CLEs in Oregon Public Libraries (and appellate court briefs and free databases)

It’s that time of year again when Oregon lawyers ask about:
CLEs in Oregon public law libraries

And, here are some other research guides that may be of use to Oregon lawyers, support staff, and self-represented litigants:

1) How to Find Oregon (and other court) Appellate Court Briefs

2) OCCLL Databases: Oregon County Law Libraries Legal Research Database Grid (also from our Oregon legal resources webpage)

3) Links to other Oregon legal research guides and lawyer resources.

Halloween: A Trick or Treat Bag of Laws

A little Halloween "Law" for everyone:

1) "Top 3 Halloween Lawsuits of All Time," by Stephanie Rabiner, 10/25/11, Findlaw

2) Stambovsky v. Ackley Case Resources

3) "Suing the Devil: A Guide for Practitioners," by Charles Yablon, Virginia Law Review, Vol. 86, No. 1 (Feb., 2000), pp. 103-115 (Stable JStore URL, search Google Scholar, or ask a law librarian.)

4) “Does Satan Deserve a Lawyer?” (from the Concurring Opinions blog)

5) What Are Halloween Laws and Are They Constitutional?

6) More Halloween Laws, this time in California

7) "The Right to Trick-or-Treat: Constitutional Implications of Halloween Ordinances," 20 Harvard J. on Legislation 601 (search Google Scholar or ask a Law Librarian.)

8) "The Paradox of Inclusion by Exclusion: The Accommodation of Religion in the Public Schools," 40. Indiana Law Review 499. (Search Google Scholar, or ask a law librarian.)

9) Chosun International v. Chrisha Creations, 413 F3d 324:   Are Halloween costumes eligible for copyright protection? (Search Google Scholar, or ask a law librarian.)

Laf-Off: Giggle, Chuckle, Guffaw at Oregon Lawyers - for only $10 - wowsers!

Laugh at the lawyers in your life - attend Laf-Off, tonight (Oct. 28), Portland, Oregon. (At least look at the pictures on the website - yikes!)

No, I don't think you can get CLE credits for attending, or even for performing, but maybe you should ....

Laf-Off (Brought to you by the Lawyer's Campaign for Equal Justice)
October 28, 2011
6:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m. shows
(doors open at 5:30 and 8:30)
Mission Theater
1624 NW Glisan Ave, Portland
Tickets only $10 each!

The Library is Dead; Long Live the Library: 35 Amazing Libraries

Will Manley's 10/22/11, #588, blog post at Will Unwound (an excellent librarian blog, by the way), alerts us to these photographs of the:

35 Most Amazing Libraries in the World

Digital, Official, Authentic Laws & the “Uniform Electronic Legal Material Act”

The Uniform Law Commission (National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws) have updated the Uniform Electronic Legal Material Act (UELMA).

For a detailed summary of the latest actions, please read:

The Uniform Electronic Legal Material Act Is Ready for Legislative Action,” VoxPopuLII, 10/15/11

For additional background, read the Legal Informatics Blog and more from a July 2011 post at 3 Geeks and a Law blog.  October update

Oregon Nonprofit Jobs Board: Paid and Volunteer Opportunities

Volunteering = Networking

One way to find a job is to volunteer with an organization that does the sort of work you might like to do yourself one day.

If you’re not sure what you love to do, try out different volunteer gigs:

Oregon Nonprofit Jobs Board

Oregon Volunteers

Hands On Greater Portland

“My roommate is a high-strung moron” and Blog Comment Policies

“My roommate is a high-strung moron.”   This was the first line of a letter to "The Ethicist" column, in the New York Times Magazine, September 18, 2011, and it reminded me that I wanted to blog about “Comments” policies.

This “my roommate is a moron” type of statement, and its close cousins (e.g. “my fat, ugly, stupid friend, sister, brother, mother,” etc.), will be familiar to anyone who writes online and allows Comments.  Comments can be useful, informative, responsive, educational, helpful, and thoughtful.  However, they generally are not.  I’m not sure why and won’t waste time wondering why not.

For practical purposes, though, it’s useful for blogs and websites to have a Comment Policy so readers and Commenters are forewarned about why they may see the Comments they do see and why their own Comments might not see the light of day.

There are many examples of blog & website Comment policies.  I like the Social Media policy at the Multnomah Public Library that includes Rules for Commenting.

We are drafting our own formal “Oregon Legal Research Blog Comment Policy.”  In the meantime, here is a preview of what it may look like, that is, not unlike the Multnomah County Library policy.

The OLR blog encourages public discourse and comments, but the blog administrators reserve the right to edit or delete comments that include any of the following, which is copied directly from the Multnomah County Library Rules for Commenting policy:

“Rules for commenting:

Protect your privacy. Do not post personally identifying information. Young people under age 18, especially, should not post information such as last name, school, age, phone number, address.

Posts containing the following are against library rules and will be deleted before posting or removed by library staff:

Copyright violations

Off topic comments

Commercial material/spam

Duplicated posts from the same individual

Obscene posts

Specific and imminent threats

Libelous comments

Images

By choosing to comment you agree to these rules.”

9+ Job Searching Resources for Oregon Ex-Offenders

The Beaverton City (Oregon) Library Blog has posted an excellent list of resources:

Job Hunting Resources for Ex-Offenders

New legal research guide - Vital Records

The Washington County Law Library has a new legal research guide on filing, finding, registering, and amending Oregon vital records and locating vital records from other states.  For information specifically about Oregon marriage licenses, see Laura's previous post from June 2009.  If you are trying to locate divorce records, see my post from September 26, 2011.  As always, you can locate all of the documents uploaded to the law library's website in our document index.

Themis: Lady Justice: The Sword & the Scales

There is a new book out on images of justice, specifically Lady Justice.  You know, Themis, that blindfold, the scales, the sword, the statue.  See, e.g., the Wikipedia entry: Scales of Justice.

Visit the Yale Law Library “Justice as a Sign of the Law” exhibit blog post, featuring a book by Yale Law Professors Judith Resnik and Dennis Curtis, "Representing Justice: Invention, Controversy, and Rights in City-States and Democratic Courtrooms," (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2011).

Dramatic Readings of Apple Software Licenses

"Dramatic Readings of Apple Software Licenses," by Richard Dreyfus. What else needs to be said?

Article: "Abandoning Law Reports for Official Digital Case Law," Peter W. Martin

I blog periodically about how legal information is not yet all online and the sad state of affairs it is for finding free, official, and authenticated legal information online anywhere.  (You can find very good, if not official, online legal information for a price.)

But here’s an article on one way to make that transition to digital information:

"Abandoning Law Reports for Official Digital Case Law," Peter W. Martin.

Cornell Law School research paper No. 11-01 (This paper can be downloaded without charge from: The Social Science Research Network Electronic Paper Collection)

iLibrarian: 13 Resources & Tips for Library Job Seekers

Is anyone not looking for a job, a better, more secure, or a more rewarding job?  Here are some tips for the librarian in you:

13 Resources & Tips for Library Job Seekers

iLibrarian has lots of other great tips for information professionals everywhere.

2011 Court Technology Conference

The 2011 Court Technology Conference has almost all their presenters’ materials online.

Everything from Social Media in the Courts, to Cameras in the Federal Courts, to Project Management, and much, much more.

Read a Law Librarian’s view of Day 2 of the conference.

Oregon eCourt Policy Recommendations – and Glossary

The Oregon State Bar has posted links to the OJD’s eCourt team’s policy papers and more. "These recommendations will be discussed at two upcoming meetings at the OSB Center. These are October 18th and November 15th at 1:30 PM."

You can find these and more documents at the OJD eCourt Publications website (or from the OJD homepage), including an Oregon eCourt Glossary.

Legal Research Resources for Students of all Ages

The Portland State University Government Documents librarian has updated their legal research resources webpage. You’ll find a lot of excellent information and maybe just what you’re looking for right now!

Law schools, law libraries, and government depository libraries are great places to find links to current and useful legal research tools.

Free Federal Rules Ebooks

Free Federal Rules Ebooks, from the Legal Information Institute (compatible with iPad, Kindle, and more.)

Read: “About our Federal Rules ebooks.

If you know LII, you know free doesn't mean you have to sacrifice quality. The books are based on LII's federal rules collections, the premiere, free versions of the federal rules online. Our federal rules ebooks include:

The complete rules as of December 1, 2010.

All notes of the Advisory Committee immediately following each rule.

A full-functioning Table of Contents for easy navigation.

Internal links to rules referenced within the rules.

External links to the LII website's version of the US Code.” [Link to source.]

Online Book Privacy Law – in California

See the Law Librarian Blog, October 4, 2011, blog post:

California Enacts Book Purchase Privacy Law

May the Best Decision Win: Hackers, Worms, Power, and Digital Law

Stop the presses!  It’s all online!

Wait.  I don’t think so, yet, assuming also that you could even afford the online version.

When “it’s all online,” which version of a Court Decision will “Rule” the Day?

Aside from the conficker worm problem (see also MS S&S Center), and you can read Mark Bowden’s new book, “Worm: The First Digital World War” for more information about that, and

Aside from Clifford Stoll’s 1989 book: “The Cuckoo’s Egg,” for a riveting and wild ride through the cyber-underworld.  (You can hear Stoll also at a TED Conference, from 2006.)

The bottom line right now is that:

If there is no official, authenticated, online or official print version of a court decision, someone has to decide which version is correct.  Who will that person be?

Will the court, the judge, court administrators, archivists all have to duke it out when lawyers and judges each bring different versions of cited cases to their trials or when they cite to different versions in their briefs?

Am I just imagining that this might become a problem?

My simple suggestion: Solve the authentication issue before ceasing print publication of official government documents such as laws and court decisions.

You don’t throw out your phone books until you have internet access, do you?  You don’t cancel your landline service until you have a reliable mobile phone, do you?  You don't throw out your great-grandmother's bible until - well, maybe not ever. Why would you cease publishing the correct historical record of the Law of the Land before making sure it is recorded authentically, officially, and for posterity - and accessible to all?

Most courts do not publish official online versions of court decisions. (There are few official statutes online either.)

Make sure you look for those disclaimers when you rely on digital laws, e.g. from the U.S. Supreme Court website, Information About Opinions:

"Caution: In case of discrepancies between the print and electronic versions of a bench opinion, the print version controls. Moreover, bench opinions are replaced, generally within hours, by slip opinion pamphlets and, in case of discrepancies between the bench and slip opinions, the slip opinion controls...." (Link to U.S. Supreme Court website.)

Keep in mind that the first version of a case that appears online is not the final, corrected version.  But which one does Google post?  Will Westlaw and Lexis continue their editorial policy to update online cases with the official and final ones?

From the Oregon Judicial Department website that links readers to appellate court decisions:

"Notice Regarding Citation

The slip opinions published at this website are subject to copy correction prior to preliminary publication in the Advance Sheets and final publication in the bound volumes of the Oregon Reports.

The Oregon Appellate Courts Advance Sheets and Bound Volumes are published by the Publications Section of the Office of the State Court Administrator under the direction of the Oregon Supreme Court and are the official published decisions of the Oregon Supreme Court, Court of Appeals and Tax Court. ORS 2.150. For citation purposes, use the official case name as published in the Oregon Reports in the manner provided in the Appellate Courts' Style Manual. Oregon Rule of Appellate Procedure 5.20(4); UTCR 2.010(13).

Oregon law prevents us from responding to requests for legal advice from anyone except members of the Oregon Judicial Department. To understand and protect your legal rights, you should consult your own private lawyer or contact the Oregon State Bar Lawyer Referral Service at 1.800.452.7636 (within Oregon) or 503.684.3763 (Portland area).

For questions regarding the status of an individual case, please contact the Appellate Courts Records Section at 503.986.5555." (Link to source.)

Is anyone doing anything about this problem?  Yes, lots of people are.  For example:

In Connecticut: “The 2011 Connecticut Public Act 150 §28 mandates that the State Librarian, in conjunction with other key officials, establish standards for electronic authentication and preservation no later than January 1 of 2012. Accordingly, SNELLA recently submitted the Uniform Electronic Legal Material Act (UELMA) and our local inventory to the Connecticut State Library. A dialogue about UELMA is now ongoing: one that aims at contributing significantly to the ultimate policy/guidelines result.”  [From: September 2011 AALL Washington E-Bulletin]

How Do You Want to be Remembered? A Tribute to California Appellate Court Presiding Justice, David Sills

Lest you think Justice Bedsworth writes only humor – and appellate court decisions, read on:

"October 2011 - David George Sills (March 21, 1938–August 23, 2011)," by Justice William W. Bedsworth

Excerpt:

“… The PJ’s job is no different than the other justices’ except that you have to do all the administrative stuff in addition to the judicial duties. It’s pretty much a matter of, “We have eight people who are going to do this job: seven of them will do the job on horseback; you will do it while carrying a horse.”

…

He was as kind and generous a man as I’ve ever known. Rooms got warmer and brighter when Dave Sills walked into them. People got better. Problems seemed smaller. …

…

He loved history and politics the way most men love burgers and beer. Books on both overflowed the beautiful bookshelves he’d built in his workshop to line the walls of his study. But if you were up for burgers and beer, he’d be right there with you, talking about the Angels or Tiger Woods, or the fortunes of the Bradley Braves or his beloved Illinois. …" [Link to full tribute.]

Justice Bedsworth’s column, a Criminal Waste of Space, is published monthly in the OC Lawyer.