The list of peanut products affected seems to grow every day. Please keep up with it if you eat or if anyone you love eats, especially if you eat any processed food: the FDA website
KCLL Klues reports that Washington State appellate court briefs from June 2006 forward are now online.
For Oregon appellate court briefs, see the guide on How to Find Oregon Appellate Court briefs. (And see here for more information on appeals in Oregon courts.)
Appellate court briefs are a terrific source of information for all legal researchers.
How do you declare someone dead when there is no body?
I should probably save this for a Day of the Dead post, but, appearances notwithstanding, I’m blogging about Legal Research and the Living so … full speed ahead. (Previous posts about road kill & zombie debt.)
1) Check your state laws, forms, and procedures first and, if you are a lawyer, ask your lawyer colleagues for shortcuts and anecdotes too.
First things first: If your lawyer dies, call his/her law firm. If your lawyer dies and the law firm has died too (e.g. if the lawyer was a solo practitioner) and you want to know what happened to your case files, if the law firm no longer exists, or any other similar scenario occurs … call the Oregon State Bar (OSB): 503-684-3763. They will advise you.
Second things: Lawyers do think about these things (or they should) and they even get wonderful honky-tonk titled articles out of their deliberations on the subject:
From Jim Calloway’s Law Practice Tips blog, you’ll go to:
“Rights of an Unsecured Creditor to Recover from a Decedent’s Nonprobate Property,” by Daniel C. Re and Hurley Re, in the January 2009 issue of the OSB Estate Planning and Administration section newsletter (previous issues online).
Another article in the same issue: “Appealability of Decisions in Probate and Trust Proceedings,” by Philip N. Jones.
Willamette Law Review (Winter 2008, vol. 45, no. 2) has this article: “A Last Vestige of Oregon’s Wild West: Oregon’s Lawless Approach to Electronically Stored Information,” by Leroy J. Tornquist & Christine R. Olson.
(This article is not yet at the Willamette Law Review website, but will be, eventually. Please contact your local law library for a copy of the article, which will be available from a number of online subscription services.)
Researching legislative history can sometimes require more than plowing through dusty hearing transcripts. Guides to legislative history and intent always suggest searching the secondary literature, e.g. newspaper and journal articles that are written before the legislation is passed, shortly thereafter, and reflective articles long after the law has been enacted:
Willamette Law Review (Winter 2008, vol. 45, no. 2) has this Comment:
“The Battle Over Property Rights in Oregon: Measures 37 and 40 and the Need for Sustainable Land Use Planning,” by David J. Boulanger.
If you think federalism means that in the United States the federal government operates independently of state government, or vice versa, see this blog post for an interesting civics lesson:
Isaac Laquedem’s take: Harry Reid gives Kate Brown an unexpected power over the United States Senate
Oregon, and especially the Portland-metro area, is awash in lawyers talking about the law to all and sundry – for no charge. (You don’t even have to buy them lunch – how much better than that can it get?)
There are pedestrian and bicycle legal clinics, bankruptcy clinics, small business legal clinics, homebuyer clinics, patent law programs (e.g. at CubeSpace), expungment clinics, and many more.
You just need to know where to look for the announcements. Despite what you think, many lawyers are just not that good at marketing. Until some of us figure out a way to maintain a website or blog where these programs can be posted, here are some tips on how to find them. Like most things that are worthwhile, it will take some effort, but it may surely pay off in the end:
I hear far too many lawyers say, “I don’t understand technology. I do just fine with the telephone and my legal assistant.” This is a far more dangerous situation than “I don’t need no stinkin’ email.”
As a public librarian, I’m in favor of self-help and I know my way around a law library, but I’m also smart enough to know when to hire lawyers (and doctors). And I sure want to know the professionals I hire to protect my legal interests also know how to protect my privacy interests. If there is a computer in the law office, but no one who knows about protecting data, let alone understanding how those computers work … well …. good grief.
Not knowing about scrubbing legal documents submitted electronically could lead to a Bad Outcome, for all. And, it can be as fatal to clients (their cases and their privacy) as it is to that lawyer (or public servant or financial advisor or bank or doctor) who doesn’t lock up paper files or encrypt electronic data. (And why DO we keep hearing about custodians of personal records leaving laptops, with unencrypted data, unattended in garages, driveways, cars, airplanes, etc.?)
Oregon Legal Research Blog