Monthly Archives: October 2009

Free resources: will they ever measure up?

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Using the terminology of “hooks” instead of Tinkerbells, Bob Berring offers his opinion on commercial legal products, government web endeavors and free legal resources in a video posted here to a Thomson Reuters blog Legal Current: http://legalcurrent.com/2009/10/29/berring-on-free-legal-information/

I agree that the market for editorialized legal resources is something that will propel West and Lexis (and new-kid-on-the-block Bloomberg) into the future.  I also hope that pioneers like LII, Tim Stanley at Justia.com and Carl Malamud at PublicResource.org, and those who follow suit, will continue to take free resources to places and in directions we might not even be able to think of right now…straight on till morning.

A brief comment on the video from Cornell’s Legal Information Institute, a group who has been providing free access to legal resources for almost two decades can be found here.

“Unauthorized Copying and Sale by Westlaw and LexisNexis of Appellate Briefs…”

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Earlier today, we blogged about two recent legal news items (here and here) on the copyright concerns regarding California Supreme Court appellate briefs appearing on Westlaw and LexisNexis.

As a follow-up, we have posted (with permission) the full text of the letter from attorney Edmond Connor, asking the court to amend Rule of Court 8.212.

The subject line for the letter reads: “Unauthorized Copying and Sale by Westlaw and LexisNexis of Appellate Briefs Served on Supreme Court Pursuant to Rule of Court 8.212.”

Court Struggles to Balance Public Access With For-Profit Interests

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Court Struggles to Balance Public Access With For-Profit Interests

By Laura Ernde
Daily Journal
10/30/2009

“Three months after an attorney complained that the California Supreme Court was giving away valuable appellate briefs to for-profit firms, the court is still trying to figureout how to get itself out of the sticky copyright dilemma without reducing public access.”

This all began when attorney Edmond Connor contacted the court in July after finding his brief on Lexis (and not for free).  More on this here. Read the letter that he sent to Justice Ronald M. George and Mr. William C. Vickrey this summer.

Brief Fight Likely to End in Compromise

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From tomorrow’s (Friday’s) San Francisco Recorder:

Brief Fight Likely to End in Compromise
The Recorder

By Mike McKee

October 30, 2009

The [California] Supreme Court sounds willing to end its practice of shipping briefs from all the state’s appellate cases to Westlaw and LexisNexis, which charge for them. An Irvine lawyer [Edmond Connor] saw a copyright problem…

Some more from the article:

…

‘Connor, who claims court briefs are lawyers’ copyrighted property, wrote again last Friday, urging the court to at least amend Rule of Court 8.212 — which requires lawyers to file either one electronic copy or four hard copies of their briefs with the high court — to instead require only one paper copy.

“Litigants will not have to incur the needless time and expense,” he wrote, “of providing the court with extra copies of briefs that the court simply discards — or gives away to vendors.”

…

Latin American Studies Full-Text Online

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International Information Services has recently launched a subscriber ($) database of full-text journals from various disciplines, focsuing on Latin America. There appear to be only a handful of legal journals on their list of publications. For now, many of the items are available for free.  Spanish and English language content is planned.

LatAm Estudios Texto Completo en Línea / Latin American Studies Full-Text

http://www.latam-studies.com/

From the database description:

Ninety-five percent of the content is licensed from top Latin American and Caribbean institutions and universities. Much of the important scholarly content for Latin America comes from Latin America, yet little of it is included in the major U.S. or European scholarly indexing services. LatAm-Studies targets this content. We index for free-text searching and offer you the full-text of everything.

LatAm-Studies Full Text Online is a database service dedicated to the promotion and dissemination of research on Latin America and the Caribbean. We have licensed journals and other academic content of the most prestigious research institutions in the region and the world. Because we charge a subscription fee for access to the service, we are able to pay royalties to our content providers in order to help them thrive and to support continuing research. In addition, we keep our subscription fees at low cost to achieve the widest possible dissemination of content.

Country Coverage
LatAm-Studies.com brings together thousands of full-text reports on 46 countries.* Coverage includes all countries in South America, Caribbean, Central America and Mexico.

Subject Coverage
The reports included in the database cover a multitude of business, government, economic, and social issues.

Examples of specific subject coverage include finance, trade, environment, human resource development, history, languages, culture, bests practices in government, fisheries, tourism, education and research on women. An average study is 10 pages long and contains research, analysis and forecasts. Most contain statistical tables, charts, and/or graphs.

Document Browsing
Studies are arranged for easy browsing by subject, study provider, and alphabetical order.  In addition, all studies are indexed in a comprehensive database that is quickly searchable using free text. Each month, the home page highlights new and noteworthy studies and updates.

The database search engine offers advanced search features for experienced researchers while delivering excellent results for novices, because it forgives spelling errors and automatically stems. Users can browse by country to find country specific annual statistical overviews.  Multi-country and Latin America wide comparisons are also available.

ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights

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On October 23rd, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) officially inaugurated the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights. The Terms of Reference that are the by-laws for the commission can be found at: http://www.aseansec.org/DOC-TOR-AHRB.pdf

Excerpts from the Terms of Reference:

PURPOSES

1.4 To promote human rights within the regional context, bearing in

mind national and regional particularities and mutual respect for

different historical, cultural and religious backgrounds, and taking

into account the balance between rights and responsibilities;

MANDATE AND FUNCTIONS

4.2. To develop an ASEAN Human Rights Declaration with a view to

establishing a framework for human rights cooperation through

various ASEAN conventions and other instruments dealing with

human rights;

MODALITIES

6.8 The AICHR is the overarching human rights institution in ASEAN

with overall responsibility for the promotion and protection of

human rights in ASEAN.

Additional information available at 

CHA-AM HUA HIN DECLARATION ON THE INTERGOVERNMENTAL COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS

http://www.aseansec.org/15thsummit/Declaration-AICHR.pdf

New GAO Report on Law School Cost and Access Issues

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The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) has recently released a new report titled “Higher Education: Issues Related to Law School Cost and Access.”

The report includes briefings the GAO made to the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) and to the  U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Education and Labor.

Interestingly, although multiple factors — such as the move to more “hands-on,” resource-intensive legal education methods –  may affect law school cost and access, American Bar Association (ABA) accreditation requirements “do not appear to be a major driver.”

For instance, according to the report, most law school officials “do not cite ABA accreditation standards as having an impact on minority access at their schools.”

Federal Communications Commission Goes Live with New Version of Electronic Comment Filing System

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The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) released its improved Electronic Comment Filing System (ECFS) 2.0 today, which can be used — importantly — for searching/look-up of comments as well as their filing.

See the Managing Miracles: Policy for the Network Society blog entry discussing the new release and its significance.

The Cartography of Legal Inquiry

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New from Legal Writing Abstracts, Vol.4 No.28: 10/23/2009

by Tonya Kowalski
Washburn University School of Law

Abstract:

“This Article-in-Progress is the first to offer legal educators a comprehensive approach to the transfer of learning across the entire curriculum. It is also the first to propose that law schools employ schema theory to help students encode knowledge and skills for future transfer, as well as to conceptually integrate their courses. In the sample schema provided, students can use four categories of specific core lawyering skills as “constants” for navigating their coursework and employment. Finally, the author details a four-step “core skills approach” for aiding transfer, including the core skills schema; charts that show how various skill sets apply across the curriculum; a universal metacognitive reflection exercise; and additional sample exercises tailored to cue previous knowledge across conceptual bridges, such as the one that spans the distance from legal writing courses into clinic.”