The October 2010 Consumer Reports magazine had a useful article on “Where to Find Lost Loot” (and we thank them for posting it free, online).
More on consumer protection from the Federal Trade Commission and the soon to be activated (we hope) Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
The Legal Research Plus blog has a status report on 111th Congress H.R. 6026:
“Access to Congressionally Mandated Reports Act,” Legal Research Plus, September 20, 2010, by George Wilson
More information about Congressionally Mandated Reports can be found at:
Constitution Day 2010 has passed with nary a whimper, but thoughts of the inimitable Classroom Law Project stay front and center.
Did you know you can volunteer with the Classroom Law Project? They are super-friendly, fun, and oh so smart. And they are willing to pass all that goodness on to you, free of charge. You just need to volunteer. (I’m volunteering so I can learn how to bring all that goodness out to my law library’s county.)
Learn and teach about civics, courts, and law making. You don’t need to be a lawyer to volunteer – really!
The upcoming Banned Book Week, September 25 – October 2, 2010, gives us an excuse to wax poetically, briefly, with dignity, and without matches, on how to object, also with dignity and without matches, to a book in your public library. It’s quite easy:
Call, or
Visit, or
Connect to your library’s website.
Express your displeasure, with principled reasons,
And, simply, ask that your complaint about a book be heard (and responded to)
By the Library Director, Library Board and Library Managers.
For example, the Multnomah County Library offers many opportunities for you to communicate with the library’s Director and managers. Or, you can find your library at one of these Oregon library directories.
For more information on banned books:
Suppose you want to find out what lawsuits a business or an individual has filed in Oregon against another business, a customer, or an individual. How and where do you look that up?
1) Here in the U.S., if you are searching state court records (rather than federal court records), you will generally look to a courthouse docket, database, or other lists of “lawsuits filed.” These lists will sometimes be kept in statewide databases, but not always. For example, when the court is local, not statewide, it is possible that the only listing of parties sued, or being sued, will be held by the Court – and they may still be in print only.
2) NOT ALL COURT RECORDS ARE ONLINE. In fact, not all ANYTHING is online. (Sigh – except maybe those documents “born digital.”) And even if the court records are stored in a digital database, this does not mean access to it is free or available to everyone.
1) PACER is a U.S. Administrative Office of the Courts database.
2) PACER is an online federal court case docket system.
3) Anyone may subscribe to PACER (registration is required).
The OSB Or Con Law section’s Spring 2010 newsletter is an eye-popping 73 pages – that’s not a newsletter, that’s a book!
If you want to immerse yourself in some heavy, but interesting reading, here’s a link to the newsletter’s PDF. (I can’t promise that the link won’t change, so remember the link to the OSB Constitutional Law Section website.)
There is a lot of information in this issue:
The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, Jury Instructions Committee has completed an extensive revision of the Ninth Circuit Manual of Model Criminal Jury Instructions. The 2010 edition of the Manual contains a number of new instructions. It is updated with cases and statutes through July 2010.
The 2010 edition includes renumbered instructions from the 2003 edition; a conversion table is posted online and provides equivalent jury instruction numbers in the 2003 edition.
The Government Printing Office’s GPO Access is becoming FDsys, and includes access to the Code of Federal Regulations (FR), the Federal Register (FR), the Congressional Record (CR), U.S. Statutes at Large (Stat), and the U.S. Code (USC).
See the full list at the FDsys homepage.
(Brace yourself for another name change in the not so distant future. It would not surprise me if FDsys finds itself with a challenge to select a stickier, more memorable name. And then again, if you say it over and over again, FDsys, FDsys, FDsys – it becomes fidsis, fidsis – oh, never mind.)
It’s not hard to be perplexed when trying to understand the U.S. Code (link to searchable versions) and the niceties of codification. Maybe this will help:
Lost Laws: What We Can’t Find In The U.S. Code, Legal Research Plus (blog), May 23, 2010, by Paul Lomio:
(Re Article: Lost Laws: What We Can’t Find In The U.S. Code, by Will Tress, Golden Gate University Law Review, Vol. 40, Issue #2, Winter 2010, p. 129) (SSRN direct link.)
Oregon Legal Research Blog