Law Librarian Blog

Clinton Library Releases Sotomayor Documents

The William J. Clinton Presidential Library has released about 5,000 pages of materials related to President Clinton's nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.  They are available online here.

From the description of the materials at the site:

FOIA 2009-1007-F Sonia Sotomayor

Scope and Content:

The materials in FOIA 2009-1007-F are a selective, not necessarily all inclusive, body of documents responsive to the topic of the FOIA. Researchers should consult the archivist about related materials. 

FOIA request 2009-1007-F contains materials relating to the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. President Clinton nominated Judge Sotomayor to the position in 1997, and she was confirmed by the Senate in 1998. The records contain biographical information, court opinions as Judge for the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York and letters in support of her nomination. This series also includes court records, correspondence, news clippings, articles, and emails concerning her nomination.  [MG]

Rush Limbaugh Impersonator Joins Senate Judiciary Committee

That's right, Al Franken has been appointed to the Senate Judiciary Committee less than one week ahead of the Committee's hearings for U.S. Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor. According to Politico, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid defended his decision to allow Franken to take a spot on the Judiciary Committee, calling Franken 'extremely smart." The junior senator from Minnesota, who favors transitioning to a universal health care system, has also been appointed to the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. Perhaps Franken can explain the sprawling health care reform bill to his fellow committee members in Stuart Smalley's 12-step fashion. [JH]

Are Deadwood Blogs Monuments to Failure?

Blogging is first and foremost about regular posting. If you're not up to the task or have decided to call it a day, Scott Greenfield suggests you should take down your blog:

Pull it.  Remove it, once and for all.  Do this for me.  More importantly, do this for you. For my purpose, you're leaving your litter and cluttering up my blogosphere.  Clean up after yourself so the blogosphere doesn't become a dump, a wasteland of old/bad news. For your purpose, your dead blog is a tombstone.  When someone googles your name, they may find your old, ugly, dead blog, a monument to failure.

On Binary Law, Nick Holmes agrees but with this caveat: "If the reason you quit is you couldn’t hack blogging, then its best for all, as Scott suggests, to take down your monument to failure. But old posts have value: we all keep them in our archives. Dead blogs have value too if the exit is graceful."

From my perspective of running a network of some 50 law prof blogs with about 100 blog editors, regular posting is the alpha and omega of law blogging but you never know if the blogger you just signed up for a blog is really up to the task. One might think age is a factor where younger profs are more likely to blog regularly than older ones. Not true. Or broader topics are more likely to provide news and legal developments for regular posting than narrower topics. Also not true. It is the blogger who makes or doesn't make a blog a valuable resource for regular news reporting, commentary and analysis of developments but I don't know if I would characterize deadwood blogs as monuments to failure on the blogger's part.

The absence of regular posting is a failure to realize blog readers' expectations. We've all had the experience of an alert appearing in our RSS feed subscription services from an inactive blog that has just published something. When that happens, it reminds me how good the blog once was but isn't any longer. Graceful exits from the blogosphere, as Nick Holmes suggests, is a good thing. Either take down your blog or leave it online but do publish a "good-bye world" post. Let your readers know that you decided to call it a day. [JH]

On the Twilight of the West Paradigm for Case Reporting

I think most law librarians will agree with William Mills' (New York Law School) propositions that (1) the foundation of trust that underpins case law reporting has been undermined because Internet case law sources, other than Lexis or Westlaw, appear with no strong guarantee of accuracy or authenticity, and (2) rebuilding a foundation of trust in our case law reporting system will not succeed by utilizing the technology of printed books. Those days are over; the dominant paradigm is no longer.

In The Decline and Fall of the Dominant Paradigm: Trustworthiness of Case Reports in the Digital Age, 53 New York Law School Law Review 917 (2008/09), Mills "chronicles the twilight of West’s paradigm [as a universally accepted framework for working with American case law]. It asserts that the West system has ceased to exert a dominant influence on case law research, and on the way that lawyers think about the law. ... The demise of the West paradigm can be attributed, in large measure, to factors that flow directly from the computerization of American law and the rise of the Internet. This essay identifies these factors, and explains how they have contributed to the demise of the paradigm." Highly recommended. [JH] 

Wikipedia's British Cousin, Wikimedia UK, Ruled Not Tax Exempt

A recent UK determination letter has denied Wikimedia UK tax exempt status because dissemination of ideas "is not in itself a charitable object unless it is combined with teaching or education.". Check out Should Wikipedia Not be Tax Exempt? Its British Cousin is Not! by Darryll Jones, Stetson law prof and co-editor of Nonprofit Law Prof Blog, for details and commentary. [JH]

GAO and CRS Cybersecurity Reports

The news that various federal web sites were subject to a denial of service attack over the 4th of July weekend came as a bit of a surprise.  North Korea is identified as the likely culprit.  Surprise or not, it's not as if the possibility of a foreign cyber attack is an unknown quantity for the U.S. government. Here are various reports from the GAO and CRS that address government security issues.

• National Cybersecurity Strategy: Key Improvements Are Needed to Strengthen the Nation's Posture (GAO-09-432T, March 10, 2009).

• Cybersecurity: Continued Federal Efforts Are Needed to Protect Critical Systems and Information (GAO-09-835T, June 25, 2009).

• Information Security: Cyber Threats and Vulnerabilities Place Federal Systems at Risk (GAO-09-661T, May 5, 2009).

• Federal Information Security Issues (GAO-09-817R, June 30, 2009).

• Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative:  Legal Authorities and Policy Considerations (R40427, March 10, 2009).

• Creating a National Framework for Cybersecurity:  An Analysis of Issues and Options (RL32777, February 22, 2005).   [MG] 

My Second & Third (Final) Weeks Teaching Legal Research in China

[Please refer to my March 8 and May 18 LLB posts for background.]

I meant to post about these things right after they happened in late May, but I was too busy teaching then to do so. And I've been extremely busy since returning home in early June. I apologize. A law librarian's work is never done! Anyway, I just finished writing a 5-page report about my teaching experience to be published in Perspectives. (I may also seek publication in law library journals.) The report duplicates most of my May 18 LLB post and details my second and third (final) weeks teaching. It ends with my reflections and recommendations. [RLS]

What's Old -- Legal Apprenticeships -- is New Again

On Legal Writing Prof Blog, Jim Levy (Nova) reports on how law firms are making up for the lack of adequate law school training by jumping on the legal apprenticeship bandwagon. Levy writes about this new trend, "at a time when job security for legal writing professors, clinicians and librarians is coming under attack from within the legal academy, some employers are saying loud and clear that law schools are not doing an adequate job teaching students how to actually practice law."

To which I will add that law firm apprenticeship programs may be one of the few positive outcomes from the current decline in the lawyer labor market. Hopefully they will have some staying power and will continue long after the economy improves. After almost 30-years of looking forward to improvements in the quality of legal education as preparation for the practice of a profession, I've pretty much given up all hope. Sorry law firm librarians, you will have to continue teaching law school grads how to perform legal research.

Are law schools preparing their students -- or themselves -- for the future? Check out Bill Henderson's (Indiana-Bloomington) must-read recent post.[JH]

Admissions on Corrupt Admissions: University of Illinois and College of Law Officials Testify They Tried to Get Jobs for Law School Grads and Additional Scholarships for Being Forced to Admit Clouted Students to Law School

Testifying before the Mikva Commission that is investigating corruption in University of Illinois admissions, Chancellor Richard Herman admitted he sought jobs for law school graduates after being forced to admit to the University's College of Law under-qualified students from politically connected families. See LLB's early post, Did the University of Illinois Barter Jobs for Law School Grads in Exchange for Law School Admission of Under-Qualified, Politically Connected Students? The answer is "yes." According to this Chicago Tribune story, no evidence was presented that law grads were hired but the College of Law did receive additional scholarship money for accepting the "special admits."

Bargaining Jobs for Admissions. The Chicago Tribune reports Chancellor Herman tried to downplay disclosed email exchanges with then Dean Heidi Hurd about the jobs-for-admissions scheme as being "sarcastic and facetious," a claim Hurd made in a letter to the Chicago Tribune. Commission members were not persuaded.

"I love jokes, but I have to tell you that this isn't something I would think you would want to joke about or Dean Hurd would want to joke about. The law school was giving up something of importance. When you were asking for something to compensate you weren't joking. That was a serious request," Mikva said.

"That would be a fair characterization," Herman replied.

Herman said he discussed the jobs only after being forced to admit the student and said there was no "bargaining beforehand."

"I like euphemisms," Mikva said. "But sometimes you have to say a spade is a spade, a cow is a cow."

Commissioner Doris Lowry also chided the chancellor's actions. "Once the bargaining opportunity presented itself, you chose to bargain," she said.

Additional Scholarship Money to Avoid US News Law School Rankings Hit for Admissions. The Tribune story also reports that U of I College of Law admissions dean Paul Pless testified that the College of Law insisted upon additional scholarship money so the law school could entice better-qualified students in exchange for admitting politically connected students with weak credentials. The goal was to counteract any negative hit to the rankings. Mikva, a former federal judge, pointed out that the scholarship funds, which came from the chancellor's budget, could have gone to other students if they had not been allocated to the law school.

"I honestly believe that my intent was to manage the situation," Chancellor Richard Herman said. "It is only looking back on it in aggregate, which the recent revelations brought to light, that one can step back and say we shouldn't have this process."

A open letter from a group of University of Illinois law professors that accuses the Tribune of being overly harsh in its reporting on university officials can be found here. Has the Tribune been too harsh? [JH]

Guide to Negotiating Vendor Contracts

A veteran of vendor negotiations for law firm online and print contracts, Elaine Billingslea Dockens offers a detailed guide for vendor representatives (VRs) and law librarians inexperienced in the ways of vendor contracting in Vendor Pitfalls in Negotiating Large Multi-Year Contracts - or How to Lose a Million Dollar Contract (LLRX). Dockens writes:

During negotiations my goal is to control expenses and look for discounts (and still keep a quality product). The goal of the VRs include obtaining or retaining our business and making a reasonable profit. When we both - firm and vendor - come to the table prepared to get the very best deal for our side, then everybody wins. However, if one of the parties arrives at the table ill prepared - we both lose. The vendor will probably lose the business they could have obtained or retained and the firm loses the chance to seriously consider the vendor in comparison to other vendors.

The article includes commentary on vendor representative tactics Dockens has witnessed over the years that substantially decreased the success of the VRs to obtain or retain her law firm's business. Reading this section was déjà vu all over again. [JH]

Casemaker vs. Fastcase for Caselaw Research

Bob Ambrogi offers a head-to-head review of Casemaker and Fastcase in Law Technology News. He concludes that in terms of coverage of federal and state libraries and the relative strengths of their search tools, "neither stands out as significantly superior to the other. But in their intuitiveness and ease of use, Fastcase has the clear edge." [JH]

IT Dashboard Provides Details on Federal Information Technology Spending

The IT Dashboard provides details of Federal information technology investments and provides users with the ability to track the progress of investments over time. The IT Dashboard displays data received from agency reports to the Office of Management and Budget, including general information on over 7,000 Federal IT investments and detailed data for nearly 800 of those investments that agencies classify as "major. Agency CIOs are responsible for evaluating and updating select data on a monthly basis, which is accomplished through interfaces provided on the website. Hat tip to beSpacific. [JH]

Villanova Law Dean Resignation Due to Prostitution Link

The Philadelphia Business Journal is reporting that former Dean Mark Sargent who resigned on June 29th will not return to the faculty.  Sargent is linked as a customer to a prostitution ring and is part of an investigation by the Pennsylvania State Police.  DePaul is not the only place with Dean problems it seems.  [MG]

2009 Mid-Year Law Firm Layoff Review: 10,000-plus Attorneys and Staff

2009 will go down in history as the worst year for law firm layoffs. According to Law Shucks's mid-year review, 125 major law firms have announced or had confirmed layoffs. The combined total is 10,723 people, 4,015 of which are attorneys and the balance, 6,708, are staff. Details: Law Shuck's mid-year layoff review post and additional stats at Layoff Tracker. [JH]

Never Say Anything Nice About Someone and Predicting SSNs

The pitfalls of social networking sites seem to be mostly confined to photos of underage drinking or some other type of embarrassing or illegal conduct.  Youthful indiscretions, as politicians would say, when justifying something most people find offensive.  Now there is a new danger.  The National Law Journal has an article suggesting that plaintiff's counsel could search professional social networking sites such as Linkedin for glowing recommendations and use them against defendants in employment or harassment suits.  Mind you, any similar statements contained in an employee's file would be discoverable in any event.  Employers, however, do not have to send comments to Linkedin as part of the normal course of business.  The NLJ looks at this in the context of lawyers.  The same concern applies to any professionals, including librarians and their employers.

While we are on the subject of the dangers of a social network, news comes that they can by used to by statisticians to help guess social security numbers with a surprising degree of accuracy.  This is based on the way the numbers are created.  The Death Master File is a database maintained by the federal government that matches social security numbers to deceased individuals.  The database is designed to identify fraud with recycled SSNs.  Researchers have used the database to identify patterns in the way numbers are assigned.  As documented, the first three digits are based on the state of birth.  The next two are a group number, and the final four are randomly assigned.  That, coupled with the government's program of assigning SSNs shortly after birth allowed correlation with birthday and other demographic information.  And those details comes from social networking sites as people share more personal information about themselves.

The  results results for getting accurate numbers right is high enough to be scary.  The success rate is 7 percent prior to 1988 (the date of the assigned at birth policy) and 44 percent after.  The smaller the state, the higher the success rate.  I supposed this means that spammers and other cybercrooks will now employ hundred of out of work statistic and math majors to guess SSNs.  Identity theft will be even easier than getting someone to click on a compromised link.  And it's all thanks to Web 2.0.  [MG]

Last Will of Michael Joseph Jackson

Copy of the King of Pop's last will is available here. Hat tip to Texas Tech law prof and Wills, Trusts & Estates Prof Blog editor Gerry Beyer. [JH]

Can Universities Require Open Access of Faculty-Produced Scholarship?

Probably not. "There is no such thing as a mandate on faculty," writes Stuart M. Shieber, Director of Harvard's Office for Scholarly Communication. Shieber continues "I am not saying that university open-access policies can’t be successful. But success has to be based on something more than coercion, because universities just do not have the ability to coerce their faculty, nor would it be advisable to try. Success must be based on broad collective support," in his post, University Open-Access Policies as Mandates. Hat tip to Digital Koans.

One has to wonder whether university open access policies will be supported by rankings-obsessed faculty members who fear that their SSRN download counts will decline if they deposit their scholarly works in university-sponsored repositories.  [JH]

Law School Not Golden Ticket to Secure Employment: Univ. of Miami Law Urges Incoming Students to Consider Deferring Their Admission Until 2010

Law Firm Layoffs and Employment Prospects

In a New York Times commentary, Another View: In Praise of Law Firm Layoffs, Dan Slater, the former writer of The Wall Street Journal Law Blog, argues that layoffs at law firms are the best thing to happen to the legal industry in years. On Workplace Prof Blog, Jeffrey Hirsch (Tennessee) writes "because I've personally witnessed too many students fail to get jobs or had offers withdrawn, my soul can't let me agree with his premise." Many more in the legal academy would agree with Hirsch's opinion than Slater's.

In a memo published by Above the Law, University of Miami School of Law Dean Patricia White is urging incoming students to consider deferring their first year of law school until the fall of 2010.

While I would like to believe that this year's elevated acceptance rate reflects the great sense of excitement about the Law School and its future that led me to become its new Dean, I fear that some of it may be related to the shortage of jobs in the current economy. Perhaps many of you are looking to law school as a safe harbor in which you can wait out the current economic storm.
 
If this describes your motivation for going to law school I urge you to think hard about your plans and to consider deferring enrollment. Law school requires an enormous investment of work, energy, time, and money. It is very demanding intellectually and emotionally. Beyond this, in these uncertain and challenging times the nature of the legal profession is in great flux. It is very difficult to predict what the employment landscape for young lawyers will be in May 2012 and thereafter.

Above the Law writes, "Listen to this woman. Look at what you are putting into law school: 'investment,' 'time,' 'money.' Look at what you are getting out of it: 'uncertain,' 'challenging,' 'flux.' Going to law school is not a golden ticket to the Willy Wonka Chocolate Factory of secure employment." See also, sidebar (above right).

In response to an unprecedented percentage of applicants admitted to the University of Miami Law School who have accepted the School's offer, Miami is offering the following benefits to applicants who defer their enrollment to Fall 2010:

Guaranteed $5,000 Public Interest Deferral Scholarship when completing 120 hours of public service. This scholarship would be in addition to any other scholarship award you may receive (not to exceed the cost of tuition).

Increase your likelihood of selection for a $75,000 Miami Scholars Scholarship award ($25,000 each year for 3 years). This is a scholarship designed to encourage and reward public service.

If qualified, be among the first group considered for all 2010 scholarships.

Apply your entire $300 seat deposit to Fall 2010, rather than receiving only a partial refund and forfeiting the balance.

[JH]

How to Fend Off the Summer Doldrums, Count Mouse Clicks

Mouse click rankings for SSRN downloads covering US News law schools ranked from 23 to 100 by Bridget Crawford can be found on Feminist Law Professors (why starting with 23?) and "since it's the boring dog days of summer, and inspired by Professor Crawford," Brian Leiter tabulated the US News top 15 law schools according to gross SSRN downloads. Who's bored enough to fill in the gap between the 15th and 23rd ranked schools?

On the absurdity of all this, an anonymous commenter to one of Morriss's Volokh Conspiracy posts on rankings years ago wrote:

Downloads just aren't the same as actual citations: Setting aside whether even citations mean anything important about scholarship, a citation, at the very least, means that another scholar respected an article enough to reference it in his or her own work. Downloads don't mean the same thing. An abstract could sell a paper as having an entirely new schema for analyzing an area of law, then the paper could turn out to be garbage. But, SSRN would already reflect the paper as influential. Heck, the attached paper could be a blank .PDF with a catchy title, and it would do well.

[JH]

GM's Asset Sale Approved

Bankruptcy Judge Robert Gerber gave GM the go-ahead late Sunday night to sell its most-prized assets -- including the Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet and GMC brands -- to a new government-backed company. Text of opinion here. [JH]