Articles Posted in State Government & Legal Resources

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Massachusetts has Guidelines on the Public Rights of Access to Judicial Proceedings and Records.

This seems to be a relevant post for us here at the Oregon Legal Research Blog given the most recent statewide and local Oregon difficulties (to put it mildly) public officials are having with the true meaning and spirit of our Public Records Laws.  (And remember the 2006 Multnomah County Auditor’s report on eliminating barriers to access to public records? There are many more of those, er, aspirational public records proclamations, where that came from, local and statewide. Sigh.) (By the way, Auditor or “accountability” reports at many levels of government are a great research resource.)

These particular Massachusetts’ guidelines start off with this statement of their:

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Visit the Attorney General’s Public Records Law Reform Task Force for meeting Agendas, Minutes, and related documents:

“On October 23, 2015, Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum announced the formation of the Attorney General’s Public Records Law Reform Task Force, a group designed to review and recommend improvements to Oregon’s public records laws….” [Link to Task Force website.]

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We have been informed that that the 1995 and 1997 ORS are appearing online at the Oregon Legislature’s website. Our partners in this have been Legislative Counsel, so please thank them for this effort.

In time, pre-1953 Oregon laws, codes, and statutes and 1953 to the present ORS will appear online. (Although not yet UELMA-compliant. Only a few states are managing that miracle.)

Previous blog posts on our superseded ORS digitization project can be found with these tags, among others:

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If your latest novel, or dinner table conversation, includes a duel, here’s a useful and humorous blog post for you from In Custodia Legis, a Law Librarians of Congress blog:

“So, you’ve been challenged to a duel. What are the rules?,” June 2, 2016 by Robert Brammer.

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Laugh and cheer in this excellent article about the Oregon women who took over, and cleaned up, the city of Umatilla, Oregon, in 1916:

“The Petticoat Rebellion of 1916,” by Jennifer Colton-Jones.

Excerpts: “…. By the time the polls closed that evening, the women of Umatilla had pulled off a strange sort of conspiracy unlike anything the country had ever seen….

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“State Legal Information Census: An Analysis of Primary State Legal Information,” by Sarah Glassmeyer, Published on February 21, 2016.

Sarah Glassmeyer, is a Research Fellow with the Harvard Library Innovation Lab, Berkman Center for Internet and Society.

Excerpt: “.… Findings indicate that there exist at least 14 barriers to accessing legal information. These barriers exist for both the individual user of a resource for personal research as well as an institutional user that would seek to republish or transform the information. Details about the types of barriers and the quantity of their existence can be found under “Barriers to Access.” At the time of the census, no state provided barrier-free access to their legal information….” [Link to full LLRX article.]

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Maybe you saw the recent New York Times Magazine Tip: “How to Make a Citizen’s Arrest,” by Malia Wollan, May 6, 2016. (Also in their “Crime and Criminals” library.)

Maybe you wondered about Oregon’s laws on citizen’s arrests?

Maybe you also wondered if Portland, Oregon, means business with its Vision Zero plan (zero traffic-related fatalities and serious injuries)?

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While there are many excellent legal self-help initiatives, there are few studies that evaluate those self-help programs after the fact, i.e. after the self-represented litigant has used the software or the court forms and system (e.g. in small claims court) to resolve a problem or right a wrong.

But the surveys that do exist can be helpful to others. See, for example, this report, which you can find at the SRLN Stories page – and here is the direct link:

Orange County, CA and the State of Texas Conduct User Experience Research and Learn that SRLs in Civil Cases Can E-File (News 2016)

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You can find Multnomah County Family Law Forms at their Circuit Court website. These include Sex Change forms for an adult, Sex and Name Change forms for an adult, and Sex Change forms for minor children.

Residents of other Oregon counties should check with their own County Circuit Courts. There is a Court Finder locator at the Oregon Judicial Department (OJD) website.

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