Law Librarian Blog

Coalition Presses the Obama Administration To End "Ideological Exclusion" in Visa Applications

More than 70 legal groups are urging the Obama Administration to end the practice of practice of “ideological exclusion,” refusing visas to foreign scholars, writers, artists, and activists not on the basis of their actions but on the basis of their ideas, political views, and associations."  The letter, addressed to Attorney General Holder, Secretary of State Clinton, and Secretary of Homeland Security Napolitano, also urges the officials to revisit seven specific cases of exclusion. See also:  Obama Must Tread Fine Line on Scholars Barred From the U.S. for Their Views, The Chronicle.  [RJ]

Law and Justice with Antonin Scalia

National Review Online has posted a 5 part series with Justice Scalia discussing his his "career, his family, his opinions, his faith, his colleagues, his legacy, and the fate of the Constitution."  [RJ]

Please Repeat the Question Because I Was Surfing the Web

Here's the 2009 NYU Law School Law Revue promotional video, addressing the most controversial issue of our time, laptop use in the classroom. Hat tip to Above the Law. [JH]

Please Repeat the Question from Amanda Bakale on Vimeo

Columbia Law School Conference on the Google Books Settlement

Execellent summaries of the Conference proceedings on LibraryLaw Blog here and here. [JH]

Recent Dissertations on Legal Information Systems

We've come across the following recent dissertations on legal information systems that do yet appear to be cataloged in WorldCat:

DATE: 2008
AUTHOR: Wyner, Adam Zachary
TITLE: Violations and Fulfillments in the Formal Representation of Contracts
PUBLISHER: King’s College London, School of Physical Sciences and Engineering, Department of Computer Science
URL: http://www.wyner.info/research/Papers/WynerPhDThesis2008.pdf
DESCRIPTION: 276 p. ; PDF
ABSTRACT: http://www.wyner.info/research/Papers/WynerPhDThesis2008.pdf
SUBJECTS: Deontic logic; Contracts - Data processing

DATE: 2008
AUTHOR: Riveret, Régis
TITLE: Interactions Between Normative Systems and Software Cognitive Agents: A Formalization in Temporal Model Defeasible Logic
PUBLISHER: Università di Bologna, Centro Interdipartimentale de Ricerca in Storia del Diritto e Informatica Giuridica (CIRSFID)
URL: http://defeasible.org/PhD/RegisRiveret.pdf
DESCRIPTION: 10, 227 p. ; PDF
ABSTRACT: http://defeasible.org/PhD/abstract/RegisRiveret.html
SUBJECTS: Intelligent agents (Computer software); Deontic logic; Law - Methodology - Data processing; Information storage and retrieval systems - Law; Defeasible reasoning

DATE: 2008
AUTHOR: Lima, João Alberto de Oliveira
TITLE: Modelo genérico de relacionamentos na organização da informação legislativa e jurídica
PUBLISHER: Universidade de Brasília
URL: http://eprints.rclis.org/13107/
DESCRIPTION: 290 p. ; PDF
ABSTRACT: http://eprints.rclis.org/13107/
SUBJECTS: Legislation; Law reports, digests, etc.; Ontologies (Information retrieval); Telecommunication Law and legislation; Topic maps ; Judicial decisions ; Legislative information ; Administrative law; Brazil.
LANGUAGE: Portuguese with English abstract

[Robert Richards]

Legal Planet

Legal Planet is a new environment law and policy blog launched by UC Berkeley and UCLA. Great to see law schools collaborate in the law blogoshere. [JH]

Lieberman Urges Better Public Access To CRS Reports

Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Joe Lieberman, ID-Conn., urged the new Chairman of the Senate Rules Committee to help foster greater public access to the expert reports produced by the Congressional Research Service. In a letter to Rules Committee Chairman Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., Lieberman criticizes the pay for play model and highlights the "need for an officially-sanctioned system"  to "ensure that those with power and those without have equal access to this important resource."   [RJ]

Economic Downturn Hits Volokh Conspiracy

Oh no, the economy has hit one of the most popular and award winning law professor blogs in the blogosphere. See Layoffs at the Volokh Conspiracy. Here at the Law Professor Blogs Network, we too have had to tighten our belts. No more free mouse pads and cancellation of the Network's carpel tunnel medical insurance policy but we hope to launch a 30 APR Network-branded Visa card soon. [JH]

Free & Low Cost Legal Research Guide

Georgetown Law's Free & Low Cost Legal Research Guide is one of the best I've seen. It's a must-have for library users who do not have access to Lexis or Westlaw because the guide lays out resource options in an easy to understand way. Great job. [JH]

2008 Moot Court Rankings

80 moot court teams have been ranked by Brian Koppen based on their performances in 2008 moot court competitions. First place goes to South Texas. Some comments here and here. [JH]

Call for Papers: RuleML Symposium

A call for papers has been issued for the Third International Symposium on Rules, Applications and Interoperability (RuleML) to be held Nov. 5-7, 2009, in Las Vegas, Nevada.  Abstract submission deadline is June 9.  The committee welcomes submissions on “applications of Web rule technologies for business and information systems,” including legal information systems.  The committee encourages submissions related to a “track topic” or a “challenge category.”  The track topics are:

•       Rule Transformation and Extraction
•       Rules and Uncertainty
•       Rules and Norms
•       Rule-based Game Artificial Intelligence
•       Rule-based Event Processing and Reaction Rules
•       Rules and Cross-Industry Standards
•       General Rule Topics, including “Rules and Ontologies”

The “challenge categories” include:

•       derivation rules and constructive views over data;
•       production rules or (complex) event processing reactive rules;
•       benchmark for performance evaluation of rule engines; and
•       use cases / case studies (possibly using rule standards).

See the full call for papers for more details.  Hat tip to the IAAIL Blog. [Robert Richards]

Deadline for SR-SIS Alan Holoch Memorial Grant Applications is April 15

The Alan Holoch Memorial Grant Committee is now taking applications for the 2009 AALL annual meeting.
 
The Alan Holoch Memorial Grant is available to help SR-SIS members defray the cost of travel or registration for the AALL Annual Meeting in Washington DC. Individuals chosen to receive the grant have the potential to make significant contributions to law librarianship through their involvement with AALL and the Social Responsibilities Special Interest Section's Standing Committee on Lesbian and Gay Issues:  Embracing the Diversity of Sexual Orientations and Gender Identities. See the application on the SR-SIS website.

Cardozo Law Students Launch Website to Aid Victims of Childhood Sexual Abuse

Cardozo Advocates for Kids, a student organization at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, has launched a website to aid victims of childhood sexual abuse and be a resource in the national grassroots movement to eliminate the statutes of limitations for childhood sexual abuse. [JH]

Law Prof's Jury Room Activities Lead to Overturned Verdict

A New Jersey appeals court has ruled that the defendant in a slip-and-fall case was deprived of a fair trial in part because the jury foreman, a Seton Hall law professor, influenced the verdict by explaining legal concepts to his fellow jurors. The jury room activities came to light when the law professor article about his experiences was published in the December 2006 issue of the New Jersey Law Journal. The defendant contended that the article "disclosed that he improperly influenced the jurors and that there was apparent misunderstanding of the jury charges." A new trial for a grocery store originally found liable for $876,000 has been ordered by the court.

Some thoughts on the matter by Dan Solove (amateur jurors should be replaced by professional jurors). Hat tip to Mike Frisch (Georgetown), Legal Profession Blog. [JH]

Grimmelmann on Google Book Settlement

Professor James Grimmelmann of New York Law School recommends in a new article that the proposed Google Book settlement agreement be modified before court approval, and that the U.S. Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission regulate the resulting transaction.  See James Grimmelmann, “How to Fix the Google Search Settlement,” Journal of Internet Law, Apr. 2009, at 1. Grimmelmann recommends approval of the settlement agreement, but only after several modifications.  These include:

• striking the “most favored nation” clause (section 3.8(a) of the settlement agreement that protects Google’s competitive position respecting orphan works;

• requiring the Book Rights Registry to offer future copyright holders the same terms as provided under the settlement;

• mandating library and reader representation on the registry’s board;

• expressly authorizing the registry to negotiate with Google’s competitors in the digitization market;

• prohibiting Google from engaging in retail price discrimination respecting digital books;

• incorporating express protections of reader privacy; and

• requiring free public access to the registry’s database of information respecting ownership of rights in the digitized books, and to Google’s database recording  which digitized books are available in print.

Grimmelmann also calls for imposition of an antitrust consent decree on the registry and a grant of authority to the Justice Department to monitor all registry contracts for potential anticompetitive effect.  Further, he recommends that the FTC regulate Google to prevent price discrimination, privacy breaches, and the imposition of onerous usage restrictions.   Hat tip to Chris Welch. [Robert Richards]

Text-Mining Case Law

Noting that LexisNexis and Westlaw search technology is some 30 years old and does not use more recent text-mining technologies from computational linguistics such as information extraction, Dr. Adam Zachary Wyner contrasts them to more modern text-mining tools in this brief Law.com article. [JH]

LSAT 2.0?

Berkeley Professors Marjorie M. Shultz (Law, retired) and Sheldon Zedeck (Psychology) have come up with a test that may be better at predicting lawyer performance that the LSAT. It should be noted that the Law School Admissions Council helped finance the research so there may be something to this. See the New York Times story and the professors' research report,Identification, Development, and Validation of Predictors for Successful Lawyering, for details. [JH]

Opening: Assistant Director of Public Services and Legal Research, Pacific McGeorge School of Law

Pacific McGeorge School of Law's Gordon D. Schaber Law Library seeks an enthusiastic candidate to be our next Assistant Director of Public Services and Legal Research. The Assistant Director of Public Services and Legal Research is responsible for coordinating and overseeing the overall Public Services operations of the Gordon D. Schaber Law Library, and participates actively in the Law School’s Global Lawyering Skills course. As head of the public services department, the Assistant Director oversees a talented and experienced professional staff with duties encompassing reference services, research and instructional support, computer services, interlibrary loan, circulation, and collection maintenance; the Assistant Director of Public Services also provides reference, instructional, and outreach services. Candidates should have a global perspective on legal education, have the capacity to teach in the School of Law’s expansive Global Lawyering Skills course (legal process, legal research, legal writing, advocacy and lawyering skills), and the ability to work collaboratively in creative curriculum development, with a primary focus on legal research.  The ideal candidate will teach in the Global Lawyering Skills class or may teach Advanced Legal Research.  The Assistant Director for Public Services and Legal Research serves on the Library’s Collection Development Committee, works closely with the Assistant Dean of the Law Library and the Assistant Director of Technical Services on general library administration and management, including space planning, and generally is part of the Law Library management team. 
 
Compensation: Competitive and commensurate with experience, with a full benefits package. 
 
Minimum Qualifications:
·M.L.S., M.L.I.S., or equivalent from ALA-accredited school, and J.D. degree from an accredited ABA law school, or equivalent
·Strong academic credentials
·Knowledge of legal research in all formats
·At least five years of relevant professional experience in a law library
·At least three years of experience supervising library staff, preferably in an academic law library
·Substantial experience teaching legal research or clearly demonstrated ability to gain prowess as a classroom instructor
·Law practice experience
·High quality communication, interpersonal and organizational skills
·Self-starter who undertakes projects and meets deadlines
·Understanding and familiarity with library related technology
·Substantial experience using computer-based research tools
·Service-oriented and able to work well in team environments
·Collaborative management style, team player, open to creative approaches to librarianship and legal education generally
·Commitment to scholarship 
 
To Apply: Send a letter of interest, resume, and the names, addresses, and phone numbers of three references to Human Resources, Pacific McGeorge School of Law, 3200 Fifth Ave., Sacramento, CA 95817. Electronic applications may be sent to: mcgeorgehr@pacific.edu. 
 
Pacific McGeorge School of Law is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

Amazon Gets Evil About Using Kindle to Read Non-Amazon Purchased Mobi-coded Books

Igor Skochinsky wrote a script that takes a Kindle serial number and translates it into the corresponding Mobi device ID so that any legally purchased Modi-coded book could be read on a Kindle. He posted a guide at mobileread.com that gave detailed instructions on how to use the script. The reaction from Amazon was predictable. The company issued takedown demands. The moral of the story, Kindle is only for reading Mobi-coded books bought on Amazon. Hat tip to Public Knowledge. [JH]

Public Access to Court Records Lecture

A video of Stephen Schultze’s February 2009 lecture, “Selling the Law: The Business of Public Access to Court Records,” is now available. Schultze is a fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University.  Here is an abstract of the lecture:

“As government documents are increasingly digitized and put online, two orthogonal approaches to distributing these documents have developed. Under one approach, the documents are made easily and freely accessible. In others, the government retains or introduces barriers to access that are inspired by traditional physical access. When these barriers are fee-based, the government can inadvertently create downstream monopolies or architectures of control over public information. This problem is especially severe in the case of federal district court documents, which are available only via an outdated, fee-based, court-run system or from expensive aggregators like Lexis or Westlaw. Indeed, evidence indicates that the courts are using public access fees to subsidize other activities. If we are to be a nation of laws, citizens must have access to the law. The upfront cost of making court documents freely available is far outweighed by the long-term benefits to society. Widespread digitization combined with Internet connectivity has placed these benefits within reach. The courts must now address the task of revamping outmoded policies and funding structures in order to align their practice with this reality.”

Hat tip to Court Technology Bulletin. [Robert Richards]