Oregon Legal Research BlogForbes dot com brings us this story:
More scam and other consumer protection information from the:
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“Twelve Nasty Work-From-Home Scams,” from Forbes
Articles Posted in State Government & Legal Resources
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It’s July 2011: Are your online (or digital) statutes authenticated and official?
The Uniform Law Commission (ULC) recently approved the Uniform Electronic Legal Material Act. Find links to the latest UELMA draft and other documents and more at the June 11, 2011, Legal Informatics blog post: Uniform Electronic Material Act Approved by ULC.
For more about official, authenticated laws, follow the links at the June 11, 2011, AACPLL blog post, National inventory of primary legal materials, including a link to the seminal AALL State-by-State Report on Authentication of Online Legal Resources and updates.
Law librarians, lawyers, legislators, and others have been working on this problem for a very long time. The problem: most digital (including online) statutes and other legal research materials are not official, authenticated, and are only prima facie evidence of the law.
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Oregon Concealed Handgun & Medical Marijuana Case on Journey to U.S. Supreme Court
Sansone v. Gordon and releated cases:
“Who better than the nation’s highest court to decide if medical marijuana users have a right to concealed handgun licenses?
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Criminal Laws Passed in the 2011 Oregon Legislative Session
The Oregon Criminal Defense Lawyers Association (OCDLA) Legislative Committee has posted a list of the criminal laws that were passed in the 2011 Oregon Legislative (General) Session. (See upper right link on their webpage.)
Thank you OCDLA. This compilation represents a lot of hard work.
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Who Prosecutes Locally in Oregon when there is no County District Attorney?
“No right to prosecute: With no district attorney in office, defense lawyers say all ongoing criminal cases must be dismissed,” by Phil Wright, East Oregonian, July 14, 2011
Excerpt: “Defense lawyers in Umatilla County are pushing to end criminal prosecution for lack of a district attorney. Attorneys have filed multiple motions to dismiss in the wake of the Oregon Department of Justice’s criminal investigation and prosecution of Dean Gushwa, who resigned as district attorney effective May 31….” [Link to full East Oregonian article.]
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Oregon Legislature May Increase Small Claims Court Jurisdictional Limit to $10,000
If the Oregon Legislature passes 2011 HB 2710, as amended on 6/27, it will increase the jurisdictional limit of Small Claims Court to $10,000.
You can find this bill (HB 2710 B-engrossed, June 27, 2011) from the Legislature’s Measure Search or Bills website.
Legal minds will differ on this, but my informal tally so far shows that there are an awful lot of consumer-friendly lawyers worrying about this increase in jurisdictional amount from $7,500 to $10,000, without some corresponding court-managed small claims case preparation assistance made available (the way the courts provide family law assistance for self-represented litigants).
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Oregon State Bar (OSB) Legal Links and Finding (free & low cost) Legal Help
The Oregon State Bar (OSB) has a Legallinks TV and video program that covers a wide variety of legal topics and issues. Episodes air on cable channels across Oregon and are also available by streaming video.
Recent programs have been on traffic law, guns in Oregon, child support, and finding legal help. You can find links to the resources at the OSB LegalLinks website announcement for the program.
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Oregon State Law Library: Librarian Retirement and New Appointment
Joe Stephens, the State Law Librarian, is retiring at the end of June. Joe led the library and its staff through many improvements to the library’s services, collection and facility and we shall miss him! (Joe was also an invaluable legal research and law librarian profession resource, and sounding board, for me well before I even moved to Oregon.)
OJD announces “that, effective July 1, 2011, Cathryn Bowie, currently the State Law Library Electronic Services Librarian, has agreed to serve in the capacity of Acting Law Librarian for the State of Oregon Law Library (SOLL) to provide a consistent leadership transition to support the many users and services of the SOLL.
Cathryn has been with the SOLL since 2003, and designed and spearheaded the brief bank project-from infancy to the excellent research tool that it is today. Cathryn’s expertise is vendor negotiations, and that is visible in the variety of electronic services that are available within and outside the OJD. She has provided far reaching instruction for judges and OJD staff in using these electronic legal research resources.
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Online and/or Remote Access to Oregon Court Documents
All Oregon county circuit courts (and most if not all county, justice, and municipal courts) allow free on-site (in the courthouse) access to OJIN.Few if any public libraries will subscribe to OJIN. It is not an easy database to use, due primarily to the fact that it was designed many decades ago for court staff and lawyers. Keep in mind also that few full-text documents are in OJIN. If you need copies of actual documents filed in a particular case, rather than just reading the docket entry, you would have to go to the courthouse file room or clerk’s office anyway, so remote access will not save you a trip to the courthouse.Some county law libraries have OJIN subscriptions, but not many, for the same reason – the actual documents are only at the courthouse so lawyers, litigants, or researchers may as well be right in the court’s file room when they do their searches – and where they can get expert search assistance.Note, OJIN is not like PACER, the federal electronic case filing database, which does have full text. But it too requires you to register – and there are charges, with some exceptions.
None of these public databases is free. It is very expensive to create and maintain good databases and people who use them are asked to help pay for them, even if all taxpayers contribute most of the money to support these databases.
Online databases, of any kind, are not free or even cheaper than paper files – they just allow greater access, at a cost. The price of remote access is high since you need skilled and experienced programmers and designers and network specialists who can build databases that everyone can use – not to mention the skills, hardware, and software that are needed to keep a database secure and properly backed up – and have 24/7 user support. These skilled workers cost a whole lot more than people who sort and file paper documents.
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How to Get FREE Telephone Number Information in Oregon
You can find lots of free telephone and address information from:
1) “The Internet” (your search engine of choice, e.g. google, bing, yahoo, etc.). If you want to find a telephone number and you have internet access, search the business or agency or person by name, for example: if you want the Washington County (Oregon) Watermaster, type this into your search engine: washingon county oregon watermaster. You’ll get up to date contact info (especially if you make sure you click on your search engine’s link to get the most current info).
2) Your local public library information and quick reference lines during their open hours (e.g. Multnomah County public libraries and Washington County public libraries) and don’t forget L-net, the statewide online reference service).