“The Unacknowledged Legislators of the World,” April 28, 2015 by Jennifer Davis (Law Library of Congress)
“…. The centrality of interpretation to law and poetry is also explored by Wallace Stevens, most markedly in his poem “Metaphors of a Magnifico“:
Twenty men crossing a bridge,
Hat tip to Gallagher blogs, the ever vigilant and ever playful, law librarians at the University of Washington.
“National County Government Month
April is the cruellest month,” wrote T. S. Eliot. If you’re a fan of Eliot, you might be celebrating April as National Poetry Month.
“Oregon Jury awards couple nearly $240K over neighbors’ barking dogs,“ by Martha Neil, ABA Journal News, April 16, 2015
“An Oregon jury has awarded nearly $240,000 to a Rogue River couple who said they had to listen to their neighbors’ dogs constant barking for over a decade.
Plaintiffs Dale and Debra Krein said in the Jackson County suit that John Updegraff and Karen Szewc began breeding Tibetan mastiffs in 2002. After that, the giant dogs began barking around 5 a.m. and continued all day, the Kreins contended. They said their neighbors did not attempt to keep the dogs quiet even after the two were cited more than a decade ago by county authorities for creating a nuisance, reports the Medford Mail Tribune….” [Link to ABA article.]
At the end of the April 2015 “The Legal Writer” column in the OSB Bulletin, Suzanne Rowe poses a Brevity Challenge:
“How much can you say in just a few words? Here’s the Brevity Challenge: In just six words, write your best demand letter, contract, will, case brief, statement of facts, argument, conclusion or anything else that lawyers write. Send me your prose, along with your name and where you live. The best will appear in a future column of The Legal Writer.”
(The article does not provide an email address for the author. You can send it via her University of Oregon Law School website or to the OSB Bulletin Editor.)
Law Library Hires New Public Services Attorney (from the press release):
“.… The Public Law Library of King County is pleased to announce that Marc Lampson has joined the Public Law Library to serve as the library’s first Public Services Attorney. The newly created position is an innovative response to the ever growing phenomenon of people representing themselves in legal proceedings. Recent statistics from the King County Superior Court show that in 63% of general civil cases at least one party was not represented by a lawyer. In domestic or family law cases, the percentage climbed to 80%. In 91% of the landlord/tenant or eviction cases, only the landlord was represented by a lawyer. In 50% of family law cases, neither side was represented. This trend is typical throughout the United States, and law librarians have found that these unrepresented litigants frequently come to the law library for help.
As a result, a few law libraries in other states have developed self-help centers to provide their patrons with not only research assistance, but legal assistance as well…. [Mark’s] work will eventually entail establishing a self-help center in the library to provide direct legal assistance for patrons and to coordinate further legal assistance through referrals, clinics, workshops, and innovative online methods for the delivery of legal services.
OSB CLE Seminars Course Materials Library is “open during construction.” (Yes, say thank you!!)
In case you missed it from OSB Bulletin’s Bar News (Feb/March 2015): “Written course materials from past CLE seminars are now available as a member benefit. Bar members can download the PDF files for free from the CLE page of the bar website. To view the available materials, visit www.osbar.org/CLE and click on the Course Materials Library link.
In the next few months, the past course materials will migrate over to the BarBooks Library online, where they will be integrated and searchable along with all the other BarBooks materials. But until then, members can explore what might be interesting and helpful on the CLE web pages.”
OIP Event: This is Innocence: May 15, 2015, at Mercy Corp Action Center (Portland).
Guest speaker Jennifer Thompson, a rape victim who wrongly identified her attacker and sent the wrong person to prison. “DNA later freed that man, Ronald Cotton, and the two wrote a book together about the unreliability of eyewitness identification and the beauty in forgiveness called Picking Cotton.”
Also speaking will be Rep. Jennifer Williamson from House Dist. 36 and Steve Wax, OIP’s Legal Director
Put those lawyer jokes aside (but not all of them and not forever): Most of the lawyers I know, serve, and witness in action practice random acts of kindness every day. Here are two recent stories that have hit the news about Oregon lawyers:
Lawyer Jeff Bradford
This article is from the Oregonian:
“He’s not much of a legal mind, but boy can he proofread….”
It’s that time again to visit the bitter, twisted, and hilarious Justice Bedsworth: “March 2015 – In Dog We Trust,” by Justice William W. Bedsworth. (You can read the Judge’s April 2015 “A Criminal Waste of Space” column, too.)
And if you want to see the yes, it’s a true story, rug, just search Google Image for these words: pinellas county sheriff’s office rug in dog we trust
From Dewy B Strategic:
What’s the best NEW PRODUCT you became aware of in 2014?
What was the BEST FEATURE/FUNCTION added to an information resource in 2014?
Oregon Legal Research Blog