Website Reviews Published in Cornell Law Library's InSITE

The May 1, 2006 issue of InSITE reviewed the following websites:

• CFFPP: Center for Family Policy and Practice
• DRA: Disability Rights Advocates
• Electronic Discovery Law
• HealthLawProf Blog
• Tales from the Public Domain: Bound by Law?

Text of reviews

CFFPP: Center for Family Policy and Practice
The Center for Family Policy and Practice (CFFPP) engages in policy research, technical assistance, training, litigation, and public education in an effort to focus attention on the barriers faced by never-married, low-income fathers and their families.  CFFPP's projects and policies focus on issues such as "Domestic Violence and Fatherhood," "Criminal Justice System and Low-Income Noncustodial Parents," "Child Welfare and Fatherhood Policy," and "Economic Support Policies and Programs and Low-Income Families."  The Center also offers technical assistance to community-based organizations that serve low-income families, including policy and legislative analysis, legal education, and program implementation evaluation.  Researchers will be interested in the site's "Publications" section, which includes many no-cost PDF reprints of CFFPP monographs, as well as amicus briefs.  The Center's "National Policy Briefings" summarizes recent developments in policy, research, and legislation as they relate to child support, welfare reform, domestic violence, and poverty.   The CFFPP site is searchable. [BWK]

DRA: Disability Rights Advocates
Disability Rights Advocates (DRA) is a non-profit law firm based in Berkeley, California.  DRA pursues a mission of ensuring “dignity, equality, and opportunity for people with all types of disabilities throughout the United States” and the world.  The organization’s national advocacy seeks to make facilities accessible to the disabled, as well as enforcing disabled rights in areas such as employment, education, transportation, and health care.  In addition to its domestic work, DRA has an international program focusing on Eastern and Central Europe and another program that works to bring world attention to the Nazi holocaust against disabled people.  The website provides extensive information about DRA’s advocacy work and resources.  The Cases section describes the organization’s litigation in pursuit of access rights.  Representative cases are explained, and additional documents are made available.  These include full-text opinions, as well as settlement agreements, exhibits, and consent decrees.  Other material on the site includes the DRA newsletter and its various publications.  In addition, information for potential plaintiffs is available. [MM]

Electronic Discovery Law
Electronic Discovery Law (ED Law) is one of the latest in law firm blogs, published by the Document Analysis Technology Group of Preston Gates Ellis, LLP.  Unlike many blogs, ED Law is primarily organized by topic rather than chronology, and is easily navigated.   An e-discovery case database allows researchers to search case summaries using their own keywords and/or any combination of 19 subjects commonly addressed in e-discovery jurisprudence.  While case citations are provided, full-text is not.  Also available from ED Law are listings of upcoming e-discovery CLE programs and related events, updates on the federal civil procedure rule amendments concerning e-discovery, and other noteworthy news.  The Resources section provides annotated links to high quality e-discovery web sites.  A simple search feature makes finding different types of information on the same subject easy.  ED Law is a well-maintained blog (RSS available) for staying abreast changes in the ever-morphing world of e-discovery. [JJ]

HealthLawProf Blog
Law Professor Blogs is a network of blogs designed to assist law professors in their scholarship and teaching. Each site focuses on a particular area of law.  HealthLawProf Blog is edited by S. Elizabeth Malloy of the University of Cincinnati College of Law and Thomas W. Mayo of the SMU School of Law and the University of Texas, Southwestern Medical School (Dallas).  Posts are daily and are mostly excerpts from news items with minimal commentary.  Posts don't seem to be archived by month, but the entire Law Professor Blogs network is searchable.  HealthLawProf has RSS and Atom feeds, and is available at Bloglines and Juris Novus. Comments are not allowed on this site, but TrackBacks are available. [BWK] [Editor's note: Comments are allowed but are reviewed by blog editors before publication; posts are archived weekly. Joe Hodnicki]

Tales from the Public Domain: Bound by Law?
Duke Law School’s Center for the Study of the Public Domain was founded in 2002 as part of the School’s wider intellectual property program.  The Center’s main work is carried out through several projects, one of which is the Arts Project.  The Arts Project, which “analyzes the effects of intellectual property on cultural production,” has developed several educational resources and is working on comic books that help readers understand the impact of intellectual property law on art accessibility.  The current comic book, available on the website, is “Tales from the Public Domain: BOUND BY LAW.”  Inspired by the real-life copyright difficulties faced by the makers of the documentary, “Eyes on the Prize,” the comic book centers on heroine, Akiko, herself a documentary film-maker.  Through her adventure, readers learn copyright law basics, including the difficult area between fair use and copyright infringement.  As well, Akiko’s story provides a greater lesson on the role of the public domain.  The comic is available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license. [MM]

InSITE contributors: Julie Jones, Research Attorney, Brandy Kreisler, J.D., M.L.S., Matt Morrison, Research Attorney, Jean Pajerek (editor), Head of Technical Services & Information Management, all current or former members of the professional staff at Cornell Law Library.

About InSITE: InSITE highlights selected law-related Web sites in two ways: as an annotated publication issued electronically and in print; and, as a keyword-searchable database. The law librarians at Cornell evaluate potentially useful Web sites, select the most valuable ones, and provide commentary and subject access to them.

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