Steve Duin’s column in the Oregonian today, Jan. 15th, 2008, “Separating the dads from the real deadbeats” will have a lot of lawyers and law librarians nodding their heads. We’ve all heard about this problem from the people who cross our thresholds.
The case referred to in Duin’s column is ARVIDSON v. KURAHASHI, (A131107).
Here is an easy to use, nicely laid out, compilation of state public records databases, from BRB Publications, which has lots of free stuff.
It’s not free for them to take the time and expertise to compile these lists in user-friendly format and post the information on their web pages so we thank the publisher for this public service.
It takes a lot to rock a law librarian’s boat, but a nifty search engine for legal research guides, and other research resources, comes close to doing so.
See BoleyBlogs, Jan 11th, 2008, post about Cornell’s new and improved InSITE current awareness service and the Legal Research Search Engine.
Liz, who keeps us abreast of law-related goings-on at one of our local public libraries, points out that LibraryThing now has a LAW Library Thing going-on with lots of law library catalogs making their appearances, including some of the biggies around the county.
LibraryThing is an excellent teaching tool (for grade school on up) and an invaluable cataloging option for many small libraries and especially private collections. It also keeps growing, and growing, as Things tend to do, though not necessarily insidiously.
I’ve blogged before about HeinOnline, but still run into local attorneys and legal historians and legal researchers who don’t know what HeinOnline is and who don’t know they have free access to it using their public library card (see below for who is eligible):
Contains full-text databases, including:
* Law journals (issues back to their inception)
The December 2007 Tip from Mary Ellen Bates, of Bates Information Service, is on All the OTHER Search Engines, and you know what that means.
Excerpt from the December Tip (see also the archive of her Research Tips):
“Yes, we all Google, although I have recently started Yahooing more than I Google. But there are far more search engines out there than Google, Yahoo, Live.com and Ask.com. It is almost impossible to keep track of all these other search tools; fortunately, other people have taken that job on. Note that the sources I have described below are not meta-search engines such as Dogpile.com; that is, they do not execute a search across a number of search engines. Rather, these are tools to identify the search engine that may best meet your research needs….”
The Legal Process Outsourcing blog has an interesting post about outsourcing legal research.
Excerpt from the post:
“… Legal research in the practice of law is time-consuming, difficult and often times expensive-both for the lawyer and certainly for the client. Because the law is anything but clear-cut and simple, good and effective legal research takes time. While efficiency is an essential characteristic of a good lawyer, legal research requires both efficiency and thoroughness. Often times, an attorney will have to research an issue a number of times before she feels comfortable with the result of her research.Research also requires adequate tools to be effective and efficient. A basic subscription to Lexis® or Westlaw® is usually not sufficient and attorneys need specialized databases to find answers to complex questions in a timely manner. These tools are expensive, and often times they are not used frequently enough to justify the expense for a law firm. …”
I think I will print this in a large font, laminate it, and post it at the law library’s reference desk for people who think their lawyers charge too much or that the law librarian should “answer my question with a yes or a no.” Some lawyers may charge too much and there are a few yes and no answers to legal questions, but not many.
The Oregonian, on January 10th, ran lengthy articles (by Don Colburn and Daniel Bergner (article at the NYT) , about Washington State’s physician-assisted suicide, aka Death With Dignity, measure that may go to their November 2008 ballot.
It’s My Decision is a website for Washington State Death With Dignity measure advocates.
Research into the Oregon physician assisted suicide law (statute) can begin here and here and here but will continue in journals, newspapers, state and federal court cases, and beyond.
Some of the scariest words we hear in the law library are from non-attorney patrons who walk into the law library and say things like this:
“I need advance directive, will, and trust forms for my 87 year-old neighbor. I just want to take them to her so she can fill them out.”
We want to say:
Please, please, please (!) don’t just hand over legal forms to your neighbor. Instead, please (PLEASE!) offer to help your neighbor contact a local senior advocacy center, your county’s senior services, or call your legal aid office or bar association information number. Your neighbor should have someone, not related to her (or him), listen and determine exactly what legal service or assistance is needed. The person consulted should be knowledgeable, which sometimes means experienced or trained and possibly even licensed. This person needs to be accountable for advice proffered.
Most counties have advocacy services for seniors and you can find out about them from your Legal Aid office (and ask about the Senior Law Project), your local public library, your county commissioners’ or mayor’s office, your state AARP office, to name only a few sources of information. You can also phone the Oregon State Bar Association or the Multnomah Bar Association, or your local county law library.
It’s 8:37 a.m. Do you know how much that company’s CEO is getting paid?
The SEC is rolling out this interactive database, Executive Compensation Disclosure.
Thanks to Mary Ellen Bates Librarian of Fortune for the tip and for her blurb on this SEC database.
