The latest Willamette Law Review, Summer 2007 (to be posted here in time), has several articles (comments) on Oregon law, including these two:
Hedrick, Valerie, “The Medical Malpractice Crisis: Bandaging Oregon’s Wounded System and Protecting Physicians”
Elliott, Michael S., “The Commerce of Physician-Assisted Suicide: Can Congress Regulate a ‘Legitimate Medical Purpose’?”
Jimmy Wales (Mr. Wikipedia) and Ward Cunningham (Mr. Wiki) in Portland at the same time – it almost makes librarians weak at the knees. (Wales was in town, with other luminaries, for the O’Reilly Open Source Convention. Cunningham lives here.)
Librarians are thought to be little bit odd in some towns but we fit right and tight into the Portland Metro Area (PMA?), where we recently learned that at least one of our local icons (and I’m sure more of them too) like to read:”Book ‘em, Danno”, a 7/27/07 Oregonian editorial and a smile-worthy followup to the 7/21/07 New York Times story deserving of its own blog entry, “CEO Libraries Reveal Keys to Success.”
None of us should be surprised to hear that these titans, including Phil Knight, are bibliophiles, but we are! And it is beyond charming to hear that some of them think of reading and book collecting as guilty pleasures. Multnomah and Washington County residents love and value their libraries, and their books, so toss that guilt out the window, or at least recycle it with your old sneakers. Some people out there do need to feel a little guilt, maybe for not supporting reading and libraries.
You don’t have to store free information, except in your brain or in a notebook. You don’t need to rent storage units, buy a bigger condo, or park your car on the street because the garage is full of stuff. And if you have to run away from home, you don’t need to carry much more more than your library card. (Note to those who take me way too seriously: if you run away from home, please do a little more research.)
With your library card, you have access to so much free information your head may explode. And if you live somewhere the libraries don’t offer these services, you can often buy into them for a small annual fee.
Check out this CNET Story, Free Information for the Taking.
Check out Multnomah County Public Library web page.
Check out Washington County Public Library web pages.
Check out the New York Public Library library card web page.
There are lots of reasons legal researchers, and others, need U.S. life expectancy information, and it is always good to go to official sources:
Writing and reading for pleasure: I’ve been reading Edward Tufte’s “Beautiful Evidence” and it reminded me of this other masterpiece:
“And, of course, for all that, legal scholarship is also something that produces pleasure. I do not want to end this symposium on a note of pure Yellow-Book aestheticism, but I defy any of the symposiasts (and at least many of the readers) to deny that they’re also in the game (as, I suspect, were Adam Smith and Karl Marx) for those occasional moments when they say, in some concise and illuminating way, something that appears to be true.
Almost everyone loves a mystery whether it be a book, a TV show, a movie, a thrilling true story of a long-lost whatsit found after a lengthy search. But no one connects that excitement with life in libraries and librarians and researchers. I sometimes wonder why, but then forget about it because I have some legal research mysteries of my own I’m hot on the trail to solve.
A story ran a few days ago (the MSNBC one here) on how the Senate removed evidence of their actions from the Congressional Record. This isn’t anything new and I admit this doesn’t sound like riveting stuff, but it is! Imagine (work with me here) being a writer, a lawyer or a journalist a few years from now and you have to research a legislative history, or any other history, of Congressional actions during the Libby (Scooter, that is) years. Unimaginative researchers will look in the usual sources and, wonder of wonders, believe what they read in tomes like the Congressional Record, the Presidential Papers, and other such “official” sources. Some will even believe what the press secretaries or public officials say at press conferences! Isn’t that a hoot? But the others will ferret and discover the truth.
Research, like love, puppies, life, and rain, is messy, but worth the bother. The joy of discovery, of uncovering buried treasure, of piecing together heretofore disjointed facts, and bearing witness to the birth of an idea can’t be beat. Some of our local newspaper reporters and bloggers know this well (and learned well from reporters of yore, Twain, Murrow, Stone, etc. – any journalism student could probably name you dozens more). They are regular gumshoe journalistic detectives, taking not only to the library but also to the streets, the sources, the buried treasure.
Lots of attorneys are licensed and practice in more than one state and some practice and are licensed in no state (and we hope your attorney is not in this latter group). If you want to know if your attorney is licensed, here’s a list of state licensing boards. Notice that not every licensing board is called the [State] Bar Association, though a lot of them are.
A web link for the Oregon State Bar is missing from the list, but here it is.
“Among other provisions, the proposed legislation seeks to ensure that victims of identity theft can recover the value of the time lost attempting to repair damage inflicted by identity theft. Under current law, restitution to victims from convicted thieves is available only for the direct financial costs of identity theft offenses.”
Full excerpt from beSpacific July 19th post, which links to DoJ press release 07-521:
“The Department of Justice today submitted to Congress new proposed legislation that seeks to update and improve current laws aimed at protecting Americans from the increasingly sophisticated crime of identity theft. The proposed bill, titled the Identity Theft Enforcement and Restitution Act of 2007, was a significant recommendation included in the final strategic plan from the President’s Task Force on Identity Theft released in April 2007. The strategic plan was the result of an unprecedented federal effort to formulate a comprehensive and fully coordinated plan to attack identity theft at all levels in the public and private sectors. Among other provisions, the proposed legislation seeks to ensure that victims of identity theft can recover the value of the time lost attempting to repair damage inflicted by identity theft. Under current law, restitution to victims from convicted thieves is available only for the direct financial costs of identity theft offenses.”
To continue the discussion (albeit one-sided 🙂 of legal research strategy:
Both Lexis and Westlaw are owned by foreign companies. American Lawyer and the National Law Journal are about to be owned by foreign companies. (Incisive Media and ALM merger)
If you are wondering why even in our electronic age, ordinary people (and lawyers) don’t have free and easy access to their state court judges’ opinions, read this article. You will see that some people do, and you will see what it took to make it possible (not all that much to tell the truth, except clear vision, cooperative effort, and smarts – though these are more rare than we like to imagine).
Serendipity also has a role to play when you perform legal research. While searching for something else, I came across this from George Mason’s Objections to the Constitution.
George Mason’ Objections to the Constitution (excerpt):
… The President of the United States has no Constitutional Council, a thing unknown in any safe and regular government. He will therefore be unsupported by proper information and advice, and will generally be directed by minions and favorites; or he will become a tool to the Senate–or a Council of State will grow out of the principal officers of the great departments; the worst and most dangerous of all ingredients for such a Council in a free country; From this fatal defect has arisen the improper power of the Senate in the appointment of public officers, and the alarming dependence and connection between that branch of the legislature and the supreme Executive.
Oregon Legal Research Blog