Blackberry Apps for Lawyers

If you have (or are thinking about) a Blackberry, you might be interested in this list of apps for lawyers.

Compiled by attorney Nicole Black, the list includes:

• dictation software
  
• federal court rules
• legal dictionaries
• mobile Microsoft Office suite

The 25 Greatest Legal TV Shows

The American Bar Association asked a jury of 12 experts – people who write and teach about law and popular culture – to pick the greatest legal shows in television history. The top 10 are:
1. L.A. Law (1986-1994)
2. Perry Mason (1957-1966)
3. The Defenders (1961-1965)
4. Law & Order (1990-present)
5. The Practice (1997-2004)
6. Ally McBeal (1997-2002)
7. Rumpole of the Bailey (1978-1992)
8. Boston Legal (2004-2008)
9. Damages (2007-present)
10. Night Court (1984-1992)
Listen to NPR’s interesting interview with the ABA Journal Editor here.

Washington Briefs on the Web

The Washington State Courts are posting briefs on the web. The project began with Division II, but now includes Supreme Court and Division I briefs as well. Supreme Court and Court of Appeals - Briefs has

• Supreme Court briefs, June 2006-
• Division I, June 2009-
• Division II, June 2006-

Coverage is not complete, especially in the early months. For example, in one case, there might be a respondent's brief but not the appellant's brief.

For more, see Court Briefs & Oral Arguments.

2009 Trafficking in Persons Report

The State Department released the ninth annual Trafficking in Persons Report. It discusses trends in and types of human trafficking, and includes maps and statistics, but the bulk of the 300+ page report is the country narratives.

Human trafficking is a multi-dimensional issue. It is a crime that deprives people of their human rights and freedoms, increases global health risks, fuels growing networks of organized crime, and can sustain levels of poverty and impede development in certain areas.

Habeas Corpus Rights in 13 Countries

The Law Library of Congress has published a review of habeas corpus rights in thirteen countries.

This report analyzes the right available to persons in Canada, Egypt, France, Germany, Iraq, Italy, Japan, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Syria, the United Kingdom, and
Yemen to challenge the legality of their arrest or detention.

This report is in the Current Legal Topics series, which also includes items on Abraham Lincoln, children's rights, John Adams, the stimulus plan, and other subjects.

Judge Sotomayor: CRS analysis of selected opinions

The Congressional Research Service report, Judge Sonia Sotomayor: Analysis of Selected Opinions, dated June 19, 2009, is now available.

To fulfill its constitutional “advice and consent” function, the Senate will consider Judge Sotomayor’s extensive record – compiled from years as a lawyer, prosecutor, district court judge, and appellate court judge – to better understand her legal approaches and judicial philosophy. This report provides an analysis of selected opinions authored by Judge Sotomayor during her tenure as a judge on the Second Circuit. Discussions of the selected opinions are grouped according to various topics of legal significance.

Judge Sotomayor's confirmation hearing is scheduled to begin Monday, July 13.

Statistics on Latest Supreme Court Term

SCOTUSblog has released a batch of statistics on the work of the 2008-09 Term of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Available as a single file and as individual files are statistics on:

• Opinion Tally
• Justice Agreement
• Decisions by Final Vote
• Frequency in the Majority
• Opinion Authors by Sitting
• Circuit Scorecard
  
• The Court’s Workload
• Grant Rates by Conference

Also available is a Summary Memo and a Visual Representation of Supreme Court Voting Lineups.

July 4th Holiday Schedule

The Law Library will be closed on Friday and Saturday, July 3 and 4. The regular summer schedule resumes on Sunday, July 5.

Supreme Court Super Nerd in 3 Easy Steps

A lawyer offers tips on how to follow the Supreme Court. Lawffice Space: Supreme Court Super Nerd in 3 Easy Steps, June 28, 2009.

One tip: subscribe to Willamette Law Online's US Supreme Court service:

This service provides same-day summaries of certiorari granted, oral arguments, and decisions published by the United States Supreme Court. The certiorari summaries focus on the facts and decision from the lower court. The week prior to oral arguments we provide an outline of the issues presented to the Court as argued in the briefs. The decision summaries provide the holding from the United States Supreme Court and a brief overview of the Court's reasoning.

Willamette also offers updates for Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, Oregon Courts, Intellectual Property, Conflict of Laws, and Dispute Resolution.

HealthReform.gov

Looking for Obama administration reports on health care reform? In March, the administration launched HealthReform. gov. The site currently includes White House reports, Health & Human Services Department reports, and an online series with titles such as “Hidden costs of Health Care: Why Americans are Paying More but Getting Less.”

Why Twitter Is a Big Deal for Iran Coverage

Andy Carvin explains why Twitter has made a difference in the outside world's awareness of the protests in Iran even though comparatively few Iranians are tweeting. It's all about the tagging that makes information easy to follow and retrieve. In Iran, The Revolution Will Be Tagged : NPR, June 19, 2009.

Immigration Courts Backlog Increased

A new study of immigration court statistics show the backlog has increased by 19 percent, and the wait time has increased by 23 percent, due to a shortage of judges. The report was issued June 17, by TRAC, the Transaction Records Access Clearinghouse, a research center at Syracuse University. For further reporting, see the New York Times story.

Global Climate Change Report

The first climate change report from the Obama Administration was released June 16th. Global Climate Change: Impacts in the United States is close to 200 pages, and

summarizes the science of climate change and the impacts of climate change on the United States, now and in the future. It is largely based on results of the U.S. Global Change Research Program USGCRP),a and integrates those results with related research from around the world. This report discusses climate-related impacts for various societal and environmental sectors and regions across the nation. It is an authoritative scientific report written in plain language, with the goal of better informing public and private decision making at all levels.

The key findings are:

1. Global warming is unequivocal and primarily human-induced.
2. Climate changes are underway in the United States and are projected to grow.
3. Widespread climate-related impacts are occurring now and are expected to increase.
4. Climate change will stress water resources.
5. Crop and livestock production will be increasingly challenged.
6. Coastal areas are at increasing risk from sea-level rise and storm surge.
7. Threats to human health will increase.
8. Climate change will interact with many social and environmental stresses.
9. Thresholds will be crossed, leading to large changes in climate and ecosystems.10. Future climate change and its impacts depend on choices made today.

New Look for CIA's World Factbook

For more than 30 years, the CIA's World Factbook has been a reliable source of information on countries around the world. The online home of the Factbook was recently redesigned, the first significant upgrade since the web version appeared in 1997.

Among the major enhancements are downloadable and printable photos for nearly 100 countries, a "Did You Know?" section explaining the impact of the Factbook around the world, and built-in world rankings for many of the Factbook information fields.

Those information fields include:

• communications
• economy
• geography
• government
• history
• military
• people
• transnational issues
• transportation
  

Due Process and Recusal by Judges

In most states, unlike the federal system, judges are elected. Proponents of election of judges point out that elections keep judges accountable to the public. Opponents worry about the election process itself and its requirement for judicial candidates to raise funds for the campaigns. See, for example, the January issue of volume 34 of the Fordham Urban Law Journal, which contains the "Symposium on Rethinking Judicial Selection: A Critical Appraisal of Appointive Selection for State Court Judges" (2007).

On Monday, 6/8/2009, the Supreme Court issued its decision in Caperton v. A.T. Massey Coal Co, Inc., (08-22). The issue involved whether a West Virginia Supreme Court Justice should have recused himself in a case involving the financial interests of a major contributor to his election campaign. The Court held, in a 5-4 decision written by Justice Kennedy, that, under the particular circumstances of this case, its "extraordinary situation," due process required that the Judge recuse himself.

Blankenship, CEO of Massey Coal Co., spent $3 million dollars in the campaign to elect West Virginia Justice Benjamin. Justice Kennedy stated that Blankenship's "contributions eclipsed the total amount spent by all other Benjamin supporters and exceeded by 300% the amount spent by Benjamin's campaign committee." Kennedy also found significant when the campaign occurred: "The temporal relationship between the campaign contributions, the justice's election, and the pendency of the case is also critical. It was reasonably foreseeable, when the campaign contributions were made, that the pending case would be before the newly elected justice. The $50 million adverse jury verdict had been entered before the election, and the Supreme Court of Appeals was the next step once the state trial court dealt with post-trial motions. So it became at once apparent that, absent recusal, Justice Benjamin would review a judgment that cost his biggest donor's company $50 million."

New Legal Research Guides

Two new legal research guides by reference librarian Lori Fossum have been posted on the Law Library website. Both guides are in PDF.

The Education Law Research Guide covers treatises, casebooks, and other secondary sources available in the Gallagher Law Library and other UW libraries. Current awareness sources such as email newsletters, blawgs, and newspapers are identified. Periodical indexes, full-text journal articles, reports from government agencies and think tanks, federal and state laws and regulations, statistics, and websites round out the guide.

The Foreign, Comparative & International Law: Selected Resources is a new addition to our collection of globally focused guides. Books, databases, definitions, journals, organizations, treaties, websites, and related materials are described.

You can check out the complete inventory of Gallagher legal research guides on the Guides page.

Federal Justice Statistics

Statistical tables on criminal case processing in the federal justice system appear in Federal Justice Statistics 2006. Included are:

• appeals
  
• arrest and booking
• characteristics of federal prisoners and offenders under federal supervision
• investigations and prosecutions by U.S. attorneys
• pretrial adjudication
• probation and parole
  
• sentencing and corrections
• warrants.

PDF and spreadsheet versions are available.

MetaJuris -- New Tool for Searching Free Law Sites

MetaJuris is a new service for searching for cases, statutes, and other legal materials. It was developed by a collaboration at the University of Kansas between the Information and Telecommunication Technology Center and the School of Law. KU News - New online search tool developed for legal researchers, press release, April 28, 2009.

Users enter search words from which MetaJuris creates and submits queries to targeted legal databases, she explained. Version 2.0 searches six databases: PreCYdent, which contains U.S. Supreme Court and U.S. Court of Appeals cases; PLoL (Public Library of Law), which includes those cases plus cases from all 50 states since 1997 and other law, codes and regulations; kscourts, which searches state cases; Legalbitstream, for its capacity to search both tax cases and Internal Revenue Service rulings; and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filings Web site. MetaJuris then parses and integrates the hits, sorting them in reverse chronological order. For each result, the case name, its date, a synopsis and a link to the relevant citation are given.

results from search for "dying declaration"

Pringles Dispute Gives Lesson in Statutory Construction

In Britain, most foods are exempt from the value-added tax, but potato chips — known as crisps — and “similar products made from the potato, or from potato flour,” are taxable. Procter & Gamble, in what could be considered a plea for strict construction, argued that Pringles — which are about 40 percent potato flour, but also contain corn, rice and wheat — should not be considered potato chips or “similar products.” Rather, they are “savory snacks.”

The dispute went from an administrative tribunal to an appellate court and finally to the Supreme Court of Judicature. Adam Cohen, Editorial Observer - The Lord Justice Hath Ruled - Pringles Are Potato Chips - NYTimes.com, May 31, 2009 (print: June 1, 2009).

Adam Cohen recounts the dispute, which has some good, fun legal silliness (Procter & Gamble’s argued that to be taxable a product must contain enough potato to have the quality of "potatoness"). But he also uses it to make a point:

Conservatives like to insist that their judges are strict constructionists, giving the Constitution and statutes their precise meaning and no more, while judges like Ms. Sotomayor are activists. But there is no magic right way to interpret terms like "free speech" or "due process" — or potato chip. Nor is either ideological camp wholly strict or wholly activist. Liberal judges tend to be expansive about things like equal protection, while conservatives read more into ones like "the right to bear arms."

In the end, as Lord Justice Jacob noted, a judge can only look at the relevant factors and draw an overall impression. His common-sense approach was a rebuke not only to Procter & Gamble, but to everyone out there who insists that the only way to read laws correctly is to read them strictly.

(The case is Procter & Gamble UK v Revenue and Customs Commissioners, Court of Appeal, Civil Division, [2009] All ER (D) 177 (May); [2009] EWCA Civ 407, decided 20 May 2009, available here. More comments at Law and Magic blog.)

Graphic: USDA Agricultural Research Service.

Law-Related Blogs in Washington State

Our list of Law-Related Blogs in Washington State keeps growing. Local bloggers are writing about a wide range of legal topics, including family law, intellectual property, construction law, and food law. Recent additions to the list:

• The Capitol Record (a blog about state government from TVW, Washington State's public affairs TV network)
• Decoupling: Washington Family Law Blog (resources, tips, humor, pop quizzes on recent cases, and answers to general family law questions from Rao & Pierce in Seattle)
• EcoStar Law Blog ("Exploring the evolution of animal law and its implication for the planet," by Seattle lawyer Jean-Pierre Ruiz)
• Gonzaga Intellectual Property Law Association (from students at Gonzaga University School of Law)
• Seattle Condominium and Homeowners Association Attorney ("Practical insights for community association board members in the Puget Sound area" from sole practitioner Kevin L. Britt)
• Speaking of Women's Rights (from Legal Voice, an advocacy group in the Northwest that "make[s] substantive, lasting changes through legislation, self-help resources and litigation with a far-reaching public impact")

Send me a note if you have a blog you'd like added to the list.

New Blog on the Business & Practice of Law

Legal Current is the name of a new blog from the folks at Thomson Reuters (owners of West Publishing and Westlaw). This blog replaces WestBlog.

Currently the blog features a video describing the process of adding a U.S. Supreme Court case to Westlaw, complete with headnotes and Key Numbers.

Supreme Court Nominee Sonia Sotomayor Resources

The Law Library of Congress has collected information and material by and about President Obama's first nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court, Judge Sonia Sotomayor.

The website includes a bibliography of Judge Sotomayor's articles and her original confirmation hearings, as well as links to sites that provide additional information.

URL shortening services

Do you ever wish you could make a long, complicated URL more manageable? You can, using services like tinyurl.com.

This post -- Wikinomics» Blog Archive » Are URL shortening services wrecking the web?, May 19, 2009 -- lists several services, while wondering about the potential hazards of having a lot of URLs depend on the kindness of strangers.

Lexis and Westlaw Access for Students in the Summer

In this week’s UW Law's Crier, you will find an article titled “Summer Access to LexisNexis and Westlaw”. In the article we wanted to remind law students that the password(s) you were issued at the UW School of Law are for academic use only. However, students engaged in certain activities can continue to access LexisNexis & Westlaw this summer. (Be sure to sign up by June 30 to ensure uninterrupted access.)

*** UW Law students are eligible for summer access to LexisNexis & Westlaw if you will be:
· enrolled in a law school summer class
· conducting research that is related to moot court or law review
· working as a UW Law professor’s research assistant
· EARNING SCHOOL CREDIT by working in an unpaid non-profit/public interest internship/externship or pro bono work
· studying for any July bar exam

We are sending this note to clarify that students doing pro bono work (volunteer /not paid) this summer can only use your Lexis or Westlaw passwords if you are receiving Law School credit specifically for that pro bono work. For information on other databases available for your use during summer employment see, http://lib.law.washington.edu/ref/lowcostcalr.html or http://lib.law.washington.edu/research/research.html or contact the Reference Office (lawrefst@u.washington.edu).

If you are graduating from UW Law in Spring 2009, LexisNexis is offering a special program for you called ASPIRE “Associates Serving Public Interest Research”, which provides complimentary LexisNexis access to all law 2009 law school graduates pursuing verifiable public service (non-profitable or charitable) work for one year. For information on how to sign-up for this, see this UW Law Career Planning blog entry, http://uwlawcareerplanning.blogspot.com/2009/05/lexisnexis-service-free-for-2009.html.

A Fairly Short History of the U.S. Code

Recently, I was asked to find an earlier version of the U.S. Code in order to find some specific language. This instance dealt with an Act that was passed in 1912, and I was looking for the language as it appeared in the U.S. Code.

Checking the Gallagher catalog, I found that we had the official version of the code back to 1940. This would not do. I then checked the Hein Online database containing pdf copies of the official code. According to Hein Online, the earliest version of the U.S. Code was a 1925-1926 edition. I assumed that there must be an earlier edition of the code that just was not digitized yet.
Then I noticed two editions of something called the Revised Statutes of the United States, listed under “Earlier Codification of Federal Law.” The perplexing part was that these were dated 1875 and 1878. This forced me to wonder where I would find the missing codifications of federal law that fall into the almost 50 year gap between these two sources. That is where it got interesting…

Prior to June 22, 1874, a person looking for the law would have to sort through the Statutes at Large. Perhaps you are familiar with these characters – they are published chronologically and the index is not cumulative. That means that a researcher would have to find the exact volume of Statutes at Large containing the law they were looking for. For all the curious people out there, by 1874 this was as many as 17 volumes to look through for a particular law. The people of 1875 were lucky enough to have the Revised Statutes of 1875 published. This collection organized federal statutes into 74 subject titles and was submitted to Congress. This is the beginning of the positive law issue, which I will not get into. If you are interested in knowing what positive law is and the arguments surrounding it, take a look at this pdf file from the Office of the Law Revision Counsel. The Revised Statutes of 1878 was published in an effort to correct errors present in the first edition.

So what happened between 1878 and 1926? 27 more volumes of Statutes at Large! There were enactments of a Criminal Code and a Judicial Code between 1909 and 1911, but nothing that covered all federal statutes. Some commercial vendors attempted to compile the new laws, but these had their own difficulties aside from being unofficial. Finally in 1926, the United States Code arranged the legislation in the Revised Statutes of 1875 and the legislation found in each volume of the United States Statutes at Large into 50 Titles. This is the first version of the U.S. Code you know and love today. So the next time you are having a hard time scanning through a massive pile of information, take a break, go to Hein Online and browse the United States Statutes at Large to get a better perspective on finding a needle in a haystack!

-- Joe Cera