Articles Posted in Uncategorized

This month’s Washington County Sheriff’s Neighborhood Watch News has a terrific article about MySpace and other social networking sites, parents, their children, and life online.

This week’s Blawg Review is dedicated to Mediation and Negotiation. Enjoy your travels:

Welcome to Blawg Review #94–the “getting to yes” edition!

Many editions of Blawg Review are organized around a central, unifying theme, influenced by the focus of the host’s own work or an event or date that edition coincides with.

The theme of this one happens to be negotiation.

Sabrina at beSpacific reminds us that it is National Consumer Protection Week. I should have seen this coming. A lot of what law librarians do with the public is helping people navigate the Consumer Protection rough seas. So …

Shred your mail, don’t use a debit card online, and beware of online solicitations (off-line ones too :-), use your turn signals, don’t tailgate, and – wait – save these for National Drive Safely Day.

Virtual Email Reference

It’s not easy explaining how to research a legal question – and try doing it in high-heels and backwards – no, wait, I mean in an email message. I love to write (and am even working on a piece about Virtual Legal Reference and Writer’s Voice), but virtual legal reference makes me crazy. Not “Don’t Make Me Do It” crazy, but more of “I Love Trying to Figure Out How to Say This, but Don’t Have Three Hours to Figure Out How to Say It Intelligibly So You Don’t YELL at Me for Not Answering Your Question The Way You Think It Should Be Answered” crazy.

Law librarians and others who staff reference desks or online reference services get a lot of grief for our long, seemingly evasive, answers to “simple” legal questions. Take a look at poor Mr. Groklaw who took the time and trouble to explain at great length what appears to be a simple question (and it’s not even about the law – only about legal citation!) but clearly isn’t. If you read the comments what is also clear is that he got grief. He was only trying to help. We’re a tough bunch, we law librarians and keep trying year after year – against all odds. We don’t quit even after getting grief – and we do get it, oh do we get it. (But we do get a cartoon to see us through the day – Unshelved.)

Sometimes you just need a legal research guide, not a full-bodied Google or Dogpile search. Try this from our wonderful law librarian colleagues at Cornell University Law Library, the Legal Research Search Engine.

I work for and in Washington County and live in Multnomah County (as do many of my fellow Trimet 3+ hour-a-day commuters) and this good news made me think again about the need for “satellite” law libraries. I’m not talking about anything extravagant, though in this world of expensive remote access legal databases, database license costs could give bricks & mortar a run for its Buck$. But I, and fellow county law librarians, think a lot about how to get basic legal research materials (and legal research expertise) to those who can’t make it to our “county seat” public law libraries. My plan is simple, but it’s the execution that’s tricky. For the East County Justice Center or a centralized public library (in Washington County, I think Beaverton maybe?), it needs a little shelving for Oregon primary and a few secondary materials, maybe a room for lawyers to meet with clients or pro se litigants to meet with a volunteer lawyer, a computer for online research (a couple of subscription databases and the web), wireless service, and a reference desk staffed (or in phone contact – Skype or its ilk come to mind too) with someone who can assist pro se litigants and attorneys with legal research questions.

I can dream. But I’m also working on a Plan.

From a local law firm:

We are having a Free Legal Consultation Day here at KOHLHOFF & WELCH:

February 9, 2007
KOHLHOFF & WELCH
Attorneys at Law
A Mother Daughter Partnership
5828 North Lombard Portland, Oregon 97203
503.286.7178

In honor of a new Bedsworth (yeah!), I also give you Beer for Dogs. (It’s from another law librarian so what can I say? We like dogs.)

One of my law librarian colleagues who will remain nameless (and perhaps shameless, which is why we love her) sends us this:

“Brackens v Texas Roadhouse: Lawsuit of the Month

The court also released the following notable unpublished opinion: Brackens v. Texas Roadhouse in Wichita, No. 06-50736 (5th Cir. Jan. 31, 2007) (Jolly, Dennis and Clement) (per curiam; unpublished): Brackens and his family were having dinner in a Texas Roadhouse restaurant in Wichita, Kan., when the song “Redneck Woman” came over its sound system and employees began dancing. He sued for race discrimination, breach of contract, and the tort of outrage, but all were dismissed under Rule 12(b)(6). Holding: Affirmed. 42 U.S.C. § 2000a “was not designed … to require places of public accommodation to cater to the musical tastes of all of [their] patrons”; the defendant had never contractually agreed not to play “Redneck Woman” during plaintiff’s dinner; and under Kansas law, playing the song did not exceed the bounds of decency in civilized society. (Appealed from W.D. Texas;”

The judges in a case I mentioned in the previous post, Vasquez-Lopez v Beneficial Oregon Inc, discuss arbitration riders at some length. I’ll leave it to Oregon contract and consumer attorneys to decide if new ground has been broken. The questions the judges decide are:

1) Who decides whether the arbitration rider is enforceable?
2) Is the arbitration rider unconscionable?