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Blog Defamation Laws Needed?: Edward Fadeley, former Oregon Supreme Court associate justice, wrote in Sunday’s (June 18th, 2006) Oregonian, an article titled, “We Need Laws Against Blog Defamation.” You can find it through OregonLive, a difficult task indeed, but your persistance may pay off. You might try their Search entry point as an alternative. Good luck.

Lawyer Appreciation Day (downtown Portland only): On June 22nd, the downtown Portland No Fish Go Fish cart (at 5th and Yamhill, next to the Pioneer Courthouse) will have its Lawyer Appreciation Day and lawyers and support staff can have a free lunch (up to $5 worth). Either get there early or take a friend or a book; it’s a popular cart on normal days and on this day the regulars line up so you could wait 20 minutes, more or less. (And don’t forget to tip – John earns it the hard way.) I do not work downtown, but when I get there always try to pick up some of their dal (lentil) soup and a cream cheese “Fish.” Doesn’t anyone outside downtown appreciate lawyers? See here and here.

Congressional Preemption of State Law: This was linked to from beSpacific. It’s a searchable database.

Judicial Appearance of Impropriety?: The Hermistan Herald has this story (dated June 9th) on their newspaper’s web page about whether or not the judges who endorsed a candidate for election to the Circuit Court should recuse themselves in a particular case.

Brace Yourself Bridget: While reading the latest issue of “Oregon Litigation & Arbitration Reports” from Jury Verdicts Northwest, I’m struck (no pun intended) yet again by the number of Rear End Collisions reported on. This month (May), it was 7 out of 20 of the cases reported on. Slow down and back off folks.

Public Perceptions of the Bar: For Steve Duin’s impression of State Bar members and the issue of Elimination of Bias/Diversity training, see his column in today’s (6/13/06) Oregonian.

Lawyer Research Skills: Two stories beSpacific linked to June 11th might make you think a bit and take stock of your own legal research skills. One, a survey of law library benchmarks, includes this: ‘Internet search skills of attorneys: Most librarians in the sample characterized the internet search skills of the attorneys in their organizations as “Average” but only a shade more than 17% considered them “Proficient” or “Highly Proficient.”‘ Academic, law firm, and public law librarians were part of the study.

The other story, by Dahlia Lithwick in the American Lawyer, reminds us all that you ignore the law bloggers (aka blawgers) at great peril. If this, “Douglas Berman-whose blog, Sentencing Law and Policy, has now been cited in 21 judicial opinions-is tracking the fallout from the Supreme Court’s sentencing guidelines cases,” doesn’t open your eyes, the rest of her article will.

McGaughey on Oregon Corporate Law: The new edition of Robert McGaughey’s “Oregon Corporate Law Handbook” is out. You can order it from his web site, here.

Death Indexes: Here is a nice gateway to state death databases and of course the SSDI. Oh, and there is also this.

Military Divorce Handbook: The ABA’s “Military Divorce Handbook”, by Mark Sullivan, is finally out.