Law Librarian Blog

A Few More Developments In The e-Book Market

It turns out that the settlement in the Apple e-book case has caused a reversion to the wholesale model and that Apple is competing with Amazon on price according to these articles (here and here) in paidContent.  I suppose there is a difference between what Apple would like to do and what Apple can do.   I suppose I could say to the Justice Department that consumers pay a little less, the retailer does not make as much money, but that’s what you want anyway.  HarperCollins has reacted to the reversion by raising the list price on some new items by $3 to $5 according to one of the stories.  Competition will sort out whether those pricing decisions are correct.

Speaking of which, check out this story by Gary Price on InfoDocket on how Hachette is raising prices for e-books purchased by libraries at an average of 220%.  The new pricing kicks in on October 1.  The increase affects 3,500 titles with release dates before April 2010.  Gary has another piece reflecting the (negative) views of the American Library Association on the move.

And finally, the settlement in the companion case brought by the states, the one where consumers will actually collect money (between $0.25 and $1.32) was preliminarily approved on Friday.  A fairness hearing will take place on February 8^th.  Judge Cote, as it turns out, is an e-book customer, though no story I’ve read tells me where she buys her content.  She has exempted herself from receiving any refunds that may be forthcoming under the settlement terms.  [MG]

OMB Report on Sequestration Out

As many know, the deep cuts to domestic programs and the military are scheduled to go into effect in January under the Sequestration Transparency Act of 2012.  The President is required under the Act to report to Congress on the the results of the failure to act on the part of Congress on a plan to reduce the deficit.  The OMB issued that report yesterday.  The 394 page PDF is here, and commentary by the New York Times is here.  [MG]

CRS Report on Presidential Claims of Executive Privilege

From the summary of Presidential Claims of Executive Privilege: History, Law, Practice, and Recent Developments (Aug. 21, 2012, R42670):

Presidential claims of a right to preserve the confidentiality of information and documents in the face of legislative demands have figured prominently, though intermittently, in executive congressional relations since at least 1792. Few such interbranch disputes over access to information have reached the courts for substantive resolution. The vast majority of these disputes are resolved through political negotiation and accommodation. In fact, it was not until the Watergate-related lawsuits in the 1970’s seeking access to President Nixon’s tapes that the existence of a presidential confidentiality privilege was judicially established as a necessary derivative of the President’s status in our constitutional scheme of separated powers.

[JH]

Beyond Cite Stuff by Law Profs

Should cluster analysis supplement law journal ordinal ranking to improve citation metrics? According to Theodore Eisenberg and Martin T. Wells (both Cornell Law), the answer is "yes" in their Ranking Law Journals and the Limits of Journal Citation Reports [SSRN]. And then there is The Cite Stuff: Inventing a Better Law Faculty Relevance Measure [SSRN] by James Cleith Phillips and John Yoo (both Berkeley Law). You remember Yoo right? -- the author of the Torture Memos before becoming an amateur information scientist. Apparently both articles have "discovered" what has been commonly accepted informetric knowledge for decades.

At least there is some hope for raising the scholarship bar produced by members of the legal academy. See Triangulating Judicial Responsiveness: Automated Content Analysis, Judicial Opinions, and the Methodology of Legal Scholarship [SSRN] by Chad M. Oldfather (Marquette Law), Joseph P. Bockhorst (Wisconsin -Milwaukee Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science) and Brian P. Dimmer (Petit & Dommershausen):

The increasing availability of digital versions of court documents, coupled with increases in the power and sophistication of computational methods of textual analysis, promises to enable both the creation of new avenues of scholarly inquiry and the refinement of old ones. This Article advances that project in three respects. First, it examines the potential for automated content analysis to mitigate one of the methodological problems that afflicts both content analysis and traditional legal scholarship — their acceptance on faith of the proposition that judicial opinions accurately report information about the cases they resolve and courts‘ decisional processes. Because automated methods can quickly process large amounts of text, they allow for assessment of the correspondence between opinions and other documents in the case, thereby providing a window into how closely opinions track the information provided by the litigants. Second, it explores one such novel measure — the responsiveness of opinions to briefs — in terms of its connection to both adjudicative theory and existing scholarship on the behavior of courts and judges. Finally, it reports our efforts to test the viability of automated methods for assessing responsiveness on a sample of briefs and opinions from the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. Though we are focused primarily on validating our methodology, rather than on the results it generates, our initial investigation confirms that even basic approaches to automated content analysis provide useful information about responsiveness, and generates intriguing results that suggest avenues for further study.

Remember, the science of citation metrics grew out of the content analysis of foreign newspapers performed by WWII military intelligence staff. It still remains an accepted but evolving screening tool to collect data sets for producing content analysis. But content analysis takes much more work compared to merely spitting out absurb rankings based on raw numbers by amateur law prof "info scientists". [JH]

Friday Fun: Video Law Porn

Produced by NYLS. Hat tip to Brian Leiter's A new high (or low?) in law school marketting ("Curious.") [JH]

Dismissal In DePaul Employment Statistics Fraud Case

The case filed against the DePaul University College of Law based on the lack of legal jobs available was dismissed on Tuesday.  Before I continue, the masthead on the left of the LLB indicates that I am an employee of DePaul University’s Law School.  Yes, I am.  Anything I say here is my own and not an official, or any kind of statement from DePaul. 

The order was issued by Judge Neil H. Cohen.  He considered three claims against DePaul:  a violation of the Illinois Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act (Count I), a claim for common law fraud (Count II), and a claim for negligent misrepresentation.  DePaul filed a motion to dismiss under two provisions of the Illinois Civil Procedure Act.  The relevant standards under these provisions are that the motion would not be granted “unless it is clearly apparent that no set of facts that can be proved that would entitle the plaintiff to recovery” or where “the claim asserted against the defendant is barred by other affirmative matter avoiding the legal effect of or defeating the claim.”

The Court disposed of the fraudulent misrepresentation claim noting that none of the employment data provided by DePaul was alleged to be false, not did DePaul make any statements which predicted the odds of getting employment as a full-time lawyer, or any associated salary range.  Fraudulent concealment was not a possibility as that required a fiduciary or confidential relationship or one where the plaintiff placed trust in the defendant where the defendant was in a position of influence and superiority.  The law school – law student relationship is contractual.  Students pay tuition for law training and a degree, and the law school provides that training.  Plaintiffs did not cite cases to the contrary.

The Court stated that the plaintiffs alleged no facts showing reasonable reliance on employment statistics or any authority that supported the contention that they need not make any independent investigation beyond the statistics.  In any event, one of the statistics showing salary range indicated employment at $20,000.  The Court said:

Common sense alone should have allowed Plaintiffs to determine that a graduate making $20,000 a year is not employed as a full-time lawyer.

Judge Cohen stated further that Plaintiffs did not allege facts that showed their reliance on the employment statistics was the proximate cause of their damages.  The claim was that the plaintiffs spent tens of thousands of dollars with the result that their law degrees were worth less as a consequence of their reliance on the statistics.  Illinois law requires the reliance to be proximate to the damages.  In this complaint, the allegations were conclusory.

The damages are speculative, in that there are so many subjective factors that affect employment prospects and salary, such as work experience, grades, whether employment is in the public or private sector, geographic area, quality of the interview, and a host of others.  From the opinion:

Plaintiff’s theory of damages assumes that the value of their DePaul degree is somehow related to the outcomes experienced by prior graduates.  But the employment and salary obtained by these prior graduates is relevant only to the value of a DePaul degree to those graduates.  They bear no correlation to the value of Plaintiffs’ degrees, which are based on an incalculable number of variables, most of which are beyond DePaul’s control.

The consumer fraud claim fell because of, again, a failure to allege enough facts under the statute to sustain the claim, and because the Illinois Consumer Fraud Act exempts conduct authorized by any regulatory body acting under authority of Illinois or the United States.  The Court ruled that the ABA is that regulatory authority and that the statistics are supplied to the ABA under Standard 509.  The ABA derives its authority from the Department of Education.

The negligent misrepresentation claim failed because Plaintiffs could not allege facts that showed that DePaul was in the business of providing information for the guidance of others in their business transactions.  The employment information was incidental to providing a legal education.  Cases cited by Plaintiffs to this point and all the others mentioned are not on point.  The entire complaint was dismissed with prejudice.

No doubt the plaintiffs will appeal, but Judge Cohen’s opinion was pretty clear there wasn’t any precedent that supported the allegations.  Illinois is a fact pleading state.  Judge Cohen found many of the allegations conclusory.  I can only refer to the cases cited as authority in the opinion as I haven’t seen the plaintiffs’ memorandum in opposition to the motion to dismiss.  Nonetheless, the Illinois Appellate Court will probably offer the same result if that is the best authority plaintiffs have on their side.  Judge Cohen didn’t cite any of the other out-of-state cases dismissing or questioning similar complaints.  Then again, he didn’t need to.  Oh, and he's a graduate of the University of Miami School of Law.  

With that, ladies and gentlemen, I present the lovely Miss Lynn Anderson.

Download 20120912 Phillips v. DePaul Memorandum and Order  [MG]

Comparison of pBook and eBook Library and Consumer Pricing by Title Published

Douglas County (CO) Libraries has launched a price comparison report series. In The Visible Hand of the Market? (ALA e-Content Blog), Jamie Larue, director of the county library system and a member of ALA’s Digital Content & Libraries Working Group, explains that "this price-comparison report will focus on the titles available from the New York Times bestseller lists. On occasion, we might mix it up just to compare the prices of less popular titles." Here's the public library system's Pricing Comparison Report as of September 5, 2012.

In What’s a Library Dollar Worth? (PWxyz blog), Peter Brantley writes:

For libraries, the information is disheartening, although not surprising. For print books, library prices are generally on par (and often slightly cheaper) than consumer prices for the same book.

The digital picture, however, is entirely different. Great swaths of the spreadsheet are missing, illustrating the effect that publisher boycotts are having on the ability of libraries to provide access to their patrons. And, in those cases where ebooks are available, the report shows usurious markups, up to six times the consumer price for the same title.

...

[O]ne of the most interesting things that leaps out in the report is the constancy of pricing between 3M and Overdrive in the library market. Library pricing is nearly always identical. In the shadow of agency pricing and a Federal judge’s approval of a settlement between the Department of Justice and some of the defendant publishers, this kind of pricing synergy raises more questions than it otherwise might.

(Emphasis added.)

Kudos to Douglas County Libraries for releasing this pricing information and to ALA for helping disseminate it to institutional buyers.

Hello AALL, Got Guts? Government agency (including government law libraries and public academic law libraries) online search licenses are available by way of state and federal FOIA requirements you know (don't you?). (Also note the Douglas County (CO) Libraries policy on NDAs.) Plenty of useful data available for crunching numbers and releasing summary cost stats by a variety of categories on a regular basis. Oh, never mind ... probably too much "work." Considering the history of AALL Price Index screw-ups (see Another Useless AALL Price Index Has Been Published (LLB, July 21, 2012) and the links contained therein), there is also a question of administrative competency at the Association level.

Let's just dance around the issue instead of following ALA's leadership by way of that library association executing consumer advocacy tactics on behalf of institutional buyers and their patrons. Here's a question I know exists in the minds of many law librarians: ALA can (and does) but AALL can't (or won't) -- not reading the same statutory and regulatory requirements? [JH]

Courtroom Antics Illustrated by Way of Benchslapping Opinions

There's an app a book about that (and Jason Wilson will be happy that it is not an app).

Quoting from the blurb for Matthew Bowers' Benchslapped: Publicly Humiliating Judicial Opinions (CreateSpace, 2012):

Benchslapped is more than compilation of legal snippets. It contains substantial passages drawn from some of the most interesting and amusing benchslaps ever published, along with back-stories, commentary and analysis. These opinions address a broad range of malfeasance, including frivolous litigation, professional misconduct, discovery abuse, rules violations, poor work product and insulting the bench.

Also from the blurb: "It is an excellent legal primer for new and aspiring attorneys and is a fun and thoughtful read for established lawyers." OK, well it does sound like an entertaining read for lawyers and may provide some instructional fodder for legal writing profs. And also for professional responsibility profs until Jones-McClure covers legal ethics and professional responsibility in its legal ed comic book series. See for example Nathaniel Burney's The Illustrated Guide to Criminal Law (2012).

Endnote. Jason, buddy, need a collaborator when it comes time to produce "The Illustrated Guide to Legal Research F-bombed"? [JH]

Another Major File-Sharing Case Goes Against The Defendant On Appeal

The latest decision in the only other high profile file sharing case came out yesterday when the Eight Circuit Court of Appeals issued its decision in Capitol Records v. Thomas-Rasset (11-2858).  Jammie Thomas-Rasset (nee Thomas) was accused of deliberately sharing twenty-four songs on the Internet via KaZaA.  There were three trials, all of which concluded that Thomas-Rasset was liable resulting in damage awards of $222,000, $1,920,000, and $1,500,000 respectively.  These trials were the result of the District Judge either granting a remittitur or having constitutional concerns over the amount of damages and reducing them as a consequence. 

Both sides appealed the last decision by the District Court.  The labels wanted to essentially vacate all of the proceedings after the conclusion of the first trial and receive a ruling that “making available” copyrighted works violated the Copyright Act.  The Appellate Court stated that District Courts were divided in that conclusion.  The specifics were based on an injunction issued by the District Court at the conclusion of the first trial preventing Thomas-Rasset “from infringing the recording companies’ copyrights by ‘using the Internet or any online media distribution system to reproduce (i.e., download) any of Plaintiffs’ Recordings, to distribute (i.e., upload) any of Plaintiffs’ Recordings, or to make any of Plaintiffs’ Recordings available for distribution to the public.’”  Thomas-Rasset appealed the award based on constitutional grounds.

The Court addressed the “making available” and injunction issue first, holding that the issue wasn’t properly before the Court.  Nonetheless, the Court ordered the District Court to revise its injunction to include the language as an appropriate remedy, though it specifically stated that it is not deciding the issue of the statement as a violation of the Copyright Act.

Thomas-Rassett argued that even the minimum damage award available under the statutory scheme was unconstitutional.  The Court did not cite the recent Joel Tenenbaum case out of the District of Massachusetts dealing with more or less the same issue.  My post on that case is here.  The Court cited the same precedent, St. Louis, I.M. & S. Ry. Co. v. Williams, 251 U.S. 63 (1919), with the same result.    Congress has the power to set the range of statutory damages without courts interfering.  Thomas-Rasset argued that the same amount multiplied by a thousand songs would result in a multimillion dollar damage award.  The Court called that speculative and said such an award can be reviewed if and when it happens. 

Tenenbaum’s case is headed back to the Second Circuit.  Jammie Thomas-Rasset’s case will be appealed to the Supreme Court.  I’m not sure if that Court has any interest in revisiting the Williams case.  I’d wager certiorari will be denied, at least until a different appellate court releases a conflicting decision.  [MG]

How to Find the Law: Another chapter in the publishing tradition of legal research and legal bibliography comes to a close

How to Find the Law in any of its many editions was never my favorite legal research and legal bibliography title. Effective Legal Research was but that pBook has been "history" for many, many years. Now too for what certainly deserves to be acknowledged as one of the standard works in the field, How to Find the Law.

"After much thought, Beth [Edinger] and I are letting Finding the Law go. The world of textbooks in general is in flux, but I do not see a role for a standard textbook on legal research in it. I continue to believe in the value of research instruction, but it will not come via the standard printed textbook. That day is gone." -- Bob Berring.

For much more see Bob Berring's Finding the Law R.I.P. on Slaw.

Is finding the law by way of expert texts also dead? So who is going to be the brave soul to write the first fully enhanced -- not slanted to any one vendor's e-resources by limiting embedded links to in-house services and including stable open law links -- and regularly updated legal research and bibliography eBook? Professionally, I believe there remains a need for one. If interested, don't, however, pitch the idea to the publisher of How to Find the Law. That day is gone for Thomson Reuters' legal education publishing strategy. [JH]

Freeing CRS Reports

Using the recently published CRS report entitled Researching Current Federal Legislation and Regulations: A Guide to Resources for Congressional Staff (RL33895 August 31, 2012) as a jump-off, AALL's Washington Blawg issues a reminder to contact your representative because

[t]he House Administration Committee is poised to consider H.Res. 727, the Congressional Research Service Electronic Accessibility Resolution of 2012, which would make CRS reports available online in a free, public database. It’s likely the bill could come to a vote in the lame duck session.

The Washington Blawg post illustrates the differences in information access available through the Congressional Legislative Information System and THOMAS by quoting from Free Government Information's Comparing LIS and Thomas post.

Both FGI's post and the CRS report are recommended for legal research instructional purposes. While the CRS report does reference some non-government resources, I'm still scratching my head over why the very well established OpenCongress is not listed while GovTrack is for federal bill tracking. [JH]

It's About Time: DOJ seeks to intervene in class action lawsuit over LSAC's administation of LSAT tests to protect the rights of persons with disabilities under the ADA

Quoting from the DOJ's Sept. 6, 2012 press release:

The Justice Department announced today that it seeks to intervene in a class action lawsuit against the Law School Admission Council (LSAC) in federal court in San Francisco to remedy violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).   The lawsuit, The Department of Fair Employment and Housing v. LSAC, Inc., et al., charges LSAC with widespread and systemic deficiencies in the way it processes requests by people with disabilities for testing accommodations for the Law School Admission Test (LSAT).   As a result, the lawsuit alleges, LSAC fails to provide accommodations where needed to best ensure that those test takers can demonstrate their aptitude and achievement level rather than their disability.

The department’s proposed complaint identifies additional victims of LSAC’s discriminatory policies and details LSAC’s routine denial of accommodation requests, even in cases where applicants have submitted thorough supporting documentation from qualified professionals and demonstrated a history of testing accommodations.

The department further alleges that LSAC discriminates against prospective law students with disabilities by unnecessarily “flagging” test scores obtained with certain testing accommodations in a way that identifies the test taker as a person with a disability and discloses otherwise confidential disability-related information to law schools during the admissions process.   LSAC’s practice of singling out persons with disabilities by flagging their scores – essentially announcing to law schools that examinees who exercise their civil right to the testing accommodation of extended time may not deserve the scores they received – is discrimination prohibited by the ADA.   The department’s proposed complaint seeks declaratory and injunctive relief, compensatory damages and a civil penalty against LSAC.

For more, including LSAC's reaction, see Martha Neil's DOJ Intervenes In LSAT Disability Bias Class Action, Says ‘Flagging’ of Tests Violates ADA on ABAJ News. [JH]

Footage of the World Trade Center Construction

It's September 11th.  No one has to explain the significance of the day.  Of all the footage available of the World Trade Center, I offer this short piece located on the Internet Archive.  It originally sourced from the US Information Agency and it shows the original construction of the towers in 1971 and 1972.  [MG]

Los Angeles Considers Using Library Cards As IDs for Undocumented Citizens

It’s campaign season.  We’ve all seen stories about battles in Pennsylvania, Florida, Texas, and other states over the use of IDs as a mechanism to either keep the voter rolls clean or deny the ballot box to otherwise valid voters.  Take your pick.  I don’t express a point of view here on the merits of voter ID laws.  But I do want to point out that the city of Los Angeles is looking into making the municipal library card an ID that can link to other services such as bank accounts. 

The Los Angeles Times reports that such a card would contain a person’s name, address, and a photograph.  It would be given to anyone who could provide proof of residency in Los Angeles irrespective of immigration status.   The proposal is designed to offer some forms of financial security and protection to those who would not otherwise qualify for a bank account.  A third party would work with the city and banks to establish the accounts for card holders.  The cards could then be used as ATM cards for a small monthly fee.  Access to banking services reduces the need for payday loan services which tend to be the only financial outlet for those who cannot open a bank account directly. 

The story notes there are similar programs in other California cities, though this is the first time a library card is proposed as a multi-function identification card.  The concept has received its share of criticism from immigration groups that support a tighter line on the enforcement of immigration laws.  They see the Los Angeles program as promoting a service that can be exploited by criminals and terrorists.  I’m not so sure myself.  I see it as a way of bringing services to an otherwise exploitable group living in Los Angeles.  The card does not confer status on anyone.  It can’t lead to a driver’s license or protect anyone from immigration proceedings.  If anything, it documents the undocumented, assuming the proof residency the city requires is high.  It all depends on the details of implementation.  Either way, the population the card would serve is already there with or without it.

There isn’t any word on how the library system feels about this.  I would expect use of the public library would increase as a consequence.  I would hope the city funds the program and the library system adequately if it is serious about the proposal.  Let’s see if it goes forward.  And if it does, let’s see if it works.  [MG]

How Not to Go Green: Killing trees by way of Lexis expanding its Ohio Court Rules pamphlet set

Stealing a chapter of TR Legal's playbook, those of us in the Buckeye State recently received a p-volume expansion of the Annotated Rules Governing the Courts of Ohio from Lexis. (Are institutional buyers seeing the same for other state court rules pamphlet sets from Lexis?) But unlike TR Legal, the expansion does not cost anything more, at least not yet, if one doesn't factor in the time some of us have been spending fielding calls and emails from the folks we buy the office copy court rules. In our little county law library government-run system, that's not an insignificant number of copies. Our end-user preference has been to want  "Anderson's," which is now a Lexis brand name for some Ohio-specific primary and secondary practice materials. 

Hey, it is good to know my judges and government attorneys are cost conscious even when funding the standing orders isn't costing them anything! But, I've really got more productive things to do with my time. While not costing a penny more than the usual annual roll-up right now, my hunch is that someday it will. In addition to killing trees, this is an interesting end-around the unsolicted shipment rule because the additional stuff is "free."

It is a common legal publishing industry rule-of-thumb to do the opposite of whatever TR Legal does. In this instance, however, Lexis has outdone West in its gamesmanship. Prime the pump by giving something away for free now. Then ... well, you know. None of my subscriber base will need the additional stuff so Lexis better be offering options to pick the specific volumes subscribers want before (OK, wishful thinking on my part but you can see the corner the Company has trapped itself in) when pricing increases beyond the usual annual percent roll-up. (And I was just thinking about killing my standing orders for TR Legal's over-priced Ohio court rules pamphlets because it is budget prep time and we don't need both WEXIS versions.) 

Smells like snake oil to me. But since I've gone there already, time for Steve Earle's Someday by placing the song in the context of the very small town that is WEXIS. [JH]

Law Schools and MOOCs

I’ve been reading a few articles lately on Massive Open, Online Courses, or MOOCs.  These are vehicles for universities and other institutions to give away the knowledge from the classroom, albeit without any credit for taking the class.  Credits are possible for a fee, apparently.  That’s the impression from this article in the Chronicle of Higher Education.  Inside Higher Ed reports on a slightly different twist to that model.  The article, written by Dean Dad, a pseudonym for a community college dean, wonders whether the model of taking the class and paying for the test at an accredited institution will impact classroom instruction.  My reaction is sure it will, especially if MOOCs get organized and sophisticated.

Let’s think about how these developments can impact law schools.  A third article describes two classes at the University of Dayton School of Law that include distance learning and the integration of social media in law practice.  One class is called Technology in Law and it’s designed to immerse students in digital lawyering.  This kind of instruction has been the basis for many a CLE class in the past.  It’s interesting that a school is picking up on topics such as this to prepare students for contemporary practice.  I would assume that other schools are thinking about teaching this kind of subject for credit.  Some of this may even show up online.

One other impact that MOOCs might have on law schools is the presentation of extensive law course content on Internet in a way described at the undergraduate level.  I don’t think such a development would get to the point of take a law course online and pay for the exam.  The certifications and requirements that schools have to meet to prepare graduates for the bar would preclude this.  There would be several benefits, however, to putting up an entire semester of, say, contracts lectures online.

One would be the very point of MOOCs:  to impart knowledge.  The second would be to inform potential law students exactly how these classes are taught.  No one could say "had I known how tedious 14 weeks of this stuff was I never would have spent the money."  The third possibility is something I’ll call PreLE.  Potential students may learn something by studying the content before they get to law school, making the actual class work that much easier as they might acquire basic knowledge of the subject before taking it.  The text book may become less essential given that the subject case law is available free on the web from multiple sources.  A law related MOOC isn’t law school, but the information would be useful at a lot of levels.

Many law schools put up material on YouTube.  Most of it is either promotional or one-off events such as symposiums or annual lectures.  There are the occasional instructional videos that impart ten minutes or so of administrative law.  There are even a few complete lectures on legal topics.  There are no full courses, at least none that I can find.  If MOOCs are starting to affect undergraduate education, well, there will be a time sooner or later when they will affect graduate level classes as well.  If law schools won’t dive in, somebody will.  And why not?  [MG]

ScaliaLeaks!

In the latest Scalia-Posner dustup, this one being over Posner's review of Reading Law, Santa Clara Law prof Kyle Graham has ScaliaLeak-ed ... well, check it out for yourself on Concurring Opinions. I'm thinking TR Legal's marketing gurus are going Lady Gaga over all this publicity. See also On Scalia's (and Garner's) Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts.

Hat tip to Elie Mystal's Sept. 7, 2012 edition of ATL's Non-Sequiturs.

For more on Posner v. Scalia (Law & Economics v. Textual Originalism???), see David Lat's ATL post, The Benchslap Dispatches: Posner v. Scalia — Is It Personal? Hello Bloomberg, what's the chance of getting both former U of Chicago Law profs to agree to a video interview together? [JH]

OpenGov Champions: Sunlight Foundation's video series highlights citizen contributions

Hat tip to Sunlight’s Video Production Director Tiina Knuutila for the recent post calling attention to the Foundation's ongoing OpenGov Champions video series. [JH]

The Democratic Party Platform for the 2012 Presidential Election

Established in 1999, the American Presidency Project's archives contain over 100,000 documents related to the study of the Presidency. The archives now includes the 2012 platforms for the Democratic Party and the Republician Party here. [JH]