Archive for the 'Legal research' Category
The mysteries of cataloguing
March 10th, 2010Jennie Law – “Here, we have our own catalogue system. It doesn’t have a name, but if it did, it would probably be something along the lines of “I need this book NOW, no I don’t care about the precise spelling of the authors middle name, or their date of birth.” I know, I know, [...]
Open Access Plus
March 8th, 2010The Life of Books – “As the body of primary legal materials grows and access to it spreads, what will be the result? Will citizens actually be better able to understand the law without access to the scholarship, analysis and the sophisticated objective finding tools of legal research? In addition to advocating the free, [...]
This Law is My Law
February 28th, 2010Radio Berkman – “This week we sit down with Carl Malamud, who with the group Public.Resource.org is pushing to put law in the public domain. We covered the issue of copyright on law a few months ago in Radio Berkman 129 where Steve Schultze introduced us to RECAP – a software that helps legal researchers [...]
One thing that bothers me about Google Scholar’s Legal Opinions and Journals
February 24th, 2010Pace Law Library Blog – “When using Google Scholar’s advanced search option for legal opinion and journals, the title of the law review article retrieved is more often than not linked to the version of the article in HeinOnline or another subscription database like JSTOR. Since our Library subscribes to Hein, access on campus is [...]
No Talking, No Texting, No Tweeting
February 9th, 2010Legal Blog Watch – “A committee of the Judicial Conference of the United States has endorsed a set of model jury instructions for district judges to help deter jurors from using cell phones, computers or other electronic technologies during their jury service.”
Legal iPhone Apps – Is there a Librarian for that?
January 30th, 2010Steve Matthews – “[A]fter reading Bob Ambrogi’s post this AM critiquing FR Evidence, a (U.S. based) iPhone app, which promised “to provide the complete text of the Federal Rules of Evidence” but is missing a rule (502) that was added in Sept. 19, 2008, I am concerned.”
Me too. Yikes!
Fastcase? There’s an App for That!
January 29th, 2010FastCase Blog – “Fastcase for the iPhone is the first of its kind and a breakthrough for two of our biggest passions, legal tech and open access to law.”
More here
Cornell’s Legal Research Search Engine!
December 13th, 2009OOTJ has a summary.
Third Annual ABA Journal Blawg 100
December 2nd, 2009ABA Journal – “Welcome to the third annual ABA Journal Blawg 100—the best legal blogs as selected by the Journal’s editors. This year we did something even more blog-like. We asked our readers to help us find blawgs worthy of note.”
Google Does Evil to LexisNexis and Westlaw?
November 25th, 2009A wrap-up from Above The Law
He’s Got the Law (Literally) in His Hands
November 19th, 2009Foreign Policy – “Neither the courts, nor the lawyers, nor even the Liberian parliament have a physical copy of the country’s legal code. That’s because one man is claiming a copyright on the books — and he’s holding them hostage until he gets paid.” (Thanks Kathleen!)
News You Can Use: On Google’s Adding Caselaw to ‘Scholar’
November 18th, 2009WSJ – “…Google hasn’t announced whether the company plans to ultimately turn it into a viable competitor to Westlaw or Lexis.”
Finding the laws that govern us
November 17th, 2009Official Google Blog – “Starting today, we’re enabling people everywhere to find and read full text legal opinions from U.S. federal and state district, appellate and supreme courts using Google Scholar. You can find these opinions by searching for cases (like Planned Parenthood v. Casey), or by topics (like desegregation) or other queries that you [...]
Goal of New ABA Web Effort: All the Federal Decisions that Are Fit to Print
November 17th, 2009ABA Journal – “You can find those opinions summarized on a revamped Media Alerts on Federal Courts of Appeals page on ABAnet.org. Students and professors at four law schools are choosing the opinions most likely to be of interest to journalists and the public for the pilot project, sponsored by the ABA Standing Committee on [...]
Supreme Court of Texas Cases Available on St. Mary´s iTunes U
November 11th, 2009St. Mary’s Law School – “Since 2006, St. Mary’s University School of Law and the Supreme Court of Texas have partnered to provide the Court’s oral arguments to the public through access to live and archived webcasts. Now, the archived arguments are available on iTunes U.”
More here
Exciting Times are Coming: Check out Law.gov
October 19th, 2009Life Of Books – “In addition to Carl Malamud’s law.gov effort, LIPA, the Chesapeake Project, AALL’s Authentication & Preservation of Digital Law Special Committee, and NCCUSL’s State Electronic Legal Materials Committee, other initiatives are developing which, if coordinated, can actually help the nations law libraries breath easier, by freeing us of the necessity of having [...]
Indiana High Court Allows MySpace Entry As Evidence In Murder Trial
October 16th, 2009WSJ – “The sole issue on appeal: Did the trial court improperly admit into evidence a posting by Clark on his MySpace page?”
Law.Gov
October 15th, 2009Very cool
“A Proposed Registry and Repository of All Primary Legal Materials of the United States.”
Top Ten Court Website Awards
October 14th, 2009From Justice Served
New York courts are nowhere to be found.
New Jersey Patent Bank Web site starts up
October 12th, 2009Philadelphia Business Journal – “The New Jersey Patent Bank, a Web site where users can post or look for patented technologies in the state, was launched on Friday. Users can post licensed or unlicensed patents and search for patents on the site, which is designed to help new technologies into the commercial market.”
Direct to [...]
Why Legal Books Are Likely To Go Electronic (Pretty Soon)
October 2nd, 2009Eugene Volokh has thoughts on this issue.
See also
Relying On Google Search Lands Ex-CPA In Hot Water With The Tax Court
September 30th, 2009Business Insider – “According to the opinion, Woodward argued that “his research on the Internet using the Google search engine provided him with reasonable cause for the position he took when filing” his return. Unfortunately, Woodward either did not or could not provide the sources he actually used from Google.” (via)
Read the opinion
Sorry Westlaw and Lexis – The Days of Passing Charges to Clients Are Numbered
September 24th, 20093 Geeks – “Over the past 25+ years, the model of passing through the expense of online legal research to the client created a system where operating profits for the vendor were over 30%, and law firms felt immune to the total costs of using online research. Clients were paying the majority of the costs [...]
Courts Wrestle With Searches When the Evidence Is Digital
September 24th, 2009WSJ – “For decades, investigators have known that if they enter a suspect’s home with a search warrant to look for illegal guns and find sacks of cocaine lying on the coffee table, they can seize the drugs even though the warrant only gave them permission to look for the guns. That is because courts [...]
Ark appeals courts shun paper
September 21st, 2009AP -”The Arkansas Supreme Court and the state Court of Appeals have ended the practice of publishing their rulings in bound volumes. The move saves an annual $265,000 for the courts.”
CA Supreme Court Briefs For Cases To Be Argued – Now Online For Free
August 28th, 2009This is a new feature from the California courts. Very cool!
What’s Wrong With Lexis & Thomson Reuters/West? – Desperation
August 24th, 2009I was enjoying the latter part of a few days off today (at the Bronx Zoo with the family), so I didn’t read about this until I got home. Apparently, the West marketing geniuses sent out the following e-mail blast:
"Are you on a first name basis with the librarian? If so, chances are, you’re spending [...]
Courtport Announces its Launch of FreeCourtDockets.com with Free Pacer Docket Access
August 18th, 2009Press Release – “Courtport, LLC, a legal research and technology company, today announced the launch of its free federal court docket retrieval site, FreeCourtDockets.com, which enables anyone to retrieve full court dockets from any U.S. district civil, criminal, or bankruptcy court, as well as from the U.S. Supreme Court, the U.S. Court of Claims, and [...]
The Reinvention of Legal Research: The Future Is Now
August 14th, 2009Peter Schwartz – “Legal research — once the province of desks, books, and binders — is now online, data-driven, and real-time. These attributes pose new challenges to old practices and habits, and to old publishing stalwarts such as Westlaw and LexisNexis. Here are a few of the new research and business realities that result from [...]
PACER Subscriptions Poised to Hit One Million
July 31st, 2009U.S. Courts – “The federal Judiciary’s Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER) system has reached the one-million mark in the number of subscribers who have registered since 1991. The total of subscriptions officially topped the one million mark on Friday afternoon, July 31, 2009.”
