Law Librarian Blog

Light Reading for the Flight to DC

Lawyers in Your Living Room! Law on Television (ABA, 2009) ($24.95 less the ABA's current 20% discount) might be the cure for boredom on flights to DC for the AALL Annual Meeting. From the product description:

From Perry Mason and The Defenders in the 1960s to L.A. Law in the 80s, The Practice and Ally McBeal in the 90s, to Boston Legal, Shark and Law & Order today, the television industry has generated an endless stream of dramatic series involving law and lawyers. The way lawyers are perceived has depended on how they are portrayed on television series and in the media. A new guide, Lawyers in Your Living Room! Law on Television examines television series from the past and present, domestic and foreign, that are devoted to the law.

Written in an entertaining and relatable style, you'll enjoy the forewords by Sam Waterston (Law & Order) [here] and James Woods (Shark) [here], who share their experiences playing "real-life" lawyers and how their roles have shaped the way lawyers are perceived by the general public. Lawyers in Your Living Room! begins with an introduction and history of law on television. It then discusses the process of writing for television -- from courtroom to writer's room and how lawyers have played an important role in furnishing technical advice for TV. The book also discusses the media effects from television shows and legal ethics on TV.

Included are chapters on daytime television judge shows, including Judge Judy, and non-legal shows with important lawyer characters like The Simpsons, Seinfeld, or West Wing. The most popular television series, past and present, are also discussed, as well as popular shows abroad. All fans of legal television -- a group that includes almost everybody -- will enjoy this discussion of how TV shapes the views of lawyers and the law.

[JH]

Schauer's Thinking Like a Lawyer: A New Introduction to Legal Reasoning

"Schauer is a leading scholar of jurisprudence and legal process, and his new book is as comprehensive, thorough, and sophisticated an introduction to legal reasoning as it is a lucid one. All of the bases are covered, and law students, teachers, practicing lawyers, and judges alike will gain perspective and insight from seeing the entire range of legal reasoning techniques laid out before them." -- Richard A. Posner, Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, author of How Judges Think

From the product description of University of Virginia law prof Frederick Schauer's Thinking Like a Lawyer: A New Introduction to Legal Reasoning (Harvard UP, 2009):

This primer on legal reasoning is aimed at law students and upper-level undergraduates. But it is also an original exposition of basic legal concepts that scholars and lawyers will find stimulating. It covers such topics as rules, precedent, authority, analogical reasoning, the common law, statutory interpretation, legal realism, judicial opinions, legal facts, and burden of proof. In addressing the question whether legal reasoning is distinctive, Frederick Schauer emphasizes the formality and rule-dependence of law. When taking the words of a statute seriously, when following a rule even when it does not produce the best result, when treating the fact of a past decision as a reason for making the same decision again, or when relying on authoritative sources, the law embodies values other than simply that of making the best decision for the particular occasion or dispute. In thus pursuing goals of stability, predictability, and constraint on the idiosyncrasies of individual decision-makers, the law employs forms of reasoning that may not be unique to it but are far more dominant in legal decision-making than elsewhere. Schauer’s analysis of what makes legal reasoning special will be a valuable guide for students while also presenting a challenge to a wide range of current academic theories.

[JH]

Why Do States Fail?

As we celebrate the founding of our country and our civil rights and liberties this Fourth of July, perhaps we also ought to reflect on why states fail.

• Which failed states are global security threats and which are simply tragedies for their own people?

• Which countries might blow up next? Are there pockets of success within states of failure?

• Are there pockets of success within states of failure?

• Who (or what) is to blame when things go bad—corrupt leaders, dysfunctional societies, bad neighbors, a global recession, unfortunate history, or simply geography itself?

Check out the recently released fifth annual Failed States Index—a collaboration between The Fund for Peace and Foreign Policy. The Failed States Index uses 12 indicators of state cohesion and performance, compiled through a close examination of more than 30,000 publicly available sources, to ranked 177 states in order from most to least at risk of failure.

The 60 most vulnerable states are listed in the rankings here. The ten most vulnerable states are Somalia, Zimbabwe, Sudan, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iraq, Afghanistan, Central African Republic, Guinea and Pakistan. [JH]

The Obama Administration’s Proposal to Reform the U.S. Financial Regulatory System

CCH has issued a white paper, The Obama Administration’s Proposal to Reform the U.S. Financial Regulatory System. Written by CCH Principal Securities Law Analyst Jim Hamilton, the white paper identifies the proposal as the most sweeping and fundamental regulatory reform of the U.S. financial and securities markets since the New Deal. From the announcement:

Hamilton explores each aspect of the proposal in depth: creation of a systemic risk regulator; increased regulation of hedge funds and private equity; improving the SEC’s ability to protect investors; harmonizing securities and futures regulation between the SEC and CFTC; regulation of OTC derivatives, including credit default swaps; a strengthened regulatory framework for money market funds; oversight of clearing and settlement systems; creation of a resolution authority for systemically significant financial companies; reform of securitization; new rules on corporate governance and executive compensation; a review of financial accounting standards by the standard setters; and international aspects of financial regulation.

[JH]

Merit Selection or Election of State Court Judges?

Running for Judge: The Rising Political, Financial, and Legal Stakes of Judicial Elections (NYU Press, July 1, 2009) examines the increasingly contentious judicial elections over the last twenty-five years by providing a timely, insightful analysis of judicial elections. The book ties together the current state of the judicial elections literature, and presents new evidence on a wide range of important topics, including: the history of judicial elections; an understanding of the types of judicial elections; electoral competition during races; the increasing importance of campaign financing; voting in judicial elections; the role interest groups play in supporting candidates; party organizing in supposedly non-partisan elections; judicial accountability; media coverage; and judicial reform of elections.

The book is edited by Matthew Streb, Assistant Professor of Political Science at Northern Illinois University. Contributors include Lawrence Baum, Chris W. Bonneau, Brent D. Boyea, Paul Brace, Rachel P. Caufield, Jennifer Segal Diascro, Brian Frederick, Deborah Goldberg, Melinda Gann Hall, Richard L. Hasen, David Klein, Brian F. Schaffner, and Matthew J. Streb. [JH]

2009 Edition of Legal Information Buyer's Guide & Reference Manual Now Available

Ken Svengalis is every law librarian's best friend. While I buy Bowker's Law Books and Serials in Print once every ten years, I purchase Ken's Legal Information Buyer's Guide & Reference Manual (Rhode Island LawPress) every year. I always look forward to reading Ken's analysis of legal publishing industry practices and pricing trends -- something AALL should be but isn't doing nearly as well as Ken.

The Legal Information Buyer's Guide & Reference Manual is the best annual guide for law library collection development work available because of the detailed information provided for every listed title including historical pricing information for supplementation. In my opinion, The Legal Information Buyer's Guide & Reference Manual is an excellent reference tool too. If you can't get the publication out of your director's or acquisition librarian's hands, reference librarians should insist on buying second copies of this publication for their reference book collection. [JH]

Here's a message from Ken Svengalis, Rhode Island LawPress:

I am pleased to announce the release of the 2009 (13th) edition of the "Legal Information Buyer's Guide & Reference Manual."  It's the book Kevin Gerson, Director of the UCLA Law Library, recently described as "hands-down the most useful book on legal information ever written."

Under our current economic challenges, it has exactly the information your library needs to confront the rising costs of legal information.  Its genesis in 1996 was one law librarian's response to the challenges we faced then.  Those challenges have grown ever more urgent with each passing year. It contains, among other things, the most extensive annotated bibliography of the legal literature in print, and a buyer's guide useful to lawyers and librarians who are in either acquisition or cancellation mode.  Consider this:

Since the merger of Thomson and West in 1996, West's print supplementation costs have risen 304% (1995-2008), reflecting an average annual increase of at least 11.5%.  There was not the slightest diminution in the rate of increase for 2008, despite an economy which has brought law libraries from New Jersey to California to dire straights, and threats of closure in a number of states.  Moreover, the prices of most West Hornbooks were increased over the past year at rates exceeding anything in the history of that series (generally 35-45%).  These price increases have allowed West to achieve an industry-leading profit margin for 2008 of 32.1% on the backs of struggling law libraries.  Yet, ironically, West will want us to sit down with them at a variety of receptions, luncheons, and parties at the upcoming annual meeting and pretend that this is not happening.  The expense of hosting these functions represents an infinitesimal fraction of the profits they have made off struggling law libraries, most of whose librarians cannot afford to attend the annual meeting because their libraries are so strapped for funds.

In light of the current state of the economy and the perilous position of many law libraries across the country, the current cost and supplementation cost data will no doubt prove an invaluable resource to libraries.  Those of you who have been in the profession for many years will remember the former "FTC Guides for the Legal Publishing Industry."  Those guides required publishers to provide customers the last two years' supplementation costs in their promotional literature, a requirement that was often ignored.  With the demise of the FTC Guides, and the lack of an effective replacement, the availability of this supplementation cost data is virtually non-existent, unless one asks for it specifically.  This is where the "Legal Information Buyer's Guide & Reference Manual" has stepped in to fill the breach.  After all, it's all about the supplementation.  West, for example, made 86% of its profits off supplementation in 2008 according to its 2008 annual report.  Getting a handle on supplementation costs is the primary way in which law libraries can confront these budgetary challenges.

We are now tracking the costs of more than 2,500 publications, including more than 1,700 legal treatises and hundreds of the leading state and federal publications.  The 2009 edition now includes supplementation costs as far back as 1993 and up to and including 2008.  The initial cost and supplementation costs for the years 2004-2008 are also featured in a 51-page spreadsheet in Appendix H, providing a convenient and time-saving means of conducting comparative product evaluations.  There are also reviews of more than 80 of the most significant new treatise titles published in 2008 and early 2009.  In addition to substantial new content, and a complete updating of all pricing data, the 2009 edition has also been substantially redesigned inside and out (see attached).

This is what the 1996 Thomson-West merger has wrought.  My 2009 edition has, among more than 80 others, a review of Gary Reback's new book "Free the Market" which provides a fascinating examination of the Thomson-West merger as well as expert analysis of the state of antitrust law in the United States from one of its leading practitioners.

Shipments to all standing order subscribers were made last week.  If you are uncertain if your library is on standing order, please e-mail us and we will confirm your status.

I also direct you to the PowerPoint of my presentation to the Association of Legal Administrators on May 19th in New Orleans. Go to: www.rilawpress.com.

We have responded to the current economy by pricing our 2009 edition the same as last year's edition--$149.00.  The 2009 "Legal Information Buyer's Guide & Reference Manual" may be ordered on our web site (www.rilawpress.com), by email at rilawpress@comcast.net, or by calling our NEW order line  (860-535-0378).  We accept Visa, MasterCard, PayPal, or will invoice.  Additional copies shipped to the same address are only $130.00.  A companion CD-ROM is also priced at $149.00, or $80.00 when ordered in combination with the print edition.

Just Released, Special Collections 2.0

Web 2.0 applications are finding a place in a variety of professional endeavors—and nowhere with more usefulness and potential than in the realm of specialized document collection and archiving. Lynne M. Thomas and Beth Whittaker's new book, Special Collections 2.0: New Technologies for Rare Books, Manuscripts, and Archival Collections (Libraries Unlimited, June 30, 2009) offers advice and practical ideas for collecting, and preserving archival materials for optimal long-term access.

From the product description:

Special Collections 2.0 surveys the web's new options for interconnectivity and interactivity tool by tool, exploring the benefits and shortcomings of applying each to the special collection and archives profession. It combines expert analysis of the pros and cons of Web 2.0 with numerous reports of how wikis, blogs, photosharing, social networks, and more are already being put to work in this essential field. Creators, researchers, and caretakers of the historic record—even those anxious about using the Internet—will understand the best ways to put Web 2.0 to work in the service of our cultural heritage.

[JH]

Ezra Rosser: A normal human being trapped in a law faculty body

In On Becoming "Professor": A Semi-Serious Look in the Mirror, 36 Fl. St. Univ. L. Rev. 215 (2009), [SSRN], Ezra Rosser, WCL Assistant Professor of Law and co-editor of Poverty Law Prof Blog, promises to "say something about legal academia" and delivers on that promise. Edgy by law review standards, Ezra's 14 page parody article is a delight to read. Don't forget to check the footnotes. My favorite is footnote 41. [JH]

New Law Titles from Yale UP

A Right to Discriminate? How the Case of Boy Scouts of America v. James Dale Warped the Law of Free Association
By Andrew Koppelman and Tobias Barrington Wolff

From the blurb: The book demonstrates that the “right” to discriminate has a long and unpleasant history. Andrew Koppelman and Tobias Wolff bring together legal history, constitutional theory, and political philosophy to analyze how the law ought to deal with discriminatory private organizations.

Law and the Contradictions of the Disability Rights Movement
By Samuel R. Bagenstos

From the blurb: In this timely book, Samuel R. Bagenstos examines the history of the [disability rights] movement and discusses the various, often-conflicting projects of diverse participants. He argues that while the courts deserve some criticism, some may also be fairly aimed at the choices made by prominent disability rights activists as they crafted and argued for the ADA. The author concludes with an assessment of the limits of antidiscrimination law in integrating and empowering people with disabilities, and he suggests new policy directions to make these goals a reality.

We Shall Overcome: A History of Civil Rights and the Law
By Alexander Tsesis

From the blurb: Viewing the evolution of civil rights through the lens of legal history, Tsesis considers laws that have restricted civil rights (such as Jim Crow regulations and prohibitions against intermarriage) and laws that have expanded rights (including antisegregation legislation and other legal advances of the civil rights era). He focuses particular attention on the African American fight for civil rights but also discusses the struggles of women, gays and lesbians, Japanese Americans, Latinos, Native Americans, and Jews. He concludes by assessing the current state of civil rights in the United States and exploring likely future expansions of civil rights.

The Yale Biographical Dictionary of American Law
Edited by Roger K. Newman

From the blurb: The Yale Biographical Dictionary of American Law presents succinct and lively entries devoted to more than 700 subjects selected for their significant and lasting influence on American law.

An Insider's Guide to the UN, 2d ed.
By Linda Fasulo

From the blurb: This completely revised edition of Linda Fasulo’s popular guide to the United Nations surveys the world body’s programs and activities, and covers key issues including human rights, climate change, counterterrorism, nuclear proliferation, peacekeeping, and UN reform.  It also offers guidelines for setting up a Model UN.

[JH]

New Edition of Wojcik's Introduction to Legal English for Lawyers and Law Students Who Speak English as a Second Language Published

The International Law Institute of Washington D.C. has published the third edition of Introduction to Legal English: An Introduction to Legal Terminology, Reasoning, and Writing in Plain English by Mark Wojcik, John Marshall Law School (Chicago) professor and co-editor of Legal Writing Prof Blog. This book [TOC] focuses specifically on the needs of lawyers and law students who speak English as a second language. [JH]

Lessons Learned from the Messy Practicalities of Law and Society Research

Hat tip to Stanford Law School Library Director Paul Lomio, Legal Research Plus, for calling attention to Conducting Law and Society Research: Reflections on Methods and Practices by Simon Halliday and Patrick Schmidt (Cambridge UP, May 25, 2009). According to the book's product description the work "takes students and scholars behind the scenes of empirical scholarship, showing the messy reality of research methods" using oral histories of well-known law and society scholars. The messiness theme is picked up in every review excerpt published on the book's Amazon page. The work's real contribution probably lies in offering advice on how to perform law-in-society empirical research.

I haven't seen a copy yet but Lomio says it makes a "good case for why PACER data should be free or at least less expensive for law schools." Just law schools? I'm pretty sure he would also agree with the proposition that PACER should be less expensive, if not free, for all public law libraries. [JH]

New Edition of Fundamentals of Legal Research Now Available

A new edition of a classic, Barkan, Mersky and Dunn's Fundamentals of Legal Research, 9th ed. (West 2009) $75.00 is now available from Thomson West. [JH]

New Edition of Licensing Digital Content: A Practical Guide for Librarians Published

ALA has published the second edition of Licensing Digital Content: A Practical Guide for Librarians by Lesley Ellen Harris. Covering licensing issues for librarians in the US, Canada and around the world, the second edition of this popular one-stop resource covers the basics of digital licensing in a plain-language approach that demystifies the process. See also the book's blog. [JH]

40 (Only 40?) Rules for Living and Managing the Google Way

Here's the over-the-top product description for What Would Google Do? by Jeff Jarvis (Collins Business, 2009):

In a book that's one part prophecy, one part thought experiment, one part manifesto, and one part survival manual, internet impresario and blogging pioneer Jeff Jarvis reverse-engineers Google—the fastest-growing company in history—to discover forty clear and straightforward rules to manage and live by. At the same time, he illuminates the new worldview of the internet generation: how it challenges and destroys, but also opens up vast new opportunities. His findings are counterintuitive, imaginative, practical, and above all visionary, giving readers a glimpse of how everyone and everything—from corporations to governments, nations to individuals—must evolve in the Google era.

Video of author giving talk at Google here. Hat tip to LISnews. [JH]

Thomson Reuters Replaces WestBlog with Legal Current Blog

From the announcement: "The new blog, Legal Current, will introduce you to key voices - ours and others - from across the global legal marketplace, and will showcase many of the bright minds behind the technology, innovation, content and trends shaping the legal industry worldwide. We’ll share the unique perspectives of our authors and insiders, and provide new channels for feedback." [JH]

Should the Criminal Justice System Give Special Treatment Based on Family Ties?

In Privilege or Punish: Criminal Justice and the Challenge of Family Ties (Oxford UP, Mar. 2009), Dan Markel (Florida State), Jennifer Collins (Wake Forest) and Ethan Leib (Hastings) argue that in many circumstances there are simply too many costs to the criminal justice system when it gives special treatment based on one's family ties or responsibilities.

Privilege or Punish breaks new ground by offering an important synthetic view of the intersection between crime, punishment, and the family. After analyzing how the American criminal justice system addresses a defendant's family status and how should a defendant's family status be recognized, if at all, in a criminal justice system situated within a liberal democracy committed to egalitarian principles of non-discrimination, the authors offer innovative policy recommendations that will be of interest to anyone interested in the improvement of our criminal justice system. HIghly recommended for all academic law libraries. [JH]

Should the US Join the Convention on the Law of the Sea?

An upswing in piracy attacks off the coast of Somalia, the rise of new naval powers such as China and India, and a rapidly melting polar ice cap in the Arctic are but a "few of the pressing issues that give mounting urgency for the United States to join the convention" say Scott G. Borgerson. In The National Interest and the Law of the Sea (Council on Foreign Relations Press, May 2009), he explores the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.

Borgerson examines the international negotiations that led to the convention, as well as the history of debates in the United States over whether to join it. He then analyzes the strategic importance of the oceans for U.S. foreign policy today. The report ultimately makes a strong case for the United States to accede to the Convention on the Law of the Sea, contending that doing so would benefit U.S. national security as well as America’s economic and environmental interests. [JH]

Download Keeping Faith with the Constitution from ACS

Keeping Faith with the Constitution (American Constitutional Society, May 2009)  presents a common-sense approach to interpreting the U.S. Constitution and explains why it is the world's most enduring written Constitution. Authored by legal scholars Goodwin Liu, Pamela S. Karlan and Christopher H. Schroeder, the book shows how the Framers inscribed the fundamental values of liberty, equality and democracy into the Constitution and offers an approach to interpreting the Constitution that, as its Framers envisioned, applies the Constitution's text and broad principles to the changing needs and conditions of our society.

The companion volume, It Is a Constitution We Are Expounding: Collected Writings on Interpreting Our Founding Document, is an anthology of excerpts of some of the finest existing writing on methods of constitutional interpretation, taken from decisions of the Supreme Court and other judicial opinions and speeches, the scholarly literature, and other sources. It was edited by Pamela Harris and Karl Thompson, and includes a Foreword by Professor Laurence H. Tribe.

Both titles can be downloaded from the American Constitutional Society website. [JH]

Posner: "The movement to deregulate the financial industry went too far by exaggerating the resilience -- the self-healing powers -- of laissez-faire capitalism."

The above quote, coming from Judge Posner in his new book, A Failure of Capitalism: The Crisis of '08 and the Descent into Depression (Harvard UP, May 15, 2009) is newsworthy. Or as Robert Solow writes in How to Understand the Disaster for the New York Review of Books, "if I had written that, it would not be news." Here Judge Posner's quote in context:

Some conservatives believe that the depression is the result of unwise government policies. I believe it is a market failure. The government's myopia, passivity, and blunders played a critical role in allowing the recession to balloon into a depression, and so have several fortuitous factors. But without any government regulation of the financial industry, the economy would still, in all likelihood, be in a depression; what we have learned from the depression has shown that we need a more active and intelligent government to keep our model of a capitalist economy from running off the rails. The movement to deregulate the financial industry went too far by exaggerating the resilience—the self-healing powers—of laissez-faire capitalism.

Just when you may have finished Posner's latest book, the next one hits the presses from this inexhaustible author and independent thinker. Solow gives A Failure of Capitalism a mixed review. Oh, by the well, Judge Posner has a new blog too. This one covers economic policy at TheAtlantic.com.[JH]

Mapping Unemployment Rates and Job Losses

The Center for American Progress has published an interactive state-by-state map of unemployment rates and on job losses using BLS data from February 2005-February 2009. Play the timelines to view the rapid increases in recent months. Hat tip to Poverty Law Prof Blog.  [JH]