LLRX dot com is still a fabulous legal research resource:
State Legal Information Census: An Analysis of Primary State Legal Information
And if you can’t get enough of law librarians’ legal research blogs, Justia still has the best round-up, at their blawgsearch website.
A2J = Access to Justice: Words and Names Matter
The Law Librarians at the State Of Wisconsin Law Library know that the difference between a Legal Resource Center or a Legal Information Center and a Law Library matters to Law Library patrons, whether they are lawyers or self-represented litigants. Read this article from their WSLL Newsletter, February 2016 issue:
Wisconsin State Law Library Year in Review – Julie Tessmer, State Law Librarian:
This a joint initiative of the Minnesota State Law Library and the Appellate Practice Section of the Minnesota State Bar Association.
“New self-help clinic helps Minnesotans navigate appeals process,” posted Monday, February 8, 2016, at the Minnesota Judicial Branch website:
“A new self-help clinic at the Minnesota State Law Library provides free assistance to individuals seeking to file an appeal with the Minnesota Court of Appeals or the Minnesota Supreme Court.
The Oregonian has posted the Oregon Commission on Judicial Fitness and Disability report to the Oregon Supreme Court on Marion County Circuit Court Judge Vance Day.
You can find the report’s link at their 1/25/16 article:
“Judge Vance Day should be ousted from job, in part for refusing to marry gays, commission says,” by Aimee Green, Oregonian, January 25, 2016.
The 2015 ORS are now online
View the online, almost official (i.e. prima facie evidence of the law), 2015 Oregon Revised Statutes at the Oregon Legislature’s website.
Note that any new laws passed in the 2016 and 2017 Oregon legislative sessions WILL NOT appear in codified format until the 2017 Oregon Revised Statutes are published in late 2017 or early 2018.
The short session Oregon Legislative 2016 bills are now online.
As of this moment, however, the 2015 Oregon Revised Statutes (ORS) are still NOT online, but if you’re very lucky you may click on that link one day, even one moment from now, and find yourself reading the 2015 ORS, which we hope to see shortly. (Call your legislator to ask where they (the ORS) are!)
Many new Oregon laws affecting sick leave, birth control, recreational marijuana, vaping, grandparents, bestiality, early termination fees when you die, and much more are effective January 1, 2016.
How do you find out what these new laws are?
Search online. Here are some keywords to search: new laws oregon 2015 2016 (limiting your results to the past year will get rid of a lot of the old stuff)
The online 2015 ORS will appear shortly, at least we hope before the official start of the 2016 Legislative Session.
The official PRINT ORS is available at law and public libraries around Oregon. (But call first to make sure your library has it in print. Not all libraries get the official print version.)
Note that any legislation passed in the 2016 and 2017 Oregon legislative sessions WILL NOT appear in codified format until the 2017 Oregon Revised Statutes are published in late 2017 or early 2018.
You can read a hundred articles about wolves and their prey, including the ODFW Wolf webpages, but not a single one will explain exactly WHY wolves are, or were, on endangered species lists.
If you look hard enough you really can find hundreds of articles on the WHY, but here is an interesting one that sums up the complexity of the issue:
Scientific American: “Can Wolves Bring Back Wilderness? [Excerpt]: People may find it hard to adapt to an ecology of predation and fear,” by Jason Mark on October 9, 2015:
“State lawyer group mulls controversial changes to make pending disciplinary records off-limits to public,” Portland Tribune, 05 January 2016, by Nick Budnick:
Excerpt: “The state agency that oversees the investigation of ethics complaints against 15,000 Oregon lawyers is considering changes that would hide from public view most pending complaints and destroy all public records of dismissed complaints after three years, a radical increase in secrecy for a system that’s received national praise for its transparency….” [Link to full Portland Tribune article.]
The article links to OSB disciplinary process reports, also currently linked to from the OSB homepage.
Oregon Legal Research Blog