ZiefBrief

Keeping Track of the Scoundrels in Sacramento Just Got Easier With the Free Online California Code of Regulations

While still a law professor, California Supreme Court Justice Frank C. Newman paraphrased a US Supreme Court Justice to the effect that "...if the average farmer, in order to protect his rights under laws like the Crop Insurance Act, had to read the Federal Register as he reads his daily newspaper, we probably would not need crop insurance acts because there would no longer be any time to plant crops."*
Farmers and other citizens here in California face an additional burden of keeping track of the myriad state regulations that issue out of Sacramento on an almost daily basis. It is the duty of the state Office of Administrative Law to compile all state regulations  and make them available to all interested parties through the California Code of Regulations.
Of special interest to researchers is the electronic version of the California Code of Regulations. Recently upgraded, the site allows paging through the entirety of Code section by section as well as adding the following search options:

Search for Words With the Code   
Search within Specific Title(s) of the Code   
Search for a Specific Regulatory Section of the Code   
Find a Specific California Regulatory Agency (including direct links to the Code sections that discuss the powers and responsibilities of each Agency)   

Best of all, the search engine appears to allow authentic words and connector searching using the same techniques you know and love from Westlaw. Searching by word for:

pr(parole) and gang w/s color or tattoo or insignia

locates the  relevant code sections that have the word parole in the preliminary section of the code and include the word gang in the same sentence as color or tattoo or insignia. This means all the power of Westlaw searching at no cost.

Important Downside: It is worth noting that with all the power of true Westlaw searching comes one major headache: if you search for a phrase of more than one word the search engine for the Code will read the space as an automatic OR connector. For example, if you run the following search:

parole violation

you will get 2810 "hits", many of which only include the word violation but not the word parole. The solution is to put all multiword phrases within quotation marks. So if your search is:

"parole violation"

you find a much more reasonable 55 hits, all of which deal with parole violation.

* see: 63 Harv. L. Rev. 929 at page 953, quoting Justice Jackson's dissenting opinion in  Federal Crop Ins. Corp. v. Merrill, 332 U.S. 380, 386 (1947)

Cupcake Brown, USF Law Alumna Tells Her Story

We take a moment to depart from reporting our usual dry legal books to mention an upcoming publication with a strong local association. The story of Cupcake Brown affirms the incredible resilience of the human spirit in the face of crushing adversity. Ms. Brown was abandoned, abused, addicted, and seemingly doomed to the ignominious death of a crack addict. But in an amazing reversal she salvaged her humanity and conquered her multiple addictions. She is also a graduate of USF Law (where she worked in the law library) and practices law here in San Francisco. Since graduation she has written the story of her life in A Piece of Cake: A Memoir, which will be published at the end of February. It is an unfortunate twist of fate that the work of fiction-writing "memoirists" such as James Frey may have tainted the whole genre of dramatic autobiography. It certainly would be a shame if the fallout from the Frey debacle kept anyone from reading Cupcake’s remarkable story.

Some trenchant reviews of A Piece of Cake:
Review by Janet Maslin in the New York Times (free registration required)
Review by Christina Eng in the San Francisco Chronicle

[update] CBS News Early Show Segment:
From Torment To Triumph: Cupcake Brown [March 14, 2006]

Codifying Public International Law - A New International Law Commission Site

The International Law Commission, a United Nations body whose object is nothing less than "the  promotion of the progressive development of international law and its codification," has a new, content-rich web site.

Since its beginnings in 1948, the ILC has addressed: the law of treaties; the succession of states; state jurisdiction and immunity from jurisdiction; the law of international organizations; the position of the individual in international law; international criminal law; the law of international spaces (including the law of the sea); the law of international relations; and the settlement of disputes.

The new ILC web site features background information, a research guide, a topical summary of the areas of international law the ILC has considered or is considering, and a fully-searchable and nearly-complete collection of all ILC documents from 1948 to the present.

[A tip of the hat to the reference librarians at the UN's Dag Hammarskjöld Library and their UN Pulse blog.]

Principles of Corporate Governance - New on Lexis

As the Enron trial unfolds with all deliberate speed, Lexis announces a timely new source: Principles of Corporate Governance: Analysis and Recommendations, covering "objective and conduct of the business corporation, the structure of the corporation, the duty of care and the business judgment rule, the duty of fair dealing, the role of directors and shareholders in transactions in control and tender offers, and corporate remedies."

Principles of Corporate Governance, while new to Lexis, was adopted by the American Law Institute in 1992 after lengthy study and analysis. The Zief Library's print copy of Principles of Corporate Governance: Analysis and Recommendations is at KF 1422 .P75 1994 Law Reserve.

Finding the Journal You Need At USF

Have a cite to an article but don’t have the text? Want to know if the journal where the article was published is available at USF? Try the Journal Finder, which is available right on the home page of USF's Gleeson Library.

To find out if USF has a specific journal, select "Title begins with" from the pull-down menu underneath the "Journal Finder" label, and enter first few words from the title (e.g., "emory bankruptcy" for Emory Bankruptcy Developments Journal). If you're not sure of order of words, select "Title contains…" from the pull-down menu and enter a couple of words from the title, e.g., "corporate delaware."

The Journal Finder will tell you if the journal is available to USF researchers in print, or via online sources such as HeinOnline or LexisNexis Academic—a version of Lexis for non-law students and faculty at USF. (The Journal Finder won't say if the journal is available via the law-school versions of Lexis and Westlaw. USF law students and faculty need to search "Find a Source" on Lexis or the directory on Westlaw to see if the journal they need is on the law school versions of Lexis and Westlaw.)

In addition to the Journal Finder search box on the Gleeson Library home page, there is also a separate Journal Finder page, complete with explanations and search tips.

And remember, the research experts at the Zief Library Reference Desk (415.422.6773) can help USF law school researchers locate journals that aren't available at USF at all.

Keeping Current on Saddam's Trial

The Law Library of Congress has unveiled a new collection of information about the trial of Saddam Hussein and other defendants associated with the previous regime in Iraq.

The site, The Trial of Saddam Hussein, covers: the background and historical context of the trials; the current defendants; the charges and allegations; and the procedural rules. The site also includes links to the texts of relevant laws, resolutions and treaties, and a short list of useful law review articles about the trial.

[Thanks to Luis M. Acosta, Legal Information Analyst at the Law Library of Congress for the tip!]

Legislative Histories - Compiled and Ready to Use

HeinOnline, known for its extensive collection of law reviews, has branched out into compiled federal legislative histories.

A compiled legislative history reproduces the full text of key Congressional documents, saving researchers the time and effort of having to find and copy the documents themselves. Many compiled legislative histories also include an introductory essay tracing the development of the law in question.

HeinOnline is launching their "U.S. Federal Legislative History Library" with a small but impressive collection of histories that covers: the ADA; ERISA; the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934; NAFTA; the USA PATRIOT Act; the Copyright Acts of 1909 and 1976, and copyright legislation of the 105th Congress; and the Clean Air Act. HeinOnline plans to add dozens more compiled legislative histories soon.

The Federal Legislative History Library also includes "Sources of Compiled Legislative History Database," a digital version of Nancy Johnson's Sources of Compiled Legislative History (available in print at the Zief Library, KF 42.2 1979 Law Reference Desk). This tool lists existing legislative histories, and gives full citations so that you can find them in the Zief Library or another library.

Related to the Legislative History Library is HeinOnline's new "U.S. Statutes at Large Library." U.S. Statutes at Large is the official chronological publication of U.S. federal legislation (and also includes many important foreign and Indian treaties.)

All these new HeinOnline products use HeinOnline's new "Lucerne" search engine — which will soon be available for all other HeinOnline materials (including their popular law review library)

USF researchers have access to HeinOnline both on and off campus. To use the compiled legislative histories, first connect via the HeinOnline start page. Select the "U.S. Federal Legislative History Library" link and then the "U.S. Federal Legislative History Title Collection" link.

Practical Information on Affordable Housing From Prof. Iglesias

Affordable housing is not a topic that has traditionally gotten a lot of ink from legal publishers, but now the ABA has just published The Legal Guide to Affordable Housing Development, edited by the USF School of Law's Professor Tim Iglesias  and his colleague Rochelle Lento from the firm of Dykema Gossett PLLC.

The ABA's blurb announces that the guide "covers the most important areas of law applicable to affordable housing development and provides a comprehensive overview of affordable housing laws."

Sponsored by the ABA’s Section of State and Local Government Law, Forum on Affordable Housing & Community Development Law and written by experts from all over the country, the Guide, in 13 chapters, deals with: planning; zoning, housing codes, and other federal, state and local regulatory issues; financing; enforcing regulatory agreements; and preservation. (For more detail, see the online table of contents.) Professor Iglesias is the author of Chapter 4, "State and Local Regulation of Particular Types of Affordable Housing."

The USF community will find The Legal Guide to Affordable Housing Development in the Zief Library second-floor stacks at KF 5729 .L44 2005.

And, The Legal Guide to Affordable Housing Development is available for purchase from the ABA

[Other publications by Professor Tim Iglesias are listed on the Zief Library's Faculty Publications page.]