never give up so it’s not an exercise in futility. We WILL FIND that document, if we have to die (figuratively speaking) trying.)

Most of us vividly remember searches where we had to try a dozen variations on a theme in the effort to locate a case, a person, or a document, where the only unique “name” was an abbreviation.

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