Career Paths Not Taken

Photo: Alec Baldwin, from www.alecbaldwin.com

Have you ever wished you were a TV star and frequent host of SNL? Maybe going to law school is better than that (and not just because you weren't discovered as a great actor).

Alec Baldwin recently said he wishes he'd become a lawyer. Addressing law students on the eve of their graduation, he said: “If I had it to do all over again, I would choose differently….I believe that I would trade what I have for what you’ll have tomorrow afternoon." Alec Baldwin: Legal Envy, Harvard Magazine, July-Aug. 2011. He told the graduates, "I want you to leave here and save this country, because this country needs your help." Id.

A few years ago, coming out of a rancorous divorce, his sentiments toward the profession were chillier:

One of his ex-wife’s lawyers, Baldwin wrote, “had a bad case of the intellectual vanity that afflicts most attorneys I had known. Since my own college days, most lawyers had always struck me as men and women who were not smart enough to become doctors or engineers. Therefore, they opted for a career wherein rote recitation of the legal code and a gift for bullshitting people amounted to a profession.”

Id.  A few weeks after this speech, he had apparently forgotten the dream of practicing law in favor of singing in a Broadway show. The One Unfulfilled Wish of My Career, AlecBaldwin.com, June 20, 2011.

Self-study Courses in Homeland Security

The Naval Postgraduate School Center for Homeland Defense and Security offers non-credit, self-study courses online. These courses are developed by the NPS CHDS teaching faculty and are derived from course content (lecture material and course readings) from the Center's homeland security master's degree curriculum.

Who is eligible to access these courses? Only government officials, members of the military, homeland security educators, students in homeland security programs, and other specially qualified individuals. However, anyone may access the lectures on research methods on the CHDS's Educational Resources page.

Six self-study courses are now available:

1. Terrorist Financing and State Response
2. Intelligence for Homeland Security: Organizational and Policy
3. Homeland Security in Israel
4. The Global Jihadi Threat
5. Critical Infrastructure: Vulnerability Analysis and Protection
6. Technology for Homeland Security: Inspection and Detection Technologies

The "Terrorist Financing and State Response" course is the newest, examining "exactly how far we have come in understanding how terrorists raise, store and transfer funds. It also evaluates and challenges the U.S. government and international community in responding to this problem."

See the Center for Homeland Defense and Security site for more information about the courses and to request access.

Uniform Law Commission and Uniform State Laws

The Uniform Law Commission is currently holding its 2011 annual meeting in Vail, CO. Among the new uniform laws being considered is the Uniform Electronic Legal Material Act, which purports to provide a clear answer to the question of who is the official publisher of a given governmental record, and how official publishers can authenticate the fact that a given electronic record is, in fact, the official record for citation and other purposes. A draft version of the Act is available here.
The Uniform Law Commission (ULC), in existence since 1892, is responsible for the drafting and passage of more than 200 uniform acts designed to solve problems common to all the states. Some examples are the Uniform Commercial Code, the Uniform Probate Code, and the Uniform Partnership Act. Just who are these ULC commissioners? They are 350 practicing lawyers, governmental lawyers, judges, law professors, and lawyer-legislators from every state, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Washington has six commissioners and are listed by state here.

CALI Lessons for iPads and iPhones

The Center for Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction (CALI) is hosting a webinar on new features compatible with iPads, iPhones, and other mobile devices on July 12.

Register online.

Law students enjoy free access to hundreds of lessons on a wide variety of topics, from administrative law to wills and trusts. UW Law students who have not registered with CALI yest should contact the Reference Office for the student access code.

Lexis Webinar on Starting Your Law Review Article

On July 16, LexisNexis will host a webcast on "how to find a unique topic," ensuring that your subject has not been preempted by someone else.

Register online for Finding an Original Note Topic and Preemption Checking.

You might also find useful the Gallagher guide on Writing for & Publishing in Law Reviews, which also offers advice on finding interesting topics.

UN Report on Gender Justice

The United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women has released its first report, In Pursuit of Justice: Progress of the World's Women 2011-2012 (PDF, 168 pages).

The report addresses many topics, including women's access to justice and cases and laws that have changed women's lives.

Graphs, charts, and personal stories supplement the text.

An executive summary is also available.

Sanford on Sixth Circuit Health Law Decision

Sallie Sanford

Professor Sallie Sanford comments on Thomas More Law Center v. Obama, No. 10-2388 (6th Cir. June 29, 2011), the recent case upholding against a Commerce Clause challenge the Affordable Care Act's requirement that individuals have health insurance. Sallie Sanford, The Impact of a "Middle-Management" Health Care Ruling, Jurist—Forum, July 5, 2011. 

The three-judge panel issued three opinions. The opinion by Judge Jeffrey S. Sutton was the opinion of the court on one issue (the taxing power) and a concurrence on other issues. Sanford explains that this opinion is significant both because it is so well crafted and because the judge is "a highly respected jurist with solid conservative credentials." Appointed to the bench by President George W. Bush, Judge Sutton is the first Repbulican to uphold the individual mandate.

Prof. Sanford both guides us through this decision and places it in the larger context of the other challenges to the new law.

Ten Tips for a Successful Transition from Law School to Law Practice

The ABA's Business Law Section presents: Miriam R. Albert, Ten Tips for a Successful Transition from Law School to Law Practice, Business Law Today, June 20, 2011. You'll want to read the commentary, of course, but the tips are:

1. Be a Good Listener
2. Be an Active Participant in Your Career
3. Understand the Time Value of Money
4. Understand the Money Value of Time
5. Don't Try to be the Smartest Person in Every Room
6. Comport Yourself in a Professional Manner
7. Write More and Write Less
8. Treat Every E-Mail as if It will be in the New York Times
9. When You're Done, You're Done

Advice for Entering Students

An upper-class law student writes What I Wish I’d Known As A 1L, June 14, 2011, in The Student Appeal, a new forum for law student writing. The same author, Sara Eli Mattern, also wrote Jobs for Law Students, and the Future of Legal Education, April 10, 2011.

Of course, Ms. Mattern isn't the only person offering advice to new law students. Here is a selection from the past few years:

• Paul Caron, Advice for Incoming 1Ls, TaxProf Blog, Sept. 3, 2007 (links to half a dozen posts by Jeffrey Toobin, Scott Turow, and others)
• David S. Cohen, Advice for Feminist 1Ls, Feminist Law Professors, Oct. 22, 2007
• Michael Dorf, Welcome 1Ls, Dorf on Law, Aug. 24, 2009
• Einer Elhauge, Is 1L One Hell? Advice from a Law Professor, Harvard Law Record, Oct. 8, 2009 
• Brandon Greene, Letter to a 0L ... Stay Focused on What Brought You Here, In Their Own Words: BU Law Student Blogs, April 2, 2011
• Paul Horwitz, More Advice to 1Ls, PrawfsBlawg, Aug. 18, 2008
• Amy Jarmon, Ten Tips for Preparing for Your 1L Year, Law School Academic Support Blog, May 19, 2011
• Orin Kerr, Advice for 1Ls: What If You Don't Know the Answer [when you're called on in class]?, Volokh Conspiracy, Aug. 26, 2008
• David Linhart, Letter to Brand New BU Law 1Ls, In Their Own Words: BU Law Student Blogs, April 10, 2011
• Dan Markel, Summer Reading Lists for Rising 1Ls PrawfsBlawg (a law professor blog), June 3, 2011 (read the comments, too)
• Daniel Solove, Advice for First Year Law Students: Practice Writing!, Concurring Opinions, Aug. 19, 2008
• Dean Spade, For Those Considering Law School ("a little summary of some of the things I often tell people who come to me because they are considering law school and want to know if it is a good route to making transformative change," blog post, Oct. 26, 2010)
• Ivy Swenson, Starting Law School this Fall? Advice for Pre-1Ls, Lawyerist, Aug. 7, 2010
• Lesley Wexler, Once and Future 1Ls, PrawfsBlawg, Aug. 18, 2008
• What I Learned in Law School - 1L Year, Woman of the Law, May 17, 2005

Do you like to hear advice rather than read it? Consider these podcast interviews from the CALI Pre-Law Blog:

• Advice for 1L's from Prof. Douglas McFarland, Aug. 16, 2006
• Preparing to Study Torts, by Prof. Ron Eades, Aug. 10, 2006
• Study Advice from Professors for Incoming 1L's, Aug. 10, 2006

If you'd like to read books, not just blog posts, see Suggested Reading List for Prospective & Current Law Students on the Law Library's website.

New Access to Westlaw Japan

We have begun a subscription to Westlaw Japan (an all Japanese language online service*).  Currently, our subscription is for one user at a time for the service. Please respect other campus-wide users who may need access:  be sure to log off when you’re finished using the service. Access Westlaw Japan on the East Asian Legal Databases page OR via the Law Library catalog (search for “Westlaw Japan”). Users are required to login with their UW NetID.

Please let me know if you have questions.

Rob Britt
Coordinator of East Asian Library Services
Gallagher Law Library
W.H. Gates Hall Room L138
543-7447
rrbritt@uw.edu

*Click here for more information about Westlaw Japan, in Japanese.  In short, the product includes impressive numbers of cases, statutes, and indexes to journal articles and newspapers, in a convenient format.  Westlaw Japan is entirely in Japanese.  There are over 220,000 cases (including pre-war cases), over 90% of which are either in full text or include summaries.  Also, there are some full text case interpretation publications such as Jurisuto electronic edition じゅりスト電子版, Hanrei hyakusen 判例百選, and Hogaku kyoshitsu 法学教室.

Advice for New Associates

Starting work at a big firm? Here's some advice from a lawyer who recently retired from 30+ years at Skadden, Arps: Ronald Barusch, Dealpolitik: Gift for Law Grads: The Real World Advice You Won’t Learn in School, Deal Journal (a Wall Street Journal Blog), May 31, 2011.

Tips for Summer Success

Joshua Auriemma, who summered at various firms and non-profits and now has clerks of his own offers  5 Tips to Becoming a Great Summer Associate, Legal Geekery, June 17, 2011. He leads with one of my favorite tips: Don't be afraid to ask questions!

Mr. Auriemma is talking about asking questions of your supervisor, which is very good. Remember that you can also ask questions of reference librarians, who can point you to good sources and make your research more effective. Talk to the librarians at your own place of employment, the local public law library (e.g., Public Law Library of King County), or law school libraries. We at the Gallagher Law Library are happy to answer our students' questions, wherever they are, and we're also open to the public. Check out our AskUs! link.

Periodic Table of New Deal Programs

The Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum has posted a wonderful graphic: the Periodic Table of Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal Programs. If you hover your mouse over any of the squares in, a pop-up gives you more information about the program or person listed. You can also download a PDF.

Periodic Table of Franklin D. Rooselvelt's Programs

Hat tip: @hlslib (Harvard Law Library on Twitter)

Ergonomic Tips for Computers and Mobile Devices

Would you like to avoid neck and back pain and other ergonomic risks? Check out these videos:

Take a Break with Summer Reading

Law students, with exams behind you, be sure and take a break from your studies and consider enjoying some leisurely summer reading.

Need some suggestions? The Suggested Reading List for Prospective & Current Law Students offers some reading picks. There is something for everyone here, whether you are interested in prizewinning books related to law, literary fiction, biographies and autobiographies, history, or perhaps noteworthy cases. Many of the books on the list were suggested by the Admissions Office. Others have been added at the suggestion of library staff, faculty, or others in the law school community. The list is not required reading.

The list includes links which will take you into the Gallagher Law Library catalog, where you can learn more about each title, including in which libraries it is held.

Not in Seattle this summer? Click on the link under WorldCat, "Worldwide libraries own this item," to find out whether a library in your location owns a particular title.

The only rule of summer reading? Simply enjoy it!

Pentagon Papers All Online

On June 13, 1971, the New York Times published the first of a series of excerpts from a massive report about the Vietnam War (prepared in 1969) that were copied and leaked by Daniel Ellsberg. After that, Senator Mike Gravel read much of the report into the record and it was published by Beacon Press.

Photo: Joint Chiefs of Staff meet at the LBJ Ranch, 12/22/1964,
ARC Identifier 192566

But the different versions that were made public have never been complete. Yesterday, on the fortieth anniversary of the original publication, the National Archives and Records Administration, along with the Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon presidential libraries, released a digital version of the entire report—about 7,000 pages.

For more about the entire controversy and the Pentagon Papers case, New York Times v. United States, 403 U.S. 713, Justia (1971) (denying the government an injunction against publication), see

• Pentagon Papers, Wikipedia (last modified June 14, 2011)
• David Rudenstine, The Day the Presses Stopped: A History of the Pentagon Papers Case (1996), KF228.N52 R84 1996 at Classified Stacks
• The New York Times Company v. United States: A Documentary History [of] the Pentagon Papers Litigation (James C. Goodale ed., 1971), KF228.N4 G6 v.2
• Peter Schrag, Test of Loyalty: Daniel Ellsberg and the Rituals of Secret Government (1974), KF224.E46 S37 at Classified Stacks
• Sanford J. Ungar, The Papers & the Papers: An Account of the Legal and Political Battle over the Pentagon Papers (1972), E855.U5 1972 at Classified Stacks
• Conscientious Action: The Revelation of the Pentagon Papers (Peter A. French ed., 1974), JC328.3.C65 at Classified Stacks
• Kenneth W. Salter, The Pentagon Papers Trial (1975), KF224.E46 S25 at Classified Stacks
• Neil Sheehan, The Pentagon Papers as Published by the New York Times (1971), E183.8.V5 P4 1971a at Classified Stacks

Miranda Anniversary

Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S. 436, Justia, was decided 45 years ago today (June 13, 1966). For a quick summary and the oral arguments, see (or hear) the Oyez Project.

Here are some recent books discussing Miranda and its impact:

• Lawrence S. Wrightsman & Mary L. Pitman, The Miranda Ruling: Its Past, Present and Future (2010) (publisher's page)
• Gary L. Stuart, Miranda: The Story of America's Right to Remain Silent (2004) (publisher's page)
• G. Daniel Lassiter, Interrogations, Confessions, and Entrapment (2006) (publisher's page)
• Sara Catherine Benesh, The U.S. Court of Appeals and the Law of Confessions: Perspectives on the Hierarchy of Justice (2002)

Journal Search for Alumni Association Members

Photo: "Magazines to read" by Longzero, used under a
Creative Commons licnese

Members of the UW Alumni Association now can use the EBSCO Academic Search Alumni Edition database. The database includes over 3,000 academic journals in full text plus indexing for 5,000 more journals. 

If you are on campus or if you are a current student, staff member, or faculty member, you already have access to the related—and bigger—database, Academic Search Complete through the University Libraries.

Academic Search Alumni Edition includes many law journals, including U.S. standards (e.g., the ABA Journal and the Harvard Law Review) and a selection of journals from Europe. A search in the database will also pick up law-related articles in general-interest periodicals and journals from other disciplines.

The best way to get a sense of what you can find is to run some sample searches. For example, a search for "voir dire" turns up articles from:

• Federal Sentencing Reporter (indexing only)
• The Reporter (Air Force Office of the Judge Advocate General) (full text and PDF)
• Journal of Criminal Law (PDF)
• Journal of Child Sexual Abuse (indexing only)
• New York Times (indexing only)
• News Media & the Law (indexing only)
• American Lawyer (indexing only)
• Florida Bar Journal (indexing only)
• Georgetown Journal of Gender & the Law (indexing only)
• Review of Litigation (indexing only)
• Communication Monographs (indexing only)
• American Sociologist (indexing only)

Searching for "extraordinary rendition" retrieves articles from

• History Today (full text)
• Race & Class (indexing only)
• Brigham Young University Law Review (indexing only)
• Harvard Law Review (indexing only)
• European Journal of Migration & Law (indexing only)

Of course, you aren't limited to law-related topics. Trying out some non-law topics shows the breadth of the database. For example, searching for "san juan islands" finds articles from

• Botany (PDF) (study of moss flora)
• Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences (PDF) (sedimentary rocks)
• Fisheries Oceanography (PDF) (seal predation on salmon and forage fish schools)
• Outside (indexing only) (kayaking)
• Health (full text) (bike touring)
• American History (full text) (the Pig War)

Searching for "single payer health" yields articles from

• Pediatric Surgery International (indexing only)
• Nursing Economic$ (PDF)
• Health Affairs (indexing only)
• Journal of Health Politics, Policy & Law (indexing only)
• Benefits Quarterly (PDF)
• JGIM: Journal of General Internal Medicine (PDF)

As you can see, this database could come in handy both for professional research and for personal reading.

If you're not a member of the alumni association (you don't have to be a UW grad to join), remember to check out your local public library. Many public libraries make databases like this available to library card holders. For instance, Seattle Public Library lists its databases here.

Tips for iPad Security

Law Technology News offers Ten Tips to Enhance iPad Security (June 10, 2011).

Videorecording Federal Courts

The federal courts are beginning an experiment to have some trial court proceedings videorecorded and made public. The Western District of Washington is one of the fourteen districts in the pilot project. See Courts Selected for Federal Cameras in Court Pilot Study, U.S. Courts, June 8, 2011; Restrictive Rules Announced for Federal Courts Camera Experiment, The BLT: Blog of the Legal Times, June 8, 2011.

Update (June 10): One commentator rues the restrictions in the experiment (e.g., recording of only civil cases, and only cases where the parties consent): Sean Doherty, No Fly-on-the-Wall Effect From Cameras in U.S. District Courts, Law Technology News, June 10, 2011.

Digital Archives of Washington Law Review

Where do you go when you need a pre-1980 article from the Washington Law Review?

If you are here in the Law Library, you might go to the Compact Stacks on L2, where you will find the bound volumes of the WLR.

If you aren't physically here in the Library, but you are a UW faculty, student, or staff member, you could click on the Off-Campus Access link on any UW library webpage, sign in with your UW Net ID and then cruise to HeinOnline, which has PDF images of virtually all US law school law reviews, including the Washington Law Review.

But what if you aren't in the Law Library and no longer a UW student? Are you out of luck?

No!

Thanks to the digital archives maintained by the Law Library, everyone can now find WLR articles going all the way back to volume 1, 1919.

Visit the "Issues" page of the Washington Law Review website and look for the digital.law icon on the right side of the screen. That's where you'll find the link to the digital archives.

Guess what? The Library also maintains a digital archive for the Pacific Rim Law & Policy Journal!

Free Program on Legal Research

Students, join us for the 16th annual Bridge the Legal Research Gap program on Wednesday, June 15 from 12:45 - 5 p.m.

This free program is intended to help law students gear up their legal research skills for their summer jobs. Sessions will cover the following topics:

• legal research in the real world
• practice materials
• legislative history
• administrative law

Sources and research dealing with Washington State and U.S. law will be covered.

Registration:

Register online at http://lib.law.washington.edu/btg/2011/register.htm

Newspapers Mapped and Translated—Historic Papers, Too

Newspapermap.com—put together by a company in Sweden—offers a free atlas of the world's newspaper websites, combining Google Maps with Google Translate to allow you to read the news from all over.

Here's a story about it from The Atlantic's blog: Reading the World's Press, From Luxembourg to Djibouti - Jared Keller - Technology - The Atlantic, May 16, 2011.

To walk around in the past, click on the "Historical!" button. This takes you a map of past newspapers that are available on different sites. For instance, the San Francisco Call, 1895-1913 is available via Chronicling America, a project of the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress. So is The Washington Socialist (Everett), 1914-15.

If you're even a little interested in current events or history, you can find a lot to browse from this website!

Changes in Library Hours after Exams

The Law Library will be open on an abbreviated schedule after UW Law exams end on Friday, June 10th.

The Library will be closed Saturday - Tuesday, June 11 - 14.

The Library will be open on its interim schedule Wednesday - Friday, June 15 - 17: 8am - 5pm. The Reference Office will be open on those days from 9am - 12noon and from 1 - 5pm.

The Library will again be closed Saturday and Sunda, June 18 and 19.

When UW Law summer class begin on Monday, June 20, the Law Library and the Reference Office will be open on our summer schedule:

Monday - Wednesday

Library: 8am - 7pm

Reference Office: 9am - 5pm

Thursday & Friday

Library: 8am - 5pm

Reference Office: 9am - 5pm

Saturday: Closed

Sunday

Library: 12noon - 5pm

Reference Office: 1 - 4pm

30 Years of HIV/AIDS

Tomorrow marks the 30th anniversary of the first mention of what would become known as HIV/AIDS in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. The most recent Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report briefly summarizes the CDC's HIV surveillance over the last 30 years.

In addition to this anniversary, HIV has also been in the news recently due to funding shortages in some states' AIDS Drug Assistance Programs or ADAPs. ADAPs were established by the Ryan White Comprehensive AIDS Resources Emergency Act of 1990, codified at 42 U.S.C. 300ff, et. seq., and the federal government provides the bulk of the funding. The recession has caused more patients to seek access to the program and some states have tightened eligibility criteria as a result, forcing more people to pay for treatment averaging over $11,000 per year out of pocket.

If you'd like more information about AIDS and the law, the Library has some books you may want to take a look at:

AIDS and the law / David W. Webber, editor, a comprehensive looseleaf treatise,


Legal aspects of AIDS / [edited] by Donald H.J. Hermann, William P. Schurgin, another comprehensive loose leaf treatise,

and AIDS law in a nutshell / by Robert M. Jarvis, a quick overview of AIDS Law.