This is a short list of guides and gateways to Oregon self-help litigant and legal information resources. You can drill down into any of these websites and find many more legal resources:
We love reading the Fastcase 50 list to find out who is doing what, why, where, and how – and especially so when there is an Oregonian on the list.
Read the 2016 Fastcase 50 list and previous lists, back to 2011, when the List was born.
I’m sure your state’s legislative, judicial, and executive branch IT managers are wishing they had attended the Legal Hackers Summit. Here’s some commentary on one rather interesting topic. (Legal Geek Love, indeed!)
“Greenwood: Law Itself is the Killer Blockchain App,” posted on July 11, 2016 by legalinformatics, which links to this blog post: Law Itself is the Killer Blockchain App
About Legal Hackers: “Legal Hackers is a global movement of lawyers, policymakers, technologists, and academics who explore and develop creative solutions to some of the most pressing issues at the intersection of law and technology. Through local meetups, hackathons, and workshops across 40 global chapters, Legal Hackers spot issues and opportunities where technology can improve and inform the practice of law and where law, legal practice, and policy can adapt to rapidly changing technology.”
Article in the Salem Statesman Journal:
“Oregon Legislature hires top researcher,” Gordon Friedman, Statesman Journal, July 27, 2016
Excerpt: “Christopher Reinhart has been hired as the first director of a new legislative agency in Oregon, the Office of Legislative Policy and Research….” [Link to full article.]
Read the OJD press release:
“Oregon Judicial Department Provides Better Public Access To Online Court Information
Accessing court information will now be easier for the public. The Oregon Judicial Department has made basic case information available for free through an online search portal.
There is no shortage of news about SRL (self-represented litigant) service resources, here in Oregon and beyond. Two recent stories and a list of SRL service provider resources:
Lawyers in large law firms usually have databases, couriers, professional law librarians and money to help them locate full-text copies of court documents quickly. What are mere mortals to do? There is actually quite a bit.
Mere mortals who want Oregon appellate court documents have their own “points of access” and it’s going to get better:
1) How to Find Oregon Appellate Court Briefs research guide, which will be updated shortly
Baseball’s Magna Carta: Setting the Rules of America’s Game: An exhibit at the Oregon Historical Society.
(See also the Battered Bastards of Baseball, a documentary.)
“July 1 – October 9, 2016
Oregon Access to Justice Forum, September 2016:
The Multnomah Bar Association (MBA) has this event on its calendar and you can link to more information and registration from the Oregon Campaign for Equal Justice website and this event’s Registration site.
“Access to Justice Forum/Advisory Committee Meeting
Massachusetts has Guidelines on the Public Rights of Access to Judicial Proceedings and Records.
This seems to be a relevant post for us here at the Oregon Legal Research Blog given the most recent statewide and local Oregon difficulties (to put it mildly) public officials are having with the true meaning and spirit of our Public Records Laws. (And remember the 2006 Multnomah County Auditor’s report on eliminating barriers to access to public records? There are many more of those, er, aspirational public records proclamations, where that came from, local and statewide. Sigh.) (By the way, Auditor or “accountability” reports at many levels of government are a great research resource.)
These particular Massachusetts’ guidelines start off with this statement of their:
