Oregon Legal Research BlogI bet you thought this issue went away – hah!
Follow the Law Librarian Blog links: Researching Bush and Obama Presidential Signing Statements
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The Return of Signing Statements
Articles Posted in Legal Subject Area Guides
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Oregon Residential Real Estate Sale: Dutch Auction
I noticed a house for sale in Hillsboro and the sign said “Dutch Auction.” It may not be the only Dutch Auction residential single-family real estate sale in Oregon, but my guess it doesn’t have a lot of company.
So, what’s a Dutch Auction?
1) Wikipedia “Dutch Auction” (and contrast with the English Auction)
2) You can see some government agency uses of Dutch Auctions with this search:
dutch auction site:.gov
3) Try this search for more interesting views of Dutch Auctions: dutch auction site:.edu
OREGON LEGAL RESEARCH BLOG: DISCLAIMERS and REGRETS
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Tracking your Oregon Legislators: Email, Mobile, Audio, Video, and More
The Oregon Legislature’s website has some very nice features (although it does seem as though I always write about its flaws!):
1) Their Legislator and Committee email notification sign-up is easy to use, easy to sign up, and, more to the point, easy to sign off when you want to turn off and tune out, which we hope won’t happen until the Legislative Session is over (though we understand the sentiment). Legislators do not, in my experience at least, deluge their constituents with lots of email messages. The ones that are sent out include useful contact and public appearance information.
2) The Legislature now has a site for easy mobile access. Just click on the Mobile Website from your device.
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Oregon Scam Alert: Fake Debt Collectors
The Oregon Department of Justice is alerting everyone to this:
Scam Alert: Fake Debt Collection Scams
Excerpt: “The Oregon Department of Justice has received several complaints regarding phony debt collection calls. Scam artists pose as debt collectors or law enforcement officers calling about an outstanding debt from an online payday loan. They frequently use fake phone numbers and official sounding business names. They also do their research. Some Oregonians have been tricked into paying nonexistent debt because the scam artist knew personal information about them, including their Social Security number, home address, e-mail, and names of family and personal references.
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Are You a Librarian (and Lunch Box) Superhero?
Gale Cengage is running a contest: Are You a Librarian Superhero?
Your librarian can turn into a cartoon, which to some might not sound like such a good deal, but to many librarians, We Love It!
You can read the Contest Rules and the Press Release for more information.
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United State Code (USC) Title 51 (Not to Be Confused with Area 51)
My fellow law librarians reminded me about the new United States Code (USC) Title 51 (which you will actually cite more like this: 51 USC xxx).
That USC Title 51 will (does!) sound strange to us old-timers. (Though not for the same reason it will confuse Area 51 devotees – and Title 51 is about Space Programs – ha ha ha.)
There isn’t yet a codification to find at the Cornell LI site or at the official FDSys United States Code site, but you can still look at the Session Law, P.L. 111-314 (enacted on December 18, 2010): Title 51, United States Code, National and Commercial Space Programs
U.S. Office of Law Revision Counsel brings us USC Title 51 (and main Positive Law website)
Related to this, is a reminder not to confuse U.S. session law (U.S. Statutes at Large) with its codified version (United States Code) or it’s commercial versions, U.S.C.S. (LexisNexis Matthew Bender) and U.S.C.A. (Thomson Reuters).
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Law for Real (Oregon) People Blog
Oregon lawyer, John Gear, has started a Law for Real People blog.
You can find links to other Oregon lawyer blogs in this blog’s sidebar: under Blogs: Oregon Legal Topics and also under Blogs: OR Lawyers.
I include links to Oregon lawyer blogs and websites that have useful “content,” i.e. they provide legal information, on a variety legal topics, that might be of value to other lawyers, pro se litigants, and any other Oregonian who has legal questions.
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Oregon Law and Laws Online: Ha Ha Ha
Ha ha ha. I spent time this morning doing the following (fellow public and private law librarians around the state do the same, just about every day):
1) Showing a lawyer and others how to compile a legislative history – this can take an hour or more, depending on how far back and how complex the question is. Ask your Legislator to show you how to do this. Ha ha ha. (They are probably glad we don’t send all our patrons and their questions to their offices!) You cannot do this online for any legislative history before 1995 or if you want any of the Exhibits from 1995 forward. Ha ha ha.
2) Explaining to lawyers that the ORS is not online, EXCEPT for the current year. Superseded ORSs DO exist digitally back to (maybe?) 1997 or thereabouts. But the Oregon Legislature DOES NOT keep previous ORS editions online, even though they could – easily. Ha ha ha. Maybe they don’t know that lawyers and pro se litigants really need to see those old ORSs! Ha ha ha. (You can find some of them here, thanks to our favorite law student, Robb Shecter, and his Oregonlaws dot org website.)
So, the next time someone says, “It’s all online,” do this: ha ha ha (or type the word laughing into Google Images and have a giggle :-).
Here’s my latest list of what legal information is NOT online and/or NOT FREE online (from this Legal Information website).
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Searching Oregon Legislative Bills and Flawed Search Engines
While searching for recent 2011 Oregon bills, I found a glitch in their search engine. The bill I knew existed wasn’t showing up, no matter what word or number I used to search for it. I double-checked (against the actual bill) and triple-checked by asking colleagues to see if the problem was me rather than the database. It wasn’t me.
The lesson here is: Be careful about relying solely on the Oregon Legislative bill searching utility, Ultraseek. (You can also reach this search engine from the Legislature’s website. Then, click on Bills/Law, and then click on the year you want to search – and then “Search the bills and laws.”)
Keep in mind also that Ultraseek is not an exception to any search engine reliability rule – and it’s actually not too bad as these sorts of free search engines go. The problem exists for all search engines (and databases); they are all flawed (e.g. Google isn’t perfect either –aren’t you shocked, shocked?!)
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John Doe, Operation Death Match, and the Social Security Death Index (SSDI)
If you saw the Oregonian story (or in other news sources):
“John Doe’ faces deportation after serving sentence for stealing slain Ohio boy’s name,“ January 28, 2011, by Bryan Denson, you might have read this part of the article:
“…. His fraud was uncovered last year when agents of the State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service ran a data search of passport applications against the names and identifications of deceased citizens. The ongoing probe, known as Operation Death Match, spit out the name Jason Robert Evers, which ultimately lead them to Krastev….” (Link to full article.)