Monthly Archives: October 2008

The Citation of Wikipedia in American Judicial Opinions

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“The Citation of Wikipedia in American Judicial Opinions”

LEE F. PEOPLES, Oklahoma City University School of Law

Wikipedia has been cited almost 300 times in American judicial opinions as of September, 2008. Courts cite Wikipedia for a wide range of purposes. Some citations are merely mundane references to everyday facts well known by the general public. In other opinions Wikipedia is cited as a basis for the court’s reasoning or to support a conclusion about an adjudicative fact at issue in the case. In a notable recent case, Badasa, v. Mukasey, 2008 WL 3981817 (8th. Cir. 2008), The Eighth Circuit remanded a Board of Immigration Appeals decision because it upheld a lower court’s finding based on information obtained from Wikipedia.

This article will comprehensively examine citations to Wikipedia in American judicial opinions. The impact of references to Wikipedia in judicial opinions on law of evidence, judicial ethics, the judicial role in the common law adversarial system, the de-legalization of American law, and the future of stare decisis will be explored. Best practices for the citation of Wikis in judicial opinions will be discussed.

 

Source:  LSN Law & Society: The Legal Profession Vol. 3 No. 30,  10/14/2008

US Constitution – in Graphic Form

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This from BoingBoing:

“Jonathan Hennessey and Aaron McConnell’s The United States Constitution: A Graphic Adaptation is a sweet, quick, thoroughgoing history of the US Constitution.”

I found more information about the book here, too.

Now to make the Federal Rules into a graphic novel….

Keeping up with what is going down…

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The financial headlines can be dizzying. 

As we tell our students, find a few good news sources and it will be a lot easier to make sense of it all. 

With that in mind, I found ”This Week in Securities Litigation” post on the SEC ACTIONS blog super helpful.   [The blog is written Thomas O. Gorman, former Senior Counsel with the SEC Enforcement Division.]

In a few short paragraphs, I got up to speed on the SEC ban on short selling and learned about the first ever publication of the SEC Enforcement Division Manual.

Hat tip to the ever helpful Securities Mosaic Litigator Blogwatch.

Aspen wigging me out

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So a week or two ago we received our one-volume, softbound supplement to Wigmore.  It was pretty thick, and the quality of the analysis is probably very good.  But the price was $ 522.00 (and that’s without shipping – I forgot what the total was). 

Today’s mail brought another Aspen supplement:  The Law of Lawyering, Third Edition, by Geoffrey Hazard, William Hodes and Peter Jarvis.  I don’t know how many pages it is, because it’s shrink-wrapped and we might be sending it back, so I don’t want to open it.  But I measured it with a ruler:  It’s less than 1/2 inch of paper, and its price is $ 302.00.  I don’t have a scale handy, but it can’t weigh but a half-pound or so, yet its shipping and handling cost is $ 26.00.

Can our students become good lawyers without The Law of Lawyering?  I think so.  And brilliant as our students are, the name Wigmore doesn’t mean a whole lot to them.  We probably won’t cancel Wigmore — at least not this year.  But with the economy the way it is, budget cuts are not unforeseeable.  Publishers, please take note:  there is a very strict limit to how many $ 500 books — or $300 for that matter — this library can buy under our current situation, and if our budget is cut, well that’ll be a whole nother story.

One for your shelves?

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On December 10th, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights will celebrate its 60th anniversary.  To commemorate this event, consider adding this CHILDREN’S book to your collection:

Amnesty International. We Are All Born Free: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Pictures. London: Frances Lincoln Children’s, 2008.

As the review in Publishers Weekly (9/29/08) describes, this is an easy introduction ”to the complicated subject of human rights.” 

The Amnesty International site has a nice page on the book including a few illustrations.

I’m very intrigued by the interpretation of Article 28.  ["Everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized."]  Chris Riddell illustrates this concept with a dragon in the middle of a mess. 

And, for Article 11 ["Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defence. . . ], artist Polly Dunbar incorporates a sweet little girl, a spilled vase of flowers and the feet of her parents.

Story time in the library anyone?

Online draft of Promoting Women’s Human Rights: A Resources Guide for Litigating International Law in Domestic Courts

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Global Rights, a human rights NGO, has posted a draft version of their resource guide - ”Promoting Women’s Human Rights: A Resources Guide for Litigating International Law in Domestic Courts.”  This would be useful for international human rights courses and clinics.

From the book’s introduction:

Promoting Women’s Rights: A Resource Guide for Litigating

International Law in Domestic Courts was designed as a practical

tool to help lawyers and other legal advocates use international

law to advance the promotion and protection of women’s human

rights in their daily lives. This guide considers how lawyers can

integrate international human rights standards into domestic

litigation and legal policy advocacy involving women’s rights; seeks

to encourage lawyers to undertake such advocacy; and provides

practical strategies on how lawyers might go about doing this.

Promoting Women’s Human Rights: A Resources Guide for Litigating International Law in Domestic Courts

http://www.globalrights.org/site/DocServer/PWR_ResourceGuideFIN_eVersion.pdf?docID=5063

Global Sustainable Tourism Criteria

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The Rainforest Alliance, United Nations Environment Programme, the United Nations Foundation, and the United Nations World Tourism Organization and dozens of other groups have released the Global Sustainable Tourism Criteria. The guidelines include coverage of sustainable management, social/economic issues, cultural heritage and the environment. 

Global Sustainable Tourism Criteria

http://sustainabletourismcriteria.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=58&Itemid=188

i.lex – Legal Research System for International Law in U.S. Courts

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The American Society of International Law (ASIL) has released its i.lex database of U.S. case law interpreting international law. Here is the description of the database from ASIL’s Web site:

This online database of select U.S. court cases and related materials is designed to serve as a practical resource for members of the judiciary and other legal professionals to identify and understand how international law is interpreted and applied by U.S. courts at both the federal and state level.

i.lex is not intended to serve as a comprehensive source of case law incorporating international law into the U.S. legal system. Rather, it offers users access to the most important cases involving particular areas of international law such as human rights, refugee and asylum law, diplomatic and consular relations, transportation and communication, trade and transactions, and more.

i.lex provides pdf versions of the opinions, as well as case summaries and brief anaylsis of a decision’s significance. One can search by keyword, topic, treaty or statute. The database includes both state and federal cases. Best of all, the folks at ASIL are not charging for this database.  Thanks ASIL.

i.lex Legal Research System for International Law in U.S. Courts

http://ilex.asil.org/

New resources for keeping up with class action litigation and global class action developments

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I’ve raved and raved about the Bloomberg Law Reports (only because our faculty keep telling me how good they are).  I’m pleased to see a new subject enter the arena:  Bloomberg Law Reports: Class Actions.  Vol. 1, no. 1 is dated September 2008.

The “Featured Article” is “Class Actions in Canada,” by Sean P. Wajert.

For those of you interested in class actions worldwide, we have a new resource here at Stanford, the Global Class Actions Exchange (which also has a paper about Canadian class actions — as well as papers covering many other countries).

How a law school grows

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Stanford Law School just distributed its annual Facebook, a bound photo directory for the school.  The first such Facebook was issued here in 1983.

So while sitting at the reference desk this morning, waiting for customers (it’s been a slow Friday), I counted faces in the first and most recent Facebooks and came up with this comparison:

  •                                         1983/84                    2008/09
  • Faculty                                   45                             55
  • Visitors/lecturers                   11                              83
  • Fellows                                    6                              23
  • Deans (other than faculty)      3                                6
  • Library staff                           25                              28
  • Law school staff                    53                             130
  • Advanced degree students     9                               65
  • First year students               171                             170