Law Librarian Blog

Human Rights Center's Annual Report

The Human Rights Center, at UC Berkeley have issued their annual report for 2008. 
Topics include:

• A Disaster Foretold:  Cyclone Nargis and Relief Aid in Burma
• When the War Ends: Priorities for Peace and Justice in Northern Uganda
• DNA Reunification Project
• Examining the “War on Terror”

Applications for 2009 FCIL Schaffer Grants Now Being Accepted

The Foreign, Comparative and International Law Special Interest Section of the American Association of Law Libraries (FCIL) is now accepting applications for the 2009 FCIL Schaffer Grant.

The FCIL Schaffer Grant for the July 25-28, 2009 Annual Meeting in Washington, DC provides a waiver of the AALL Annual Meeting full registration fee and a grant of a minimum $2,000 to assist with accommodations and travel costs.

Applicants must be law librarians, or other professionals working in the legal information field, currently employed in countries other than the United States with significant responsibility for the organization, preservation, or provision of legal information.  The application deadline is March 1, 2009.  The Grant Committee will not consider late or incomplete applications.

Details regarding the FCIL Schaffer Grant, as well as the application form, can be found here.

Big Three Bailout Bill Crashes in the Senate

The deal-breaking issue, failing to agree on UAW wage cuts. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said there would likely be no more Senate work this year. The Senate's action raises the likelihood that GM and Chrysler will have to file for bankruptcy protection, which will allow them to renegotiate their labor contracts and unilaterally implement their final offer if the UAW refuses to accept the terms and the bankruptcy court approves the final offer. That, however, can take months.

Check out coverage on CQ Politics, New York Time and Washington Post. See LLB's earlier post on H.R. 7321, the House version of the $14 billion auto industry bailout bill. [JH]

Friday Fun: The Return of IT Support Cat

IT Support Cat decides how to handle the next call:

And proceeds...

[JH]

LawCite Launched by Australasian Legal Information

The Australasian Legal Information Institute have released LawCite Alpha. The free service provides access to Australian law and those of other countries whose case data is available through the Free Access to Law Movement by citation, case name, court and jurisdiction searches. You can also search for law journal articles by title and author. [Press release]. Hat tip to Legal Research Plus

Empirical Evidence of Clerk Partisanship and Influence on SCOTUS Decision Making Presented

In 1957, late Chief Justice William Rehnquist first suggested that law clerks might be unduly influencing their Justices. Now Todd Peppers and Christopher Zorn have measured clerk partisanship empirically in Law Clerk Influence on Supreme Court Decision Making: An Empirical Assessment, 58 DePaul Law Review 401 (2008).  The authors article presents the first direct evidence that Justices choose clerks with an eye to their ideological convictions and their findings strongly suggest that the partisan composition of a Justice’s clerks can and does influence that Justice’s decision making. Peppers and Zorn conclude

Our findings suggest that social scientists and other scholars should no longer quickly dismiss the role of law clerks in judicial decision making. However, this result signifies a beginning, rather than an end, of inquiry into the topic. To date, the widespread public discussion of law clerk influence has lacked a careful analysis of the different types of influence and the multiple paths through which that influence can be exercised. Simultaneously, that dialogue has suffered from Court observers’ failure to appreciate that law clerks are not autonomous political actors. From the first day of the clerkship, the law clerk is bound by formal and informal institutional rules and norms imposed by the Supreme Court, as well as the individual Justices. Observers must clearly understand the interplay of those rules, norms, and preferences before reaching a final verdict on the extent or desirability of clerk influence.

Hat tip to Carolyn Elefant, Legal Blog Watch. [JH]

Senate Manual for the 110th Congress Now Online

GPO has released the Senate Manual for the 110th Congress, which contains the rules, orders, laws, and resolutions affecting the business of the United States Senate. Also included:  Jefferson's Manual, Declaration of Independence, Articles of Confederation, Constitution of the United States. The manual is prepared under the direction of the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration. The 104th, 106th, and 107th are also available. [RJ]

Gale Launches State Papers Online With Publication of Tudor Era Manuscripts

Gale has launched State Papers Online, 1509-1714, with the release of Part I, State Papers Domestic for the Tudor era (1509–1603). The series will be a new digital resource for the study of Early Modern Britain and Europe. State Papers Online, 1509-1714 reproduces the original historical manuscripts in facsimile linking each manuscript to its corresponding fully-searchable Calendar entry.

State Papers Online will be published over the period 2008 - 2011 in four cross-searchable parts and will be available in libraries on subscription or by purchase. Due to be released in four stages. In addition to the now available Part I which covers the complete collection of State Papers Domestic for the Tudor era (1509–1603). Part II is due for release in early 2009 and will include the Tudor State Papers Foreign, Ireland, Scotland, Borders and Registers of the Privy Council as well as state papers in the British Library’s Cotton, Harley and Yelverton Collections. Parts III and IV containing the 17th-century State Papers Domestic, Foreign, Ireland, Registers of the Privy Council as well as those in the Harley Collection will follow in 2010 and 2011.

[JH]

It's Official, Blogging is Mainstream

So proclaims The Economist: "Gone ... is any sense that blogging as a technology is revolutionary, subversive or otherwise exalted, and this upsets some of its pioneers. Confirmed, however, is the idea that blogging is useful and versatile. In essence, it is a straightforward content-management system that posts updates in reverse-chronological order and allows comments and other social interactions." [JH]

Auto Industry Financing and Restructuring Act

Although not yet available on Thomas [H.R. 7321], you can get a sneak peak at the Auto Industry Financing and Restructuring Act from the House Committee on Financial Services.  While only 37 pages long, they've also included a nice 2 page summary highlighting the major points.  [RJ]

Duquesne Ousts Law School Dean

Duquesne Dean Donald J. Guter was given an ultimatum, resign or be fired. Guter, a retired U.S. Navy rear admiral and judge advocate general who was dean of Duquesne University School of Law since Aug. 1, 2005 opted to step down and return to a teaching job. He reportedly was give 24 hours to make his decision. No reason for the removal was given but according to the Pittsburg Tribune-Review university officials cited "unmet expectations" for his removal after three years at the helm, while Guter blamed "personal animus" that he says he tried to reconcile earlier this year.

Removal of a sitting dean during the term of an employment contract is unusual but it does occassionally happen to first-contract deans like Guter. In the mid-1990s, one-time Miami Law School Dean Samuel C. Thompson, Jr. (Penn State) was given the boot with about six months left in his first contract. In that case, Thompson's administrative style alienated the majority of the law faculty. In this case, it sounds like Dean Guter's relationship with the University reached a point of no return. [JH]

Gleick on the Authors Guild Settlement with Google

Can publishers still make money on books in light of the Authors Guild settlement?  In How to Publish Without Perishing, James Gleick suggests that the publisher's product [books] has a chance at "a new life: as a physical object, and as an idea, and as a set of literary forms."   As Google digitizes all the worlds books, Gleick contends that there's money still to be made with a good old fashion idea: "a book, printed in ink on durable paper, acid-free for longevity, is a thing of beauty. Make it as well as you can. People want to cherish it." 

For more information on the settlement, see LLB's earlier post Google Reaches Tentative Settlement of Book Search Copyright Class Action.  [RJ]

More Financial Crisis Resources

Source Materials. Fordham Law Library is compiling digital documents covering the 2008 financial crisis. No search engine but well organized for easy access. Note that the auto industry bailout is covered. Resources include the following:

History of EESA
TARP Documents
TARP Programs
FDIC Programs
P.W.G.
Federal Reserve Programs
The Mortgage Crisis
A.I.G.
The Auto Industry
The G-20 Summit

Fordham Law Library's 2008 Financial Crisis Resources is an excellent web destination for starting your research.

Current Developments. For the latest on the financial crisis, FindLaw has launched Financial Crisis: From Wall Street to Main Street to bring together news, opinions and analysis. FindLaw's is targeting this publication to consumers who want to learn about the current economy from a legal perspective.

[JH & RJ]

Web Technology Trends for 2008 and Beyond

From ReadWriteWeb:

Web Technology Trends for 2008 and Beyond, May 2008 Update

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: wellington 2008)

Crash Course in Copyright

For those who would like a refresher on "fair use", check out Cheryl Maddox's latest article in Library Journal entitled Reference BackTalk: Crash Course in Copyright.  Maddox reviews 4 sites The four web sites that "should help you keep abreast of the latest news and assist you in your quest for answers to copyright queries."  [RJ]

Indiana-Bloomington Receives $35 Million Donation

The soon-to-be branded Indiana University Michael Maurer School of Law in Bloomington recently received $35 million dollar donation from Michael Maurer. The gift, the largest in the law school’s history to come from a single donor, will fund an undetermined number of scholarships. Maurer’s gift brings the law school’s fund-raising during the capital campaign to $83 million. Last December, Lilly Endowment donated $25 million for faculty recruitment. Because both donations comes during IU’s $1 billion Matching the Promise fund-raising campaign, the university will match investment income from both gifts in perpetuity. Details. [JH]

60th Anniversary of the Most Translated Document in the World

Today is the 60th anniversary of the "most translated document" in the world according to the Guinness Book of Records -- the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. And hat tip to Mark Wojcik (John Marshall, Chicago), International Law Prof Blog, for calling attention to yesterday's 60th anniversary of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. [JH] 

U.S. Code coming to HeinOnline

In a most recent blog post HeinOnline announced they would be providing the U.S. Code to customers at no additional charge. Personally, Hein is one of my favorites for online resources and this makes them become even more of an option of first resort. {bb}

Google Alerts Version 2.0

Google Alerts, finally a useful tool. Google Alerts now provides delivery options. In addition to email, you can choose to have your alerts sent to you by RSS feeds to your feedreader of choice. Google also now allows you to filter your sources. You can specify that alert results come from News, Web, Blogs, Videos and Groups. There is also an option for "Comprehensive." Check out Google Alert's FAQ. [JH]

Theory and Practice in Legal Education: Alfieri's Critique of the Carnegie Foundation Report

Anthony Alfieri (Miami) examines the theory/practice dichotomy in legal education through the prism of the Carnegie Foundation's Educating Lawyers: Preparation for the Profession of Law in his provocative Against Practice [SSRN], 107 Michigan Law Review ___ (April 2009). The article argues:

1. "the Foundation's investigation of law school curricular deficiencies in the areas of clinical-lawyer skills, professionalism, and public service overlooks the relevance of critical pedagogies in teaching students how to deal with difference-based identity and how to build cross-cultural community in diverse, multicultural practice settings;" and
2. "the Foundation's remedial call for the curricular integration of clinical-lawyer practices similarly overlooks the utility of critical pedagogies in teaching students not only how to understand difference, but also how to represent difference-based clients and communities here and abroad."

[JH]