Law Librarian Blog

Letters on Scooter Libby Released by Court

From Secrecy News:

"Letters sent to Judge Reggie B. Walton regarding the sentencing of vice presidential aide Lewis I. "Scooter" Libby, who was convicted of obstruction of justice, were released by the court."  [RJ]

Viyya Creates Emergency Alert Information Portal

The new system provides e-mail and other alerts to students and staff. After the tragedies at Virginia Tech and Appalachian School of Law, is your institution prepared to issue warnings? Read more about Viyya's product: press release and website. [JH]

Ask.com Unveils Ask3D

From the press release:

"Ask.com®, a leading search engine and wholly-owned business of IAC (NASDAQ: IACI), today unveiled Ask3D, a completely re-engineered and redesigned version of Ask.com. Ask3D includes powerful new search technology, an innovative three-panel design, and unique new features that give people what they need, faster. With the new version of Ask.com, people get the most relevant and customized information they need from the best range of content available, including videos and music clips, and makes it all immediately accessible on one page. Ask3D replaces the previous version of Ask.com and is now available at www.ask.com."  [RJ]

Pay Gap Exists as Early as One Year Out of College, New Research Says

From the press release:

"New research released today by the American Association of University Women Educational Foundation shows that just one year out of college, women working full time already earn less than their male colleagues, even when they work in the same field. Ten years after graduation, the pay gap widens.

In the report, Behind the Pay Gap, the AAUW Educational Foundation found that just one year after college graduation, women earn only 80 percent of what their male counterparts earn."

[RJ]

Friday Fun: Crazy Warehouse Guy in a Library

Hat tip to Don Mac Gregor, CCH Law Library. If you would like to contribute a "Friday Fun" feature, please email me.

Vote for Video That Best Expresses Love of Libraries

In a contest sponsored by Gale the public has until June 11 to vote on which video best expresses a "love of libraries." The contest has a prize of $10,000 that will go half to the lucky winner and half to the lucky winner's library. The winner will be announced on June 24th at ALA. View the videos and vote now! [JH]

Chicago-Kent Distributes Podcasts and Handouts from the School's Back to the Future of Legal Research Symposium

Handouts and podcasts (plus photos!) are now available for the Back to the Future of Legal Research Symposium held at Chicago Kent last month. Don't miss the podcast [mp3] of "Web 2.0: New Tools for Doing & Teaching Legal Research," featuring Wisconsin's Bonnie Shucha, (WisBlawg), Michigan law prof Richard D. Friedman (The Confrontation Blog), and OSU law prof Douglas A. Berman, (Sentencing Law & Policy and Law School Innovation and his Spring 2007 semester Death Penalty Class blog).

Resources from Chicago-Kent's Back to the Future of Legal Research Symposium:

• Handouts
• Podcasts
• Conference Photos

Hat tip to Bonnie Shucha, WisBlawg. I now regret my last minute decision to not attend this conference. [JH]

Avvo Launches Website That Rates and Profiles Every Lawyer

From the press release:

"Seattle-based Avvo, Inc., today launched www.avvo.com, the only website that rates and profiles every lawyer so consumers can choose the right lawyer. Consumers have never before had access to the level of information and guidance Avvo provides, including the Avvo Rating, disciplinary sanctions and client ratings. The launch of the free website marks the first time attorney ratings have been available for every attorney and the first time that detailed profiles and disciplinary information for those attorneys have been available in a single place."  [RJ]

The site is generating mixed reviews.  See also:

Lawyer ratings site not without objections, CNet News

Bravo for Avvo? Not so Quick, Robert J. Ambrogi Lawsites

LISjobs.com - Jobs for Librarians and Information Professionals

LISjobs.com is a comprehensive guide to online job resources for librarians and information professionals.  RSS feed available.  Check it out!

And remember, for the latest in employment opportunites for law librarians, don't forget to check Law Librarian Blog. Here's the link to job annoucement posts. [RJ]

2006 Wiretap Report

From the press release: 

"A total of 1,839 orders were issued by federal and state courts in 2006 authorizing or approving the interception of wire, oral or electronic communications, also known as wiretaps. This is a 4 percent increase over the 1,773 orders issued in 2005, according to The 2006 Wiretap Report. The complete report contains information on interceptions concluded between January 1, 2006 and December 31, 2006. A summary of the authorized intercepts reported for calendar years 1996-2006 is availabe in Table 7."  [RJ]

"No applications for wiretap authorizations were denied by either state or federal courts in 2006. Seventy-nine percent of all wiretap applications approved by state judges were for just 4 states; 430 applications in California; 377 applications in New York; 189 applications in New Jersey, and 98 applications in Florida. Currently, the federal government, the District of Columbia, the Virgin Islands, and 44 states have laws authorizing courts to issue orders permitting wire, oral, or electronic surveillance. Last year, 23 states and the federal government reported wiretap activity.

In 2006, the number of applications for intercepts submitted to state judges rose 20 percent to 1,378. The number of applications for interceptions submitted in 2006 to federal judges fell 26 percent to 461."

Check out Google Translate

Google's new search function (beta) allows a user to search websites in another language.  Check it out!  [RJ]

William Mitchell College of Law Library Launches New Online Catalog

From the press release (featuring Law Librarian Blog Contributing Editor Neal Axton):

Some of the most beneficial features of the new catalog include direct links to many of the library’s electronic resources (such as online journals and government documents), RSS feeds for new titles, search results that display relevancy, labels that are more understandable, and easy access to patron records. ... Next, the Law Library will be integrating its directories of free Internet research sources and subscription databases with the new catalog format.

This doesn't happen every day. Congratulations to all involved in the project! [JH]

Legal Wikis on Lawyer 2 Lawyer

From the Legal Talk Network: On Lawyer 2 Lawyer, J. Craig Williams and Bob Ambrogi explore the world of “Legal Wikis.” Are they helping or hurting the law? What does the future hold for Wikis? Are we reshaping years and years of facts through the click of a button? Join co-hosts as they hear from the experts: Martin Farley, an Intellectual Property Law librarian at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer in London, Tom Mighell, Senior Counsel and Litigation Technology Support Coordinator at Cowles & Thompson in Dallas and Daniel N. Lewis, entrepreneur and Vice President of Business Development and General Counsel of Wikia, Inc."  [RJ]

AAUP Issues Report on Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans Universities

From the press release:

"The Special Committee on Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans Universities of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) finds that there was “nearly universal departure from (or in some cases complete abandonment of) personnel and other policies” by five New Orleans institutions―the Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center, the University of New Orleans, Southern University at New Orleans, Loyola University New Orleans, and Tulane University―as they contended with the disaster that befell the city and its universities.

The report identifies several specific areas of widespread dereliction:

• The number of faculty terminations “exceeded the inescapable or minimal needs of the institution, sometimes substantially.”
• The notice and timing of personnel actions “also failed to meet AAUP standards and created needless, even at times unconscionable, uncertainty.”
• Alternative placement of affected faculty “universally fell below AAUP standards, but also fell short of the institutions’ apparent capacity to mitigate the harshest effects of inevitable personnel reductions.”
• The opportunity for internal review of adverse judgments “failed to meet most accepted standards of due process as well as the institutions’ own established review procedures.”
• Faculty tenure (which all these institutions had previously recognized and by and large respected) “received far less deference than AAUP policy and prior practice [on these campuses] would have required.”

[RJ]

New Titles from Ashgate Publishing

Corporate, Public and Global Governance
The G8 Contribution
Edited by Michele Fratianni, Indiana University, Bloomington, USA, Paolo Savona, LUISS Guido Carli University of Rome, Italy and John J. Kirton, University of Toronto, Canada

April 2007 | 324 pages
Hardback | 0 7546 4046 9 / 978-0-7546-4046-2 | $99.95

The intensifying pace of globalization has led to a questioning of the traditional approaches to governance at the corporate, national and international levels. To explore this issue, this volume focuses on: the most desirable forms of corporate governance; the most appropriate forms of public governance; how well leading national governments are pioneering the needed policies and practices; and the G8's role in assisting governments and corporations to work together. more...

American Global Strategy and the 'War on Terrorism'
Hall Gardner, American University of Paris, France

April 2007 | 252 pages
New, Revised Paperback | 0 7546 7094 5 / 978-0-7546-7094-0 | $49.95

Following the success of the original hardback publication, this revised and updated paperback re-conceptualizes the 'war on terrorism' and analyzes the nature of American domestic and international policy-making within the context of historical and structural constraints upon US policy. more...

Women, Minorities Top Bush's Supreme Court Short List

Exclusive report from ABC News:

"The White House is developing a short list of possible Supreme Court nominees so President Bush can move swiftly if a justice retires at the end of June, when the Court breaks for its summer recess, according to sources involved in the selection process."  [RJ]

Mediation Most Preferred Form of ADR

Arbitration ranked third behind mediation and early case assessment as the most preferred form of alternative dispute resolution according to a recent survey by the International Institute for Conflict Prevention & Resolution. Read more about it.[JH]

Federal Courthouse Named After Rush Limbaugh's Grandfather

President Bush signed Pub. L. No 110-13 on March 21, 2007. The statute designates the United States courthouse located at 555 Independence Street in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, as the "Rush Hudson Limbaugh, Sr. United States Courthouse." From H. Rep. No. 110-10:

Rush Hudson Limbaugh, Sr. was born in Bollinger County, Missouri on September 27, 1891.

He began his education in a one room school a mile from his farm home. He attended the University of Missouri at Columbia and in 1914 entered the University of Missouri Law School. He skipped his third year of law school, passed the Missouri bar exam, and was admitted to practice in 1916.

Limbaugh was a leading figure in the legal profession for his accomplishments not just in Missouri and the United States, but around the world. At the time of his death, at the age of 104, he was still practicing law after nearly eight decades. He was the nation's oldest practicing attorney. He argued over 60 cases before the Missouri Supreme Court. He tried cases before the Interstate Commerce Commission, the U.S. Labor Board and the Internal Revenue Appellate Division.

Limbaugh served as City Attorney of Cape Girardeau from 1917 to 1919. In 1923, he started a law firm that still bears his name. From 1942 until 1946 he served as Missouri Counsel for the War Emergency Pipelines, through which gasoline was transported from Texas and Louisiana to the East Coast as a war measure. He was President of the Missouri Bar from 1955 to 1956. He served on the committee that drafted the 1955 Missouri Probate Code and served as Chairman of the Real Property, Probate, and Trust Law Section of the American Bar Association from 1954-1955. Limbaugh also served as Counsel to what is now Southeast Missouri State University for over four decades. In the early days of Indian independence in the 1950s, the U.S. State Department sent him to India to be an ambassador for the U.S. legal system.

He was also active in other areas of civic life. He was elected to the Missouri State Legislature from 1931 to 1932, where he pressed for the formation of the Missouri State Highway Patrol and the consolidation of school districts. He served as President of the State Historical Society of Missouri from 1956 to 1959. He was also a Sunday school teacher, and a member of many local civic organizations including the Boy Scouts of America, Centenary United Methodist Church, and the Salvation Army.

Rush H. Limbaugh Sr. died in his home on April 8, 1996.

Rush H. Limbaugh Sr. will be remembered as more than a brilliant attorney; he will also be remembered as a great American. As such, it is very appropriate that the United States Court House in Cape Girardeau, Missouri be designated the `Rush H. Limbaugh, Sr., United States Courthouse.'

Rush H. Limbaugh Sr. is the grandfather of radio pundit Rush Limbaugh. For more about the Senior Limbaugh see his wikipedia entry and Federal Judge Stephen N. Limbaugh's Rush Hudson Limbaugh and His Times: Reflections on a Life Well Lived (2003). [JH]

Lee Peoples, Recipient of the 2007 AALL ALL-SIS Outstanding Service Award

Congratulations to Lee Peoples, Associate Director, Oklahoma City University Law Library (and Contributing Editor of Law Librarian Blog)! Lee has been named the recipient of the 2007 ALL-SIS Outstanding Service Award, which honors an ALL-SIS member who has made outstanding contributions to the SIS in areas of section activity and in professional service.

Editor's Note: Lee, by the way, did not toot his own horn by telling me about this much deserved recognition. How rare is that! [JH]

OpenNet Initiative Releases Finding of First Global Study of Internet Filtering

The OpenNet Initiative has released the findings of its first global study of Internet filtering, the culmination of five years of work and the first report of its kind. According to a study at least 25 countries around the world block or filter Internet content, indicating a global trend towards Internet censorship. Thre report (below) will be published in November 2007.

Access Denied: The Practice and Policy of Global Internet Filtering
Edited by Ronald J. Deibert, John G. Palfrey, Rafal Rohozinski and Jonathan Zittrain

November 2007 |$20.00
6 x 9, 320 pp., 17 illus.
ISBN-10: 0-262-54196-3 | ISBN-13: 978-0-262-54196-1

Book Description: Access Denied documents and analyzes Internet filtering practices in over three dozen countries, offering the first rigorously conducted study of an accelerating trend.

Internet filtering takes place in over two dozens states worldwide including many countries in Asia and the Middle East and North Africa. Related Internet content control mechanisms are also in place in Canada, the United States and a cluster of countries in Europe. Drawing on a just-completed survey of global Internet filtering undertaken by the OpenNet Initiative (a collaboration of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School, the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto, the Oxford Internet Institute at Oxford University, and the University of Cambridge) and relying on work by regional experts and an extensive network of researchers, Access Denied examines the political, legal, social, and cultural contexts of Internet filtering in these states from a variety of perspectives. Chapters discuss the mechanisms and politics of Internet filtering, the strengths and limitations of the technology that powers it, the relevance of international law, ethical considerations for corporations that supply states with the tools for blocking and filtering, and the implications of Internet filtering missions.