Law Librarian Blog

Barnes & Noble Drops DC Comics Titles In Stores Because of Kindle Exclusive

Barnes & Noble is miffed that DC Comics entered into an exclusive deal with Amazon for e-book distribution of DC titles.  How miffed?  Enough to pull the same titles from B&N store shelves.  The company claims that if it can‘t offer a title in digital format, it won’t stock titles in the stores.  I think the stance rings a bit hollow since the same titles will still be available from B&N’s web site and may be special ordered in the stores.  This only punishes consumers, many of whom collect comics, excuse me, graphic novels, in physical format.  For many collectors, print is the whole point of these items.  Forcing customers to order this type of item online just gives them multiple sources from which to choose, one of which may not be Barnes & Noble.  Dumb move.  More on this from CNN Money.  [MG]

Welcome To Macintosh

Synopsis: "Filmmakers Josh Rizzo and Rob Baca trace the evolution of Apple computers from the Apple-1 to the iPhone in this documentary. They combine criticism and history with an unapologetic celebration of the company that helped revolutionize home computing." [JH]

Google Books Comes To The UK

Cheap tablets from competitors may have had one effect on Google.  Amazon has released the Kindle Fire as a convenient front end to its massive store with expectations that the Fire will be sold globally.  Google Books was never available in Europe or the UK, which was fine before Google set up its own bookstore.  Now that there is money to be made Google can't leave the book store market exclusively to Apple and Amazon.  Hence Google Books is now available in the UK via an Android app and the browser.  There are three million titles available, though a good chunk of them are the public domain titles we've come to know and love in the United States.  Google has struck licensing deals with publishers Hachette, Random House and Penguin to sell titles.  

More on this is available in the Telegraph.  The Daily Mail adds that video rentals via YouTube are another feature Google is offering to UK consumers.  It's odd that Google hasn't been that aggressive in marketing content in Europe and the UK until the competition started to heat up.  Maybe it's the antitrust issue where Google escapes some official criticism because its stepping into an existing market rather than inventing it.  [MG]

Knowing Steve Jobs Through His Patents

The New York Times has updated its timeline of 317 Apple patents that list Steve Jobs among the group of inventors here. [JH]

Friday Fun: Dousing the Flames of Kindle Fire

A word of advice from SNL's Seth Meyers. [JH]

What Was the Legal Status of "Wanted - Dead or Alive" in the Wild West Days? (Assuming those posters weren't a creation of Hollywood)

Kenneth Anderson wants to know:

• First, to what extent was this actually a historical practice [in 19th century frontier days], or is it really just a creation of Hollywood westerns– any scholarship on this, or actual examples?
• Second, from the standpoint of the law in force in that period, on what basis was this kind of “dead or alive” language used?
• Third, what was the relevant Constitutional doctrine of that day and did it have a role to play?  Why or why not?

See also the comments to his post on The Volokh Conspiracy.

What a great ALR assignment! Certainly could take law school students beyond WEXIS to perform research. [JH]

An Invitation to Discuss SCOTUSblog and Legal Blogging Generally

See Tom Goldstein's invitation here. He adds 'In this thread, discuss the role of SCOTUSblog, and whether it succeeds or fails in fulfilling that role." That is a no-brainer. Can't get better than SCOTUSblog for what it covers. As for "legal blogging generally," that's a mixed bag.

Back in the dark ages of legal blogging, circa 2004-2005-ish, blogging was "hot" and many lawyers and law profs jumped into the medium. Today, legal blogging is a mature form of web communications. In addition to the fodder of attorneys and law firms using the medium as a form of indirect advertising, the use of the blogging platform by major legal media companies to distribute news and developments is crowding out independent voices. The opportunities for independent voices to acquire some sort of significant audience in the legal blogoshere by launching a new blog are and have been slim to none for about four years now. There are exceptions but they are few in number. [JH]

Ninth Circuit Holds EPCA Applies To Non-Citizens In Foreign Court Disputes

Here’s a little case out of the Ninth Circuit that extends the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) to non-citizens involved in foreign proceedings.  The question arose in a civil case in Australia between Suzlon Energy Ltd. And Rajagopalan Sridhar.  Suzlon wants Sridhar’s emails contained in his Hotmail account, which happen to reside on Microsoft’s servers in the United States.  The District Court initially granted Suzlon’s request but reversed itself when Microsoft objected through a filing.  The Court took this as a motion to quash the request to produce the desired emails and granted it under the language of the ECPA.

The Ninth Circuit upheld the District Court’s decision, essentially holding that the plain language of the statute requires the result.  The statute uses the term “any person” as defining a user of an electronic communication service which is subject to the provision of the Act.  Citizen or not, Sridhar falls into the category of “any person” as far as the Court of Appeals is concerned.  The Court bolstered its decision by looking at the legislative history, though not relying on it as the basis of its decision. 

The legislative history used by the Court quotes a Senate Report stating “Congress must act to protect the privacy of our citizens. . . The Committee believes that [this Act] represents a fair balance between the privacy expectations of American citizens and the legitimate needs of law enforcement agencies.”  The Court, however, says it would be a time-consuming for a lower court to have to consider the citizenship status of someone to decide whether the Act applies to them, at least where the documents are stored in the United States.  In any event, “any person” means “any person.”  Circuit precedent states that the Act applies to requests pertaining to civil litigation.

I expect an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.  The case is Suzlon Energy v. Microsoft Corporation (10-35793, issued October 3, 2011).  Hat tip to the BNA Electronic Commerce & Law Report.  [MG]

Bob Dylan, Not a Nobel Laureate in Literature (Yet)

And yes, apparently the betting odds during the last couple of weeks were favoring him. Instead, Tomas Tranströmer, a Swedish poet, was named winner of the 2011 Nobel Prize in Literature. He was honored, the Nobel citation said, "because, through his condensed, translucent images, he gives us fresh access to reality."

Home field advantage? [JH]

Please Welcome FWBS to the "Thomson Reuters Family"

Quoting from the Orange Rag:

Thomson Reuters is continuing its spending spree with the announcement of yet another acquisition. This time it is Elite which has acquired FWBS, a provider of software solutions that allow lawyers to manage their practice work streams, contacts and other materials in a matter-centric view.

The acquisition was announced on October 3, 2011. See Elite's press release. The title of this post was "inspired" by FWBS's announcement. [JH]

Steve Jobs: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish."

Is the Legal Profession, Is the "ABA-Legal Academy Cartel," as Future Ready for Alternative Business Structures as "Professional Legal Services" Vendors Are?

Readers of Richard Susskind's The Future of Law: Facing the Challenges of Information Technology (OUP, 1998) and The End of Lawyers?: Rethinking the Nature of Legal Services, Revised Ed. (OUP, 2010) can already see forecasted changes in the provision of legal services. From e-commerce sites offering fill-in forms for routine business and personal transactions for the individual to LPOs providing document review and related work for corporations and law firms, a de facto distinction between lawyer services and legal services already exists. The class action lawsuit against LegalZoom for unauthorized practice of law in Missouri might have tested the boundaries of distinguishing between purely lawyer services and legal services not requiring a lawyer but as Mark Giangrande wrote about the settlement of the lawsuit before it went to trial, it "sounds as if the company is buying off the plaintiffs." Mark adds

I can only wonder how this settlement will stop any other enterprising attorney from attempting to shake down the company for cash with a future suit.  We'll see if the settlement extinguishes future claims of unauthorized legal practice

Do note that LegalZoom has sued the North Carolina State Bar in an effort to gain registration for its legal services plan according to the ABAJ report.

On 3 Geeks, Toby Brown's has posed the issue in terms of deregulation of the practice of law. He doesn't use the "nasty" characterization "ABA-Legal Academy cartel," but I will. See Is Practice of Law Already Deregulated? (Sept. 5, 2011). Two comments to that post and Brown's response hit the mark:

Jordan Furlong:
 
I expect that a distinction will soon be made that officially separates a narrower "lawyer services" band from the broader "legal services" category. Something like this already exists in England & Wales, where legislation divides law-related tasks into "reserved legal activities" (generally, lawyers only) and "unreserved legal activities" (generally, anyone and their grandma). UPL as we know it, accordingly, stands a very good chance of being an empty vessel before the end of the decade, maybe sooner.

What we need to acknowledge as a profession is that "the practice of law" as we know it today is something of an historical anomaly: lawyers have long been performing many law-related activities without competition mostly because there wasn't anyone else around to compete. Our exclusivity emerged from the fact we were the only halfway competent entrants in the market, not from a time-tested demonstration of skill so superior that it required a ring-fenced franchise on legal services.

The challenge in addressing this issue is defining the practice of law in a defensible way, carving out those activities exclusive to a lawyer.

In my past experience with a mandatory bar, efforts to provide a useful definition always fell short. I recall one dialog where the only defensible ground for lawyers was appearing before a court of law. Everything else could be done by non-lawyers.

So I suggest caution to those looking for the hard-line behind which lawyers can safely stand. We may find not much space behind that line and much of what lawyers currently do pushed out into the open.

Jerome Kowalski:
 
The fact is that while nobody was paying attention, a host of unregulated and unlicensed providers of legal services (perhaps we may not have a precise definition for the”legal services industry, but as U/S. Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart said of defining pornography “I don’t know what it is, but I know it when it when I see it”), in the form of legal project outsourcing companies and Internet based providers of legal servicers have already taken significant market share.

And Toby Brown's reply to both:

You are both hitting on the definition of the practice of law issue. The challenge in addressing this issue is defining the practice of law in a defensible way, carving out those activities exclusive to a lawyer.

In my past experience with a mandatory bar, efforts to provide a useful definition always fell short. I recall one dialog where the only defensible ground for lawyers was appearing before a court of law. Everything else could be done by non-lawyers.

So I suggest caution to those looking for the hard-line behind which lawyers can safely stand. We may find not much space behind that line and much of what lawyers currently do pushed out into the open.

See also Toby Brown's follow-up 3 Geeks post, Growing Chorus on the Deregulation of the Practice of Law? (Sept. 25, 2011)

I'm not sure deregulation of non-lawyer required services will be pushed completely out into the open for all legal services but one may say that is already the case with LPOs. Remember the ABA's Ethics Opinion? The ABA Ethics Committee noted that its lacks authority to express an opinion about whether any particular service provider is engaging in unauthorized practice of law, leaving that call to state bar associations. See ABA Ethics Opinion on Legal Outsourcing: Vendor Speak, Legal Processing Outsourcing (Sept. 8, 2008). Quoting from the post, Mark Ross, Vice President of LawScribe takes a moderate position:

The Opinion is simply another newsworthy item relating to the LPO industry, nothing more and nothing less." "My personal belief is that the tipping point is client driven and that clients' perception and attitude to LPO will be influenced by numerous factors, including the current state of the economy, the rising costs of junior US qualified junior associates and litigation generally, the commoditization of certain elements of the legal function, and yes admittedly, increased press exposure to the concept of LPO."

(Emphasis added.)

For a more "bang the drum" reaction, see Pangea3's ABA Blesses Legal Outsourcing in August Ethics Opinion. Was this the "tiping point" where TR Legal started to take LPO seriously enough to crunch numbers for an additional revenue stream, one that eventually led to acquiring Pangea3? Hell if I know but TR Legal did acquire Pangea3 in Nov. 2010. See Thomson Reuters Acquires Pangea3: Gives Thomson Reuters a leadership position in fast-growing legal process outsourcing market press release with its "dateline" tag, "NEW YORK and MUMBAI, India, Nov. 18, 2010." That was followed a scant two or so months by TR-Pangea3's on-shore LPO hiring ad. See Barred in Any US Jurisdication, TR Legal Still Wants to Hire You [for LPO work]. See also the ABAJ's initial coverage, Vendor or Competitor? Pangea3 Purchase Pleases Some, Worries Others and the ABAJ's follow-up story, Thomson Reuters Hiring Attorneys for New LPO Outfits in Michigan, Texas:

When we reported Thomson Reuters’ acquisition of Indian legal process outsourcing company Pangea3 in the February issue, the publishing giant hadn’t yet disclosed where it would build document review centers in the U.S., aimed to mirror those overseas. ... The company is hiring lawyers “barred in any U.S. jurisdiction” to “build multiple document review project teams” in “anticipation of establishing a document review facility in Ann Arbor, Mich. ... [and] a Carrollton, Texas [facility]. When we inquired about the number of lawyers to be staffed in Ann Arbor and asked whether any other U.S. facility locations have been planned, Thomson provided a vague response. "As we've mentioned, we see a multishore, 24/7 operating structure as key to supporting Pangea3 customers in all parts of the world. We're working on this now, and will keep you posted as things progress," a company spokesman wrote in an e-mail."

Let's give credit where credit is due. TR Legal, Professional, whatever, certainly knows how to commodize legal publications with at best marginally qualified editorial staff, so extending this business model to LPO is a no-brainer even if it turns a vendor into a competitor.

Outside of LPO, I would hope some routine legal services require some sort of standalone licensing or certification. I'm thinking in terms of state professional licensing, not ABA, perhaps something akin to the regulation of the insurance industry, for providing legal services to the masses. The gist behind LLB's two-part series of "Providing Routine Legal Services to the 'Masses' in the 21st Century" posts, listed below, is that many people need affordable legal services for fairly routine matters that do not require a lawyer but cannot obtain them outside of the e-Commerce market because of the current unauthorized practice of law standard.

In Brown's second 3 Geeks post, he calls attention to a recently published Brookings Institution monograph, First Thing We Do, Let's Deregulate All the Lawyers (Aug. 2011) by Clifford Winston, Robert W. Crandall and Vikram Maheshri. A big hat tip for the cite. Just ordered the work to see where the authors stand on this issue and the arguments they make. Do check out Brown's current 3 Geeks posts. Hopefully he will be following up on this topic with additional posts.

Bread and Butter Distinctions. The issue may be framed as what is the "bread and butter" work that requires licensed attorneys to perform and what "bread and butter" legal services work does not require a lawyer? It's going to be difficult to draw a bright line test. Certainly representing a client in litigation is one area where a licensed attorney is needed in most matters. Personally I cringe when pro se patrons come to our little county law library for non-criminal court matters because we are restricted in the assistance we can provide. I believe those restrictions on law librarians are sound but wish some sort of "right" to counsel existed in civil matters. Not likely, and legal services agencies staffed by attorneys are overloaded with work.

However, in terms of routine document creation matters, even routine court filings, affordable legal services by way of qualified and licensed legal assistants working independently of law firms and eCommerce sites  could be viewed as an alternative business structure for the provision of legal services if licensed by state agencies. The ABA-legal academy cartel might not like it but a vendor-turned-competitor like TR Legal (or any other major "professional legal services" vendor) can see the revenue generation potential based on the H&R Block storefront model for legal services not requiring attorney staff. The storefront model for attorneys didn't work but a legal services model could. WEXIS could hire qualified legal assistants who have access to WEXIS online resources for standardized work product creation specific to state legal requirements that are pretty boilerplate but difficult for the average person to understand in sufficient specificity...

And this might not be a "bad thing" since the market for licensed routine personalized legal service at an affordable price is huge and needed by folks who can't afford an attorney. There is market for this. H&R Block has proved the concept for storefront tax prep. Quicken has proved the concept on the Web by way of apps. I do not see how the ABA-legal academy cartel can stop progress. "Bread and butter" business structures will eventually be bifurcated into those which require a JD and those which do not. Consumers will have the option to retain JD-expertise for the latter. However, like the example set in tax prep, individual and even some corporate structures  who already do not need to toil for hours over tax formalities or hiring an accountant to do the work, will find  that similar routine legal matters provided by legal services products and services which do not require a lawyer "cost effective." This will trump the two current options: lawyers or legal DIY. [JH]

Providing Routine Legal Services to the "Masses" in the 21st Century:

• Part One: Internet-Based Legal Document Prep Services
• Part Two: A Prescription for Allowing Main Street-Based Services Provided by Licensed Legal Assistance Practitioners

Lost and Found: The Castro Arizona Law Alternative Careers Handbook

Commenting on LLB's Perhaps Fidel Castro Isn't a Good Example of an Alternative Career: Arizona Law's Handbook Disappears from the Web, the author of In Tough Job Market, Law Grads Use J.D.s for Nonlegal Work (US News, Sept. 30, 2011), Menachem Wecker wrote

Update: If you are sneaky, you can find it in a Google search and then via Google Docs. Try here [insert one very, very long URL, way too long for someone as dyslectic as me].

File not found, now found: Download it here. Thanks for the file Menachem. [JH]

15 More Law Schools Being Sued Targeted: Class Action Complaints Would Challenge Placement Stats (Updated)

Update: Karen Sloan is reporting the following based on a conference call with David Anziska and Jesse Strauss covering the law schools they are targeting for class action lawsuits:

They have yet to secure enough name plaintiffs for those suits, however. They won't file until three alumni from each of the targeted schools sign on, they said during a conference call with reporters. The announcement was intended in part to drum up plaintiff interest, they acknowledged.

The attorneys, David Anziska and Jesse Strauss, detailed what they said was convincing evidence that law schools have offered a skewed picture of postgraduate employment rates and salaries for years, not just since the latest recession.

"The problem isn't going away, and the legal academy isn't owning up to it," Strauss said. "We strongly believe that by the end of 2012, almost every school in the nation will be sued, if not by plaintiffs who are represented by us, then by plaintiffs represented by other law firms."

Strauss and Anziska said they are targeting the 15 schools either because alumni or students approached them with concerns, or because the postgraduate job data they have reported to the American Bar Association were "implausible."

See Sloan's NLJ report, Another 15 law schools targeted over jobs data.

Quoting from the Oct. 5, 2011 press release published on Law School Transparency:

Law Offices of David Anziska and Strauss Law PLLC announced today that they are seeking to file class action complaints challenging the post-graduate employment rates reported by the following 15 schools:

1) Albany Law School, which reports rates of between 91% and 97%;
2) Brooklyn Law School, which reports rates of between 91% and 98%;
3) Hofstra Law School, which reports rates of between 94% and 97%;
4) Pace University School of Law, which reports rates of between 90% and 95%;
5) St. John’s University School of Law, which reports rates of between 88% and 96%;
6) Villanova University School of Law, which reports rates of between 93% and 98%;
7) Widener University School of Law, which reports rates of between 90% and 96%;
8) University of Baltimore School of Law, which reports rates of between 93% and 95%;
9) Florida Coastal School of Law, which reports rates of between 80% and 95%;
10) Chicago-Kent College of Law, which reports rates of between 90% and 97%
11) DePaul University School of Law, which reports rates of between 93% and 98%
12) John Marshall School of Law (Chicago), which reports rates of between 90% and 100%
13) California Western School of Law, which reports rates of between 90% and 93%;
14) Southwestern Law School, which reports rates of between 97% and 98%;
15) University of San Francisco School of Law, which reports rates of between 90% and 95%

The average debt load for 2009 graduates of these fifteen schools is $108,829.4

Add complaints already filed against New York Law School, Thomas M. Cooley Law School, and Thomas Jefferson School of Law and that brings the total to 18 law schools. Near enough to call it about 10% of the legal academy as of today.

See this ATL post for more information and links to media coverage. [JH]

Copyright Developments In The News

There were three recent developments in copyright.  The first is that the United States and seven other governments signed the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) last Saturday.  Parties to the super-secret talks who have not signed yet include the European Union, Mexico, and Switzerland.  The EU hadn’t signed as the Directorate for Finding Pens and Pencils With Which to Sign Things hadn’t issued its preliminary and final rulings on the correct writing instruments to use.  Yes, that last part is a joke, but anyone who has had to regularly research European Union law will get it.  Press reports indicate the EU intends to sign the agreement at some point.  The announcement of the signing is available from Office of the United States Trade Representative web site.  Related documents, including the text of the Agreement, are here.

ACTA represents a somewhat successful effort by the United States to export DMCA style controls such provision for digital locks on media and proscriptions on mechanisms to break those locks to other countries.  Noticeably absent from the agreement are China, Russia, and India which together represent a large chunk of the world’s media consuming population.  ACTA is negotiated as an Executive Agreement in the United States as it does not change existing law here. 

We’ll see if ACTA does more than make media companies and governments feel good about themselves.  In the history of such things the encryption codes for DVD and Blu-Ray digital locks were broken pretty easily.  There’s a discussion about this on Wikipedia.  Making the activity illegal will hardly stop it.  Only one person need know how to hack.  The rest need only know how to click a link.  There are plenty of the latter out there, especially in countries not signatories to the agreement.

The second development is from non-action by the Supreme Court via an order it issued at the term which began last Monday.  The Court declined to hear an appeal in the case of United States v. American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP), 627 F.3d 64 (2nd Cir. 2010).  The Court of Appeals affirmed the District Court’s determination that downloading a media file was not subject to royalties as it did not constitute a public performance under the Copyright Act.  Imagine, for example, someone, the distributor or a consumer, having to pay an additional fee on a straight download. 

The Appellate Court made the distinction that no one sees or hears the file until after it appears on the consumer’s device or hard drive and then played.  This is in contrast to a stream where the content is viewed or heard as the transmission takes place.  There are probably those in the technical world who would argue that it is possible to access the content of files while they are downloading.  The Court made its analysis on the language of the Copyright Act as it defines a public performance and concluded that a download generally does not meet the definition.

The third development is Monday’s dismissal of a suit brought by Ambrose Video Publishing against UCLA for copying DVDs and placing them on UCLA servers. UCLA then allowed content to be streamed to the UCLA community via password protected access.  One of the allegations was that the setting was not educational as access was on-demand, including to UCLA community members overseas.  The Court responded that the agreement between Ambrose and UCLA allowed a public performance and found that placing the material on the UCLA network was allowed under the agreement.  It didn’t take much more for the Court to find that ripping the DVDs was allowed to place the files on the network.  The other claim was that UCLA trafficked in the DVD content under the DMCA.  The Court did not buy that one, at least as the Judge called the allegations conclusory and insufficient to establish a claim.

UCLA hails the ruling, though it may not celebrate so much.  The District Court opinion is short on legal citations supporting its ruling.  The Ninth Circuit may have something else to say.  If Ambrose were smart, it would establish its own streaming servers and offer educational access through its own links.  It would have better control over its content under those circumstances.  The ruling, nonetheless, represents a victory for educational technology, assuming it stands.  [MG]

TR Legal's Mike Dahn on WestlawNext, WestSearch, and Haters: Part 2

Part 2 of Jason Wilson's interview with Mike Dahn is now online. Do check out Mike's response to Jason's question:

Lately we’ve seen a very lengthy criticism of WestlawNext by an anonymous author over at LLB. Any response to that?

The answer to the question addresses LLB's two-part series, The WestSearch Straitjacket For Legal Research - Thinking Beyond The Keyword, Part I and Part II. You be the judge. [JH]

Two Great Names. Reuters and Westlaw ... and One New Site

Thomson Reuters News and Insight "provides legal news from Reuters with supporting documentation and analysis from Westlaw." Yes, of course, you must have a user account to access the Westlaw material.

Free Reuters news to push Westlaw usage, oddly interesting marketing concept that if not masquerading as at least is tying law and business journalism to very expensive online legal search. I doubt anyone is going to rush off to acquire a Westlaw license to offset TR's web production costs but, what the heck, it will just take a couple of mouse clicks to out-of-plan transactional or hourly charges to do that. [JH]

Perhaps Fidel Castro Isn't a Good Example of an Alternative Career: Arizona Law's Handbook Disappears from the Web

On Sept. 23, 2011, ATL's Staci Zaretsky reported:

A tipster from the University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law informed us that the school’s career services office put out a new publication this summer for students interested in alternative careers.

The people at the career services office there know that Cuba has more to offer than just cigars and espresso, so the Handbook, available here, suggests an interesting career path that one might pursue [quoting from Arizona Law's Alternative Careers Handbook]:

An alternative career can be the correct choice for many law students and graduates. The choice to enroll in law school does not mean that you have to be a lawyer. Whether you put your legal training to active use or not, there are numerous opportunities for people with law degrees. By examining the possibility of following a different career path than most, you may find yourself in a job that better suits your skills and interests.You have a variety of career options; explore them!

The following individuals have law degrees but followed different paths. There is hope for alternative career seekers after all …

Fidel Castro — Dictator

See Zaretsky's post, Career Alternatives for Attorneys: Dictator?

The story was picked up the same day by ABAJ's Martha Neil at Can’t Find a Legal Job? Be the Next John Grisham or Fidel Castro, Law School Guide Suggests and by US News on Sept. 30, 2011. See Menachem Wecker's In Tough Job Market, Law Grads Use J.D.s for Nonlegal Work. Both ABAJ and US News linked to Arizona Law's Alternative Careers Handbook. Perhaps neither of the authors actually clicked on the link ATL provided but we know that it was a live link on Sept. 23 because Zaretsky quoted from it. Do note that Wecker's story, published on Sept. 30th, carries a quote from Zaretsky about her post:

“I was being a little snarky in my piece considering the fact that, according to NALP [the Association for Legal Career Professionals], only 68.4 percent of 2010 grads were able to land jobs requiring bar passage,” Zaretsky says. “I can only assume that law school career services offices are feeling the effects of the employment rates.”

What the hell were Arizona Law's career services staff thinking? Still a live link to the Handbook? Nope. Because of the mocking publicity? That's my hunch. Revised edition of Arizona Law's Alernative Careers Handbook returning to the web? Wait 'n see. [JH]

A Quick Look at DPLA ShelfLife's Beta Catalog Interface

David H. Rothman offers a quick look at DLPA ShelfLife project at Ingenious beta catalog interface—good for academics and other serious users on LibraryCity (republished on LLRX). He observes "ShelfLife lives up to the visual metaphor, even though I'd hope that DPLA Beta Sprinters would offer another, even simpler option for casual users at both academic and public libraries. Harvard-simple isn't necessarily public-library simple." Hat tip to Rothman for the below video.

From The ShelfLife Collaborative's DPLA proposal:

ShelfLife is intended to provide users with a rich environment for exploring the combined content of the DPLA, discovering new works and engaging more deeply with them via social interactions. It displays the available content via a scrollable virtual representation of library shelves, providing users with their most familiar experience of physical libraries. But any work can instantly be shown in a variety of different shelves (facets), clustering it with other works to facilitate serendipity and contextual understanding. ShelfLife will support a "click and play" interface for reading/viewing available items. Users will be guided to new works by a recommendation system based on aggregated anonymous usage data and, importantly, via rich social interactions with friends and fellow fans of works. The information generated by users explicitly (by writing reviews, favoriting works, creating collections, etc.) and implicitly (by doing the digital equivalent of "checking works out", browsing interactively, etc.) will be fed back into the system's recommendation engine, so that it learns. ShelfLife will integrate data from local public libraries and will make available to its users the real-time expertise of librarians.

[JH]

The "Product Intrigue" Boogie for Lexis Advance

Lexis Advance for Solos has been available for some time now and the Company is starting to advertise it on legal media sites like the National Law Journal. So I clicked on an ad link and was sent here. Damnit all to hell, now I can't get the "Product Intrigue" boogie out of my head. Talk about marketing leaving an impression! [JH]