Oregon Legal Research BlogFrom the Ater Wynn Business Litigation blog comes this: Oregon Supreme Court Briefs Now on the Web. Here’s a direct link.
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Oregon Supreme Court Briefs Now Online
Articles Posted in General Legal Research Resources
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Effective Dates of (Oregon) Legislation
1) If you just need a quick and dirty answer to your “what is the effective date of this new law?” question and don’t have time to find the answer yourself (or just aren’t interested), phone the:
Legislative Liaisons (in Salem): 503-986-1000
The Legislative Liaisons are quick, helpful, courteous and just plain terrific.
2) If you want a DIY (Do-it-Yourself) lesson in Effective Dates, read on:
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Prepare to Say Goodbye to ALR (as we know it)
ALR will be on Westlaw ONLY, not Lexis, starting January 2008. An August 20th, 2007, Information Today article sums up what will happen and provides links to background and related stories, including the products Lexis will roll out to fill the gap.
From the Information Today article, by Carol Ebbinghouse:
“American Law Reports (ALR) resources will be available exclusively on Westlaw beginning in January 2008. This date coincides with the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the ALR series that began with Legal Research Annotated (LRA). The move by Thomson West’s Westlaw legal information service to pull its ALR content from competitor LexisNexis will not be a popular one with Lexis users—especially this Lexis user and her patrons! LexisNexis plans to offer new and upgraded services in response (see below), so the one-upmanship battle between the last legal information empires left standing grinds on. In its wake lie the customers, reeling from the never-ending cycle of having valuable information pulled out from under them again and again and again….”
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New Rule on Filng Briefs in Oregon Supreme Court
The Oregon Supreme Court has a new rule about filing digital briefs, ORAP 9.17.
From the OJD web page:
The Oregon Supreme Court recently amended ORAP 9.17 to require that a party filing a brief on the merits in the Supreme Court also email to the court an electronic copy of the brief in portable document format (PDF). The electronic copy is in addition to filing paper copies. ORAP 9.17(5) applies to any brief on the merits filed after May 1, 2007.
The requirement applies to intervenors and amicus curiae but exempts a party confined in a state institution and not represented by counsel. Any other party who lacks the technology to comply with the amendments may move for relief from the requirement.
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Lawyers: Groking Web 2.0
One can’t blog enough about this subject. Lawyers, and others (and especially parents!), need to know about Web 2.0. You really, really, really do.
If you are tech-inclined, but just don’t have a lot of time, use the 23 Things method for learning about Web 2.0.
If you are not tech-inclined (and that is most of us), Robert Ambrogi has an excellent series of articles for lawyers that you can get to from his recent Web 2.0 post. Read them, follow the links, and experiment. Don’t worry about getting frustrated the first time through. It can take time for most of us to grasp (or grok, if you will 🙂 all of this.
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Appealing from Municipal to Circuit Court: Proceed with Caution
This Oregon Court of Appeals decision, Milton-Freewater v Ashley (A130586), was decided August 22nd, 2007:
“The circuit court dismissed defendant’s appeal from a judgment of conviction in the municipal court on the ground that defendant failed to file the original notice of appeal with the municipal court and, therefore, the circuit court lacked jurisdiction to review the judgment of conviction. As we explain, ORS 53.030 required defendant to file the original notice of appeal with the municipal court, and her failure to satisfy that requirement precluded the circuit court from exercising jurisdiction over her appeal. We review the circuit court’s conclusion for errors of law, and affirm.”
Update: I neglected to include this excerpt from the opinion:
“We conclude that, when a municipal court that has not become a court of record prosecutes state misdemeanor offenses pursuant to ORS 221.339(2), the municipal court is exercising its authority as a justice court. In that situation, where the municipal court acts as a justice court, we apply the statutes that govern appeals from the justice court.”
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Beat Your Ticket – Like a Mensch
We heard from another law library patron the other day who called to say, “thanks!” for the ticket “beating” information we provided (see my Beat Your Ticket posting from July 13th).
Life’s not fair (see Ernie the Attorney’s “unfair” posting from July 29th), though sometimes it can be unfair in YOUR favor (see Beaverton police officer ticket story update today in the Oregonian).
Ya gotta play hurt sometimes and other times you gotta play on the side of the angels.
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“Insanely Useful Websites” for Tracking Government Transparency”
These really are, “Insanely Useful Websites” for tracking government (primarily federal) transparency. Thanks to the Law Librarian blog for the link.
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How to find affordable legal counsel
Limited scope legal assistance, unbundled legal services, “discrete task representation” … these are all terms used to describe a particular type of lawyer-client business model.
You can read more about what these terms mean, in the ABA Handbook on Limited Scope Legal Assistance.
And this month’s terrific OSB Bar Bulletin has an article on the ethical issues to be considered when lawyers and clients work together, “unbundled” (so to speak) in the article, ”The Ethics of Unbundling: How to Avoid the Land Mines of ‘Discrete Task Representation.’”