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The New York Times, in the Sunday Style section (8/5/07, byline, Devan Sipher), ran a funny (intentional or otherwise) story, “Great Wedding! But Was it Legal?”

Excerpt:

“Somehow forgotten is that marriage is a legal contract. And three states besides Connecticut — Alabama, Virginia and Tennessee — as well as other jurisdictions, prohibit weddings performed by ministers who do not have active ministries.

Even in Las Vegas, that city’s no-holds-barred image notwithstanding, it is illegal for individuals to perform a marriage if they do not have a congregation, according to Lynda Foresta, the Clark County division manager of marriage services. Yes, Elvis may be in the house, but he may face up to six months doing the “Jailhouse Rock” unless an authorized minister is there to sign the license.”

To find out if your Oregon wedding was lawful, here’s a link to the Oregon Revised Statutes 2005. (The 2007 laws won’t be codified and printed as the ORS until early 2008, but you can find them here.)

The Oregon Court of Appeals is now posting its Internal Practices Guidelines on their OJD home page.

Washington County Law Library, Hillsboro, Oregon

Hours of employment: Monday to Friday, Noon – 5, with possible additional hours

Compensation: Salary range: $16.48 to $20.04/hour

From Oregonlive:

“The Web site provides information on the average payment to Oregon hospitals for more than 80 medical procedures, based on calculations from payments by the nine largest health insurance carriers in the state.However, the site does not average the cost of all claims — meaning that Medicare, Oregon Health Plan and uninsured patients would likely face different costs for the procedures….” (Full story, here.)

Link to official web page, Oregon Health Policy and Research – Policy and Analysis Unit.

From OregonLive: “Oregon Attorney General Hardy Myers Thursday warned consumers about potentially dangerous tires manufactured between 2002 to 2006 for light trucks, sports utility vehicles and vans. The tires were made by Hangzhou Zhongce Rubber Co. Ltd. (HZ) in China and distributed in the United States under the names Westlake, YKS, and Compass. … “

See also Oregon AG webpage and their full press release.

Wordstock this year is in November, from the 9th-11th:

“Wordstock 2007 will be held November 9-11, 2007 at the Oregon Convention Center in Portland, Oregon. Authors who will appear this year include Dave Eggers, Jane Hamilton, Charles Baxter, Alexandra Fuller, Melissa Fay Greene, and many more. Check back throughout the year to see what outstanding writers we have lined up for 2007!”

Also, back at this week’s Willamette Week, their cover story by James Pitkin, SEE ME FEEL ME TOUCH ME HEAL ME, is on “weird alternative medicine.”

Ummm … think before you sign up, sign on, or sign anywhere on any dotted line. And surely before anyone attaches anything to your mind or body.

For additional consumer law advice, you can start, but don’t end, here. The Oregon State Bar and the Legal Aid Services of Oregon web sites have additional consumer law information.

This week’s Willamette Week (Aug 1, 2007) has a story, “Oy, Gays!” on a local Jewish congregation that will conduct marriage unions for same-sex couples:

“… Starting immediately, Neveh Shalom will sanctify the ceremonies of same-sex couples.
For a traditionally more conservative sect of Judaism, Portland’s Congregation Neveh Shalom in Southwest Portland has long welcomed openly gay families into its congregation, according to its leader, Rabbi Daniel Isaak, 58….”

And if you want more information about Jewish marriage contracts, Wikipedia is one place to start, though not to end (here, here, and everywhere)

Checking for criminal records is different from “skip tracing,” though some of the records do overlap (e.g. if the person you are tracing happens to be in the criminal justice system). Here’s a terrific Skip Tracing guide by the King County Law Librarians for Washington State residents. It can be adapted for Oregon.

Skip tracing isn’t a fast, cheap, or easy thing to do, just as criminal background checking isn’t. But you can do a lot of it yourself and then hire a professional to do the tricky bits that require specialized or expensive databases or particular expertise.

I’ll save Employment Background Checks for another day.

How can I do a criminal record check?

Librarians get this question so frequently we could practically answer it in our sleep. I’ve addressed it before, but it’s worth repeating.

Locating criminal records is always harder than most people imagine. There is no single database for searching criminal records, unless you know for a fact that the person never committed a crime outside of a single county, in a single state, in the U.S. Even then, records migrate over time and it might be necessary to research print records and online ones.