Articles Posted in Legal Subject Area Guides

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A letter by attorney Frederic Cann in the October 2007 OSB Bulletin makes several important points about attorney ghostwriting, the subject of a July 2007 OSB Bulletin article, “The Ethics of Unbundling.”

Here’s an excerpt from the letter:

“The past few years have seen many articles in the OSB Bulletin about ‘unbundling’ legal services. In the consumer law area the expense of full-service legal representation means unbundled legal services are here to stay. However, lawyers providing unbundled legal services in litigation do have to navigate a “minefield,” because they often are unable to control the ultimate use or presentation of their work product.

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The Oregonian ran an interesting story by Helen Yung on October 10, 2007, “Who pays the piper when musicians visit?” From the story:

“The way the state sees it, musicians like Kristin Hersh of Rhode Island and John Wesley Harding of New York were employed in Oregon.

Both internationally known artists performed for an evening at Mississippi Studios in North Portland. And those few hours, the state contends, made them — as well as the hundreds of other musicians who performed there in the past three years — employees of the club and subject to normal unemployment taxes.
…

The reason? Oregon statute 657.506, which states that musicians are employees of venues unless the contract expressly states that the musicians are responsible for filing reports and paying their own taxes. Language declaring the musician an independent contractor is not sufficient, said department spokesman Tom Fuller.”

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While searching for information on Arthur Leff’s classic, “Swindling & Selling,” my hyperlink tracks led me to wikihow ( and How to Import Old Public Domain Books to wikihow) and to How to Draw a Monkey and then on to where I really planned to go, Stanford’s Copyright Renewal Database (an interview, by Mary Minow of Library Law, with the database’s founders can be found here).

Ain’t librarianship (and research) grand! Now, if only someone would reprint Leff’s Swindling and Selling. Sigh.

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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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One of the latest course books we received from OLI is, “Licensing Intellectual Property: Basics and Applications in Media and Technology Transfer,” from a June 1st, 2007, program. This sounds horribly dry and specialized, but it’s not! The contents are funny, informative, well-organized, and cover everything from, if not soup to nuts, then at least from Patent Pitfalls to My Space to “Open Sourcery.” There is even a Checklist (lawyers and librarians love Checklists!) on “Copyright Tips for Using Content of Others,” by attorney Gary Glisson.

My library purchases many course books from the OSB, OLI, and MBA courses that Oregon attorneys are required to take. Some of these course books are terrific stand-alone research tools. Not every attorney/teacher does a good job with printed teaching material, but those who do – well, we thank them!

The other attorneys who participated in this particular CLE include, Julie Reed, David McFeeters-Krone, Paula Holm Jensen, Jeff Pitzer, Michael Heilbronner, Kohel Have, and Brian Jamison.

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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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Ordinary people (non-attorneys) often ask law librarians the most complex legal questions and expect answers. It’s a mystery. We show people how to fish – we don’t give them fish. If you want fish, call an attorney. (It’s ok – I won’t take this overused analogy much further, but it is a useful one, though putting fish in the same sentence with lawyers is not a little risky.)

Now about those LLCs … If you want to research LLCs, you have lots of options. I’m listing them here because sometimes when talking to a library patron I always manage to leave one out. I’m going to list the resources here and give readers a chance to add to the list if I’ve missed anything.

I. The Oregon Secretary of State Corporation Division

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One day you will want to read about non-compete agreements and when you do, a good place to begin will be the OSB Litigation Section’s Summer 2007 newsletter Litigation Journal. There is an excellent introduction and survey of the caselaw in the article, “Non-Competition Agreements and Related Employment Issues: A Primer,” by Kate A. Thompson Wilkinson.

Only back issues of the “Litigation Journal” are available online, but if you’re not in a hurry for this article, check out the section’s web page in a year or so (maybe less – I don’t know – I don’t make these decisions – if I did, well, I don’t – ask the section leaders).

If you are in a hurry, ask a section member or call your local law librarian who will be able to find you a copy.

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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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