Law Librarian Blog

Cornell Law Library's InSITE Website Reviews

Reviews published in the September 25, 2006 issue of InSITE:

• ASIL Guide to Electronic Resources for International Law
• Democracy21
• Disabled Peoples' International
• International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour: IPEC
• National Association of Drug Court Professionals/National Drug Court Institute

ASIL Guide to Electronic Resources for International Law 
The ASIL Guide to Electronic Resources for International Law, commonly called the ERG, is an extensive narrated web guide to understanding and locating international law.  Updated twice a year by co-editors Marci Hoffman and Jill McC. Watson, the ERG is an excellent tool for students, teachers, lawyers, and researchers looking both for primary and secondary sources of international law.  The guide is divided into eleven main sections: an introduction explaining the organization of the ERG, Human Rights, International Commercial Arbitration, International Criminal Law, International Economic Law, International Environmental Law, International Intellectual Property Law, International Organizations, Private International Law, Treaties, and United Nations.  Each section provides a descriptive overview of the area of law, best methods for researching, links to vetted websites, and helpful tips.  Also available in print, the ERG is an essential resource for any researcher delving into the complicated world of international law. [JJ]

Democracy21
Democracy 21 is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization founded in 1997 by Fred Wertheimer, a noted advocate for reducing the role of money in politics.  The organization seeks “to eliminate the undue influence of big money in American politics and to ensure the integrity and fairness of government decisions and elections.”  Democracy 21 focuses on campaign finance reform and ensuring that campaign finance laws are effectively implemented and enforced.  The website is organized into several sections providing news, updates, and documents.  The Issues section provides discussion of the group’s involvement in specific issues, including campaign finance laws, the Federal Election Commission (FEC), and lobbying.  Users will find numerous postings under each issue, with links to PDF copies of letters sent to members of Congress and Congressional committees urging various actions.  Researchers will want to pay particular attention to the Key Documents section.  This section includes reports, as well as explanation of cases and FEC filings.  Relevant documents are provided in PDF and include opinions, amicus briefs, complaints, comments, and FEC rules. [MM]

Disabled Peoples' International   
Disabled Peoples' International (DPI) is a network of national organizations and assemblies of disabled people which has been established to promote the human rights of disabled people through economic and social integration.  DPI's website offers visitors information about the organization, including the composition of the executive and world councils, DPI's constitution and by-laws, and the organization's strategic plan.  Interested visitors can determine the location of regional offices and national assemblies by location.  Researchers will be interested in Disabled Peoples' International's "Resources" section, which organizes articles, reports, news items, and press releases by topic and type of publication.  Topic concepts include "Aging and Disability," "Bioethics," "Community Based Rehabilitation," "Hearing and Deafness," and "Learning Disabilities," among others.  This site is available in English, French, and Spanish, and is searchable. [BWK]

International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour: IPEC The International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC) works towards the progressive elimination of child labor by strengthening national capacities to address child labor problems, and by creating a worldwide movement to combat it.  IPEC also strives to contribute to national discussions on the implementation of International Labour Organization (ILO) Conventions.  The IPEC website’s "Subject Areas" include topics such as "Child Domestic Labour," "Child Soldiers," "HIV AIDS," and "Hazardous Work."  Each subject area provides a summary of the issue and links to further reading materials.  Researchers will appreciate the ILO's Statistical Information and Monitoring Programme on Child Labour (SIMPOC), which assists countries in generating comprehensive data on child labor.  The "IPEC Information Resource Centre" contains publications, reports, working papers, guidelines, manuals, brochures and all other IPEC sources of information on child labor, dating back to 2004.  This site is available in French and Spanish as well as English. [BWK]

National Association of Drug Court Professionals/National Drug Court Institute 
The National Association of Drug Court Professionals (NADCP) was founded in 1994 by drug court Judge Jeffrey Tauber and other drug court professionals.  The group “seeks to reduce substance abuse, crime and recidivism by promoting and advocating for the establishment and funding of Drug Courts . . . .”  NADCP describes a drug court as one that has special responsibility for cases involving offenders that are substance abusers and provides supervision, drug testing, treatment, and sanctions and incentives to these offenders.  The website is a source of information and support for association members and other drug court professionals.  The site offers information on the NADCP annual conference and other events, as well as membership information and a job bank.  The Public Policy and Awareness section offers an interesting document from the Boston University School of Public Health on ten particularly effective drug and alcohol policies.  Also of note is a resource and funding guide that details the resources available to communities wanting to establish a drug court. [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.

Digital versions of this information can be accessed via:

1. Searchable database or by browsing current and archived issues on the web: Click InSITE at www.lawschool.cornell.edu/library

2. E-mail subscription. Send the following request: SUBSCRIBE InSITE-L <YourFirstName> <YourLastName> to: listproc@cornell.edu

3. Readers can subscribe to the new InSITE RSS feed at http://www.lawschool.cornell.edu/library/RESOURCES/insite.htm

The contents of InSITE and any recommendations therein are the opinions of the authors and do not reflect the views of Cornell University. InSITE is copyright protected by Cornell Law Library, © 2006 Cornell Law Library. Permission to republish InSITE issues on Law Librarian Blog has been granted. For permissions, contact Jean M. Pajerek [jmp8@cornell.edu].

Cornell Law Library URL: http://www.lawschool.cornell.edu/library

On the Uses and Misues of Popular Music Lyrics in Legal Writing

Guess who is the most popular lyricist in legal scholarship? No, it is not the Guess Who. But Oklahoma City Law Prof Alex B. Long knows the answer and shares it in [Insert Song Lyrics Here]: The Uses and Misues of Popular Music Lyrics in Legal Writing.

Hat tip to The Volokh Conspiracy. [JH]

Opening: Law Library Director, Boston University School of Law

Boston University School of Law seeks applications for the position of Director of the Pappas Law Library.  The Pappas Law Library is one of the largest law school research collections in the United States, with over 638,000 volumes and hundreds of licensed electronic resources.  The law library’s primary mission is to support the legal research of faculty and students at the law school.  The Pappas Law Library is staffed by highly trained professionals, including eleven professional librarians, five paraprofessionals, and nine support staff.  The Reference librarians have both law and library degrees.  Pappas Law Library prides itself on providing excellent service to students and faculty.

Boston University School of Law is located on the Charles River Campus of Boston University, in the City of Boston.  The Pappas Law Library is housed on three floors of the Law Tower and two floors of Boston University’s Mugar Library, adjacent to the Tower. The library's resources include state and federal case law, statutes, legislative history, regulations and administrative law materials, all significant legal periodicals, and a major collection of legal treatises.  The library has developed an extensive international law collection with emphasis upon materials dealing with the European Union, the United Nations, international trade, and human rights. Additionally, in support of the law school’s various specialized curricula and journals, the library has developed extensive collections in intellectual property law, health law, banking law, and taxation.

The Director of Pappas Law Library has broad responsibility for managing all aspects of the operation of the library including managing the collection, hiring and supervising professional and non-professional staff, maintaining and updating library technology, developing and implementing the library budget, and ensuring that the research and other library-related needs of students and faculty are met.

Applicants must have a law degree from an accredited law school, a graduate degree in library science (or its equivalent) from an ALA-accredited institution, and significant administrative experience in a law library, preferably an academic law library.  Appointment as Director of the Pappas Law Library normally entails appointment with tenure or on the tenure track as Professor or Associate Professor of Law and Legal Research.  Salary and benefits are competitive with peer institutions.

Applicants and those wishing to nominate potential applicants should contact the Chair of the Library Search Committee, Professor Jack M. Beermann at beermann@bu.edu or at Boston University School of Law, 765 Commonwealth Ave., Room 970C, Boston, MA 02215.  Tel.: (617) 353-2577.  Applicants should provide an updated c.v. and references.  For more information concerning the Pappas Law Library please see www.bu.edu/lawlibrary.  Applications are being accepted immediately, and the Committee’s goal is to complete the process expeditiously.

For Supreme Court's new term: rise of a new centrist

From the Christian Science Monitor:

"Key abortion and racial cases could signal whether Justice Kennedy shifts court to the right or maintains precedents."

Read the rest of the story.

[RJ]

Supreme Court Preview

From the ACSBlog:

ACS is pleased to present an online Supreme Court Preview, featuring leading legal experts explaining just what is at stake this Term--the first full Term in which recently confirmed Justices John Roberts and Samuel Alito will sit. Along with their seven colleagues, they will consider such issues as:

• Whether a woman, whose health is endangered by her pregnancy, has a constitutional right to a safe abortion.
• How quickly a victim of race discrimination in the workplace must initiate an action against a discriminatory employer in order to obtain relief.
• Whether the Clean Air Act imposes a mandate on the EPA to issue rules restricting greenhouse gas emmisions.
• To what extent a court may impose punitive damages on a company engaged in "highly reprehensible" acts.
• Whether the Constitution denies local school districts the authority to voluntarily integrate racially segregated schools.

[RJ]

Two more publications covering the upcoming SCt term

Baker Botts' Supreme Court Today and Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Maw's Supreme Court Docket.

[RJ]

Justice Kennedy's Pivotal Role In The New Supreme Court Term

From Findlaw:

"As the Supreme Court opens its new Term this October, it doesn't take a genius to recognize that the three most important factors to watch are Justice Anthony Kennedy, Justice Kennedy, and Justice Kennedy.

Last term, the first under Chief Justice John Roberts, the Justices started out issuing an unusual number of unanimous opinions, while ducking some of the more controversial issues presented to them. But by the end of the Term, the Court was pretty much back to business as usual - which, for the modern Court, has meant two sharply-opposed ideological factions pivoting around one or two justices at the Court's political center.

In this column, I'll consider what effect Justice Kennedy's important swing votes may have this Term."

Check out the rest of the story.

[RJ]

Intellectual Property Law Dictionary

Intellectual Property Law Dictionary
Rachel Gader-Shafran
Board of Editors and Contributors

$219.00, Law Journal Press, ISBN: 1-58852-124-9
looseleaf, one volume, approximately 500 pages; published in 2004, updated as needed.

Publisher's Blurb: This complete, one-stop lexicon of IP terminology helps you understand and apply the language of intellectual property in any situation.

Designed for lawyers, law students, professors, and anyone who works closely with intellectual property issues, the Intellectual Property Law Dictionary contains five sections explaining the meaning and legal background of terms used in copyright, patent, trademark, trade dress, and nanotechnology both in the U.S. and internationally. More than just a dictionary, it provides detailed citations to source materials with every definition. You'll also find an “Overview of Intellectual Property,” explaining the essentials of each type of intellectual property, and appendices offering concise histories of the law of copyright, patents, trademark, trade dress and nanotechnology .

There's no need to pore over dozens (if not hundreds) of pages of statutes, treaties and cases to find out what a new expression or acronym means. With this useful new reference, you'll get the answers you need, quickly and easily.

Opening: Designer/Activist, EFF

EFF Seeks Designer/Activist

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a nonprofit organization based in San Francisco's Mission District, is looking to hire an outgoing individual with an artistic background who wants to lead others and change the world. EFF's activists translate our efforts to protect digital rights into action campaigns that get the public involved. 

This person would also provide the organization with design help, everywhere from the front page of our website to our t-shirts and membership brochures. The ideal candidate will be able to do illustrations and graphics work to make our web campaigns, print media, and donor gifts look great.

This is a new position.

Job responsibilities include:

• Creating powerful images about key issues for our website
• Coordinating and developing graphics for grassroots awareness campaigns that can drive people to our website and to take action
• Working with other public interest groups on grassroots campaigns
• Editing written materials for the website

Required:

• Intimate knowledge of Photoshop and Illustrator
• Experience designing for web and print
• Excellent writing skills
• Great project management skills
• A passion for internet civil liberties issues

Not required, but very helpful:

• Basic HTML and CSS knowledge
• Experience creating flash animations
• A healthy relationship with blogging software
• Database expertise

Environment is fast-paced, work is cutting edge, staff is hardworking yet laid back and friendly.

Salary in the mid $30,000s and includes benefits package.

To apply, send a cover letter and your resume, in a non- proprietary format, to designer@eff.org. Include links to samples of your work. No phone calls please!

Spotlight on Law Librarians: Lou Lindsey

Louise (Lou) Lindsey, JD, MLS, SLIS
Associate Director
Mabee Legal Information Center
University of Tulsa

After 27 years as a law librarian, one would expect that Lou Lindsey has a pretty impressive collection of convention bags.   Click to enlarge the above right image to see Lou airing out some of them on her backyard Tulsa clothesline to help her pick just ONE to carry to the October 19-21 MAALL/OKLL joint annual meeting in Tulsa!   The MAALL President, Brian Striman, has declared a contest for recycled bags from former meetings or other noteworthy bags of any sort, instead of providing us with yet another convention bag.   Yes, Lou thinks she's going to win the "oldest AALL meeting bag"- and what with this stockpile, she just might!   You who are coming to Tulsa for the Mid America Association of Law Libraries and the Oklahoma Law Librarians meeting need to give her some competition!  Think about it!

Lou's early career was as an elementary school teacher in Colorado & Nebraska, followed by an enviable elementary school librarian position in Virginia where her library had a fireplace with her mom's braided wool rug for a cozy story time!

After 9 years of higher education leading to law librarianship (BA at Earlham; MLS at UWA; JD at UND; & SLIS at IU), she decided it was time to work. As a law librarian, she has worked in academia non-stop, beginning at University of Arkansas in Fayetteville for a dozen years, then University of Connecticut for a couple years, and back to MAALL/SWALL territory at the University of Tulsa where she has served as Associate Director for 10 years now, a mere half of the time Rick Ducey is celebrating in October as Director.  Lou also directed North Dakota's Central Legal Research for a few years as a freshly admitted North Dakota/Minnesota attorney.  This program, which still exists, provides research by law students for court-appointed defense counsel, judges and prosecutors from the state.   She was thrilled to visit CLR when MAALL was in Grand Forks last October, and have a reunion with the same administrative assistant she had hired, and former student workers from her time there (1977-80)!

When not helping Local Arrangements as being co-chair for the upcoming meeting, Lou does general library administrative work, serves on the reference desk, and does the collection development in the area of environmental and energy law.

Check out this website if you're interested in bringing YOUR old bag to Tulsa!   Early bird registration is Oct. 4 and the special MAALL rate at the hotel in Jenks closes Oct. 4.   

Editor's Note: The Spotlight on Law Librarians feature is edited by Lee Peoples, Law Librarian Blog Contributing Editor and Associate Director for Faculty, Research and Instructional Services, Oklahoma City University Law Library. Please feel free to recommend a colleague for this feature to Lee at lpeoples@okcu.edu

The Military Commissions Act or How the Rule of Law is About to Stand at Attention

The Military Commissions Act of 2006,(S 3930 pdf | LC Thomas Resources ) started as a rejoinder to the Hamdan ruling because the absence of Congressional authorization for military tribunals was a central flaw in the Executive's approach. While solving that problem, the Supreme Court should be troubled by the Act because, once again, the Bush Administration has overreached in a number of very important ways.

According to Eugene R. Fidell, a Washington attorney and military law expert who is president of the National Institute of Military Justice, the habeas-stripping provision is unconstitutional. Stripping foreign suspects of the right to challenge their detentions in US courts is a perversion of the principle of the Rule of Law. Just as perverse are the new provisions for using hearsay and coerced evidence. Finally, the Act defines conspiracy as a war crime, although four Supreme Court members in the majority in June said it was not a war crime. At least, the Act does not just allow the president to determine the meaning and application of the Geneva Conventions. See Detainee Bill Shifts Power to President New York Times, Sept. 30, 2006.

For the Republican strategy uses to achieve this legislation, see U.S. Senate Republican Policy Committee Crafting Legislation to Prosecute Terrorist War Criminals and Preserve Valuable Interrogations.

Bottom line: CW views Justice Anthony Kennedy as the swing vote when the Act comes before the Supreme Court

File under: "It's the Constitution, stupid." [JH]

Pew Study: The Future of the Internet II

Pew has released The Future of the Internet II, available as a 115 page PDF.

Highlights from the survey:

• Respondants believe that a low-cost global network will exist in 2020, accessible to most people globally.
• Global competition is a definite, with resistance from currently successful businesses.
• Respondants say that "humans will remain in charge of technology between now and 2020" (that's good to hear...) but that machines/processes will exceed human controlability at some point (can we say AI?).
• People will expose more information about themselves and continue to lose any sense of privacy in an increasingly networked environment.
• Economic status and technophobes (who will begin to organize and violently protest) will remain unconnected, even in 2020.  (OK, that sounds a bit scary.)
• Users will continue to dedicate more personal time to "sophisticated, compelling, networked, synthetic worlds by 2020."  "Addiction" was discussed at length.

[RJ]

Government Reform Releases Report on Jack Abramoff’s White House Lobbying

From the press release:

"The House Government Reform Committee today released a bipartisan investigative report on the nature and extent of the lobbying of White House officials by Jack Abramoff and his associates. As part of its six month investigation, the Committee obtained more than 14,000 pages of billing records and e-mail communications from Abramoff and his associates at Greenberg Traurig L.L.P. related to instances of lobbying White House officials."

See related documents.

[RJ]

Read the rest of the story.

[RJ]

Legal Community Designates October 2-6 as International Professional Legal Management Week

The Association of Legal Administrators (ALA), the professional society for law firm administrators and corporate and government legal department managers, along with the support of eight other co-sponsoring organizations, has designated October 2-6, 2006 as International Professional Legal Management Week (PLMW).

The objectives of International Professional Legal Management Week(SM) include: to provide awareness, understanding and education about the legal management profession; to increase knowledge of the diverse roles within the profession; and to communicate to stakeholders, and others, the importance and need for a professional management team in all facets of enterprise leadership.

For more information on International Professional Legal Management Week(SM), visit http://www.plmw.org .

[RJ]

Crime in the United States 2005

From the Federal Bureau of Investigation:

"With the release of Crime in the United States, 2005, the FBI debuts an improved Web publication of its annual uniform crime report. Crime in the United States, 2005, includes tables grouped by topic, "browse by" options for major areas of interest, bulleted overviews for each main topic and most tables, and "data declarations" for each table to provide pertinent information that may help users understand the data presented."

[RJ]

A Global Assessment of Terrorism

Interesting report from the University of Central Florida, Terrorism Studies Program:

“To avoid complacency and deal more effectively with the terrorism threat, the United States and its allies must seriously review and overhaul their counter-terrorism policies, with an emphasis on fresh thinking: a new mindset – anticipating the unexpected; a new focus – recognizing that all terrorism ultimately is local; a new learning emphasis – expanding terrorism education at all levels; a new multilateralism – avoiding any “America-first” strategies against terrorism; and a new sense of innovation – countering terrorist propaganda with ideas and acts that expose the hypocrisies and attack the roots of the problem.”

[RJ]