Oregon Legal Research BlogSteve Wax, Oregon’s Chief Federal Public Defender has won the 2009 American Bar Association (ABA) Silver Gavel Award for his book, “Kafka Comes to America: Fighting for Justice in the War on Terror.”
Articles Posted in General Legal Research Resources
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Perils of a New Washington County (Oregon) Law Library Website
The newly redesigned Washington County (Oregon) website is up and running, however …
One of the many perils of migrating to a new county webpage is that links from this Oregon Legal Research blog to research guides on the Washington County (Oregon) Law Library’s (WCLL) webpage will be misdirected. Not all of them, but too many. I am slowly making my way through the cleanup, including updating previous blog post links to some of our most frequently used research guides.
Here is the list so far, with correct links for the guides I’ve been told are not linking properly from old posts. (You can also get to these guides from the WCLL webpage.)
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More Free and Low-Cost Legal Research Tools
An excellent, and fast, tutorial on free and low cost legal research tools is available from the Duke University law librarians: The Unexploded Cow’s Guide to Legal Research
My previous posts on free and low-cost legal research are here and here (with additional imbedded links).
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Buying, Selling, Merging and Closing a Law Practice in Oregon
We’ve been getting excellent feedback on the ABA’s “Buying, Selling, Merging and Closing a Law Practice”.
When law partners part amicably, they may find that a how-to book is useful, but when they part less than amicably, they must have a book, forms, checklists, and sometimes more – a referee maybe?
In Oregon, attorneys also have the incomparable PLF staff members who advise Oregon attorneys on all sorts of legal practice, and getting out of practice, issues. New Oregon attorneys don’t automatically think about PLF and about just how many services are provided by the PLF. The PLF really wants to keep you out of trouble so they offer a lot of preventative care! Use them – the PLF, that is.
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Peeps in the Law: Sweet
We all need a little bit of comic relief and today’s suggestion comes to you from the lawyers and law librarians behind: “Top 3 ‘Peeps in Law’ Entries” from the ABA Journal Law News Now, Apr 13, 2009,by Molly McDonough.
Don’t forget to click on the Peeps in Law Gallery for contest entries.
(Librarians also play Pimp My Bookcart for their comic relief.)
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When Lawyers Sue Legal Publishers: Contracts and/or Ethics?
This is an interesting story:
Law Professors Seek Injunction over ‘Sham’ Treatise Supplement, by Shannon P. Duffy, The Legal Intelligencer, April 16, 2009.
Excerpt: “An ugly dispute has erupted between West Publishing and two law professors who claim they were falsely identified as the authors of an annual supplement to a treatise on Pennsylvania criminal law even though they had nothing to do with writing it.
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Mexican and other Foreign Court Records Indexes and Databases
PI Buzz has a post, with Comments, about a Mexican court records database: Mexico Court Record Index Online.
Finding other countries’ court records databases doesn’t appear to be that difficult in a Google World, however, you should always try and talk to people who use those databases professionally to find out the pitfalls, the shortcomings, the strengths, and the alternatives. Private investigators and librarians who specialized in public and criminal records searching are excellent resources for database evaluations.
(PI Buzz also has a series of articles about Sunshine Week and government transparency.)
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License to Print Money? Researching Marijuana Taxation Law, History, and Practice
A recent bill in the Oregon Legislature, 2009 HB 3274 (HTML or PDF), and a question from a patron, started me thinking about what my research strategy might look like if I had to draft legislation on this subject or if I had to argue for or against taxing marijuana sales (medical marijuana or other uses, if any).
(There was also this recent New York Times story: Struggling States Look to Unorthodox Taxes, by Jesse McKinley, February 28, 2009.)
And, I attended an interesting program recently on evidence-based research (origins in evidence-based medicine), which gave me even more ideas on sources one would need to consult to write the definitive guide to marijuana research, or even just marijuana taxation.
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Blogging, Commitment, and Legal Cartoons
Blogging is a commitment – it’s not a civil (or criminal) commitment, although it sometimes may feel that way, but it’s still something to take seriously (and I also believe civilly), assuming you the blogger want to be taken seriously. You need to blog regularly to keep up the momentum, your own and your readers. (See my previous posts on blogging, here and on public sector blogging.)
But, it can’t be as difficult as trying to trying to come up with a cartoon a day, which has to be up there with having to put out an interesting newspaper every day (with real articles, not just wire stories) or feeding a family 3 meals a day, day after day, week after week, month after …. You get the point, which may not be what you think it is.
Imagine, each and every single day, day after day, week after …, you are introduced to someone as the “funniest person I know,” and each time someone new looks at you as if to say, “ok, say something funny.” How many of us can meet that challenge?! Daily cartoonists do!
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“Are you a licensed Oregon attorney?” is a Yes or No Question
Check Your “Attorney’s” Bona Fides! (Don’t be an April Fool.)
“I thought he was a licensed attorney.”
“I thought a paralegal could advise and represent me.”
“He said he knew Oregon law.”
If you hire someone who claims to be an attorney, or who hedges when asked, trust your instincts, because when your instinct detects hedging, your instinct is often a whole lot sharper than you are at the moment. It doesn’t mean it is right, just that it isn’t bothered with “being nice” or any other need to please. Be the adult and stay in charge of the situation.
“Are you a licensed attorney in this state” is a yes or no question.
The answer should not be “uh, huh, or uhhhhhhh,” or, “ummm, uh uh, how are you today?” or “sort of,” or any variation on that theme.
The answer should either be “NO” or “YES” and “here is my bar card so you can check with the Oregon State Bar.” And then CHECK with the Oregon State Bar! Call them or check their website, for heaven’s sake.