Legal Research

Recession Reference

Posted on March 24, 2009
Last week, I got two questions that I only get during recessions. The first: how do I become a process server? What are the laws on service? I felt so bad for the young man standing in front of me. He was a good kid and should have better opportunities than risking his life...

Ada B. Lovelace Day: Women in Technology

Posted on March 24, 2009
Today is Ada Lovelace Day, a day set up here to encourage bloggers and twitterers to talk about women in technology. Ada B. Lovelace was a friend of Charles Babbage, and actually wrote the first computer program for Babbage's proto-computer. The idea is that women need to see role models for themselves in technology, and this is one way to help that happen...

Gay Marriage Advancing in Vermont & Other New England States

Posted on March 24, 2009
The Boston Globefeatures this story today about the Vermont Senate voting 26-4 in favor of the bill allowing gay marriage in the state. The story also looks at bills coming along in New Hampshire, next week and in Maine, next month. "One of the advantages of New England is that we share geography and media markets, so folks in other states have seen marriage in Massachusetts for five years and can see the good," said Lee Swislow, executive director of the Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, who has called for New England to be a "marriage equality zone...

Gay Marriage Advancing in Vermont

Posted on March 23, 2009
Here is a very good report from www.365gay.com, a gay-interest blog, on the legislation in Vermont to change their first-in-the-nation civil union statute to gay marriage. The Boston Globe reported here on May 18, about a special senate committee that held hearings on the matter, drawing more than 500 demonstrators for both sides to the Vermont state house in Montpelier...

To access this complete feed in the blog feed reader login or register for free.

Social Security Administration pioneers standardized digital health data exchange

Posted on March 23, 2009
Click on the title to this post to link to an article at ComputerWorld.com, "Social Security goes live with first federal e-health information exchange," dated March 20, 2009. The Social Security Administration uses health records to decide disability claims...

Changes Coming in Scholarly Publishing

Posted on March 23, 2009
Inside Higher Ed is reporting today the University of Michigan Press decision to move its "traditional print operation to one that is primarily digital." It is no secret that university presses have been struggling for some time. The article points to the University of Missouri Press and the State University of New York Press, which have had to lay off staff recently, and to the Utah State University Press which may lose all university support...

Invisible Children

Posted on March 22, 2009
Page four of the Winter 2009 SCCLL Newsletter has my review of a book written by Judge Gilmore and Dr. Beal for the children of incarcerated parents. This population of at-risk children is well known to courthouses. This booklet can help laypeople working with these children...

Phishing Scams

Posted on March 21, 2009
I ran across a very helpful article in the December, 2008 issue of Scientific American, link here, on how to avoid phishing scams. By Lorrie Faith Cranor, "How to Foil 'Phishing' Scams; Understanding the human factors that make people vulnerable to criminals can improve both security training and technology...

A New Research Paradigm

Posted on March 20, 2009
Sarah Kubik, an associate faculty member in visual communications and design at Indiana University-Purdue University, writes in today's Inside Higher Ed about the use of online research sources. She is of two minds--on the one hand, she loves print for the same reasons most librarians do...

Women and Land

Posted on March 19, 2009
I had never made the connection between hunger and African women's ability to own land until I read this column in the Boston Globe. Author Liesl Gerntholtz, who is director of the Women's Rights Division of Human Rights Watch, points out that [W]omen and their children are the most likely to lack food and go hungry...

Book Cart Drill Teams!

Posted on March 17, 2009
When things get too grim, it's time to have some fun! Here is a link to a collection of YouTube favorite videos of library book cart drill teams. The quality of the videos varies a good bit, but it's fun to poke around. Who knew these were being saved? There are strict rules for competing: Five minutes to decorate the carts -- magnets are apparently the secret; Four minute routines; No more than twelve carts...

Law Firm Meltdown -- Partner Firings

Posted on March 16, 2009
Click on the title to this post to read an entry from the ABA Journal online about U.S. and U.K. partner firings on an upswing as the economy heads downward. The article quotes consultants speculating that the cuts are to bring the partner/associate ratio back into line after slashing the population of associates, or that the move shows that firms are estimating that the recession will last into late 2010...

New Texas Law School(s)?

Posted on March 16, 2009
University of North Texas seems on the verge of getting its law school authorized, according to rumors. Click on the title to this post to read an article from the Daily Texan (University of Texas (the flagship campus at Austin for those of us without Longhorn connections) newspaper about a bill pushing for the UNT law school...

Garner on finding examples of good legal writing

Posted on March 16, 2009
Click on the title to this post to read a terrific entry at the ABA Blog, by Brian Garner. He writes on Finding Models of Good Writing. First, he points out that the most important way to learn how to write well, for any kind of writing, is to see and read good examples...

Judges

Posted on March 14, 2009
Click on the link in the title to this post to read a thoroughly charming Globe report by Brian Ballou on Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg's appearance at New England Boston Law School's centennial Law Day celebration. The justice gave a lovely talk and answered questions from a lottery-chosen group of students...

To Make Magic Happen: Deans' Job Description

Posted on March 12, 2009
I just spent a few days hanging out with a surprising number of deans. I was on an ABA inspection team that consisted of 3 deans and a vice-dean, plus the president of a small state college. Then me, and a federal district attorney. It actually was an amazingly nice time...

Use of Signing Statements Curtailed

Posted on March 10, 2009
Today's New York Times features an article by Charlie Savage on President Obama's ordering "executive officials to consult with Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. before relying on [any of President Bush's signing statements] to bypass a statute." Savage is well known for his columns on signing statements, for which he won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize...

Have You Gotten Your Westlaw Pricing Letter?

Posted on March 10, 2009
I just opened the letter from Brian Cahill, Director, Marketing Law School Libraries for Thomson Reuters. It announced an increase of a little over $4 per FTE for academic year 2009-2010. For my school, that amounts to an increase of several thousand dollars...

Results of Laptop Bans

Posted on March 06, 2009
Reproduced below is an article commenting on the results of banning laptops in several law school classrooms. I can't say I'm surprised to learn that students felt that banning laptops had improved their concentration. Laptops can turn students into scribes more intent on taking down every word than into active learners who mentally process the information...

Law Firm Layoffs dominate the ABA Journal Coverage

Posted on March 06, 2009
The headline in the ABA Journal online edition is March Mayhem: Law Firm Layoffs in One Week Total Nearly 1,500. Click on the title to this post to read the full article, which echoes the drumbeat of the online blogs I linked to below. They list the big firms and number the layoffs -- focusing always on the lawyer layoffs, rather than staff, of course...

Lieberman Grills Federal Judiciary About Pacer

Posted on March 06, 2009
This article from the National Law Journal discusses Senator Joseph Lieberman's questioning the Rules Committee of the Judicial Conference about why "it continues to charge the public and lawyers for access to electronically filed documents and whether enough is being done to protect the personal data collected by courts...

Law Firm cost cutting

Posted on March 05, 2009

Gay Rights Activists File Suit Against DOMA

Posted on March 04, 2009

Author's Guild on Settlement with Google

Posted on March 03, 2009

Yikes! ALDA raises the ante

Posted on March 03, 2009

Hidden Networks Matter Most on Twitter

Posted on February 27, 2009

United Kingdom moves ahead with Open Source

Posted on February 25, 2009
BBC News reports that the U.K. government will adopt an open source software action plan. This goes much farther than simply selecting open source software when it is the best buy. Tom Watson, M.P., Minister for Digital Engagement (I will pass on that title) says the plan is to put open source software on an even playing field with Microsoft Windows and other proprietary software...

Presidential Libraries

Posted on February 23, 2009
The presidential library has become institutionalized. Every president since Herbert Hoover has one (the controversial George W. Bush Library is in the works). However, according to a trenchant article in today's Boston Globe, presidential libraries are "undemocratic and unnecessary ...

Articles that apply to reference

Posted on February 21, 2009
Articles found in my building?s re-cycle bin. They could all help interactions at the reference desk.?Unmasking ?racial microaggressions.? ? Tori DeAngelis. 40(2) Monitor on Psychology 42-46 (Feb. 2009).Racist actions can be sosubtle that the perpetrator may not be aware of his bias, but the minority individual will pick-up the discrimination...

Facebook Retreats from Digital Rights Grab

Posted on February 20, 2009
The New York Times reported on Feb. 18 that Facebook is backing off an apparent revision of their terms of service. Click on the title of this post to read the full article. Spokesmen for Facebook, claimed that their revised terms of service, which appeared to claim rights forever in any material posted on the site, even after a user removed it, were merely clumsily drafted efforts to simplify

Bloggers, promote your law blog by nominating your blog for inclusion in USLaw.com's Law Blog Directory and RSS Reader. Benefits described.