ZiefBrief

Law and Terrorism - A Scholarly Survey of Sources

If you're researching any legal issue — domestic or international, criminal or non-criminal — involving terrorism, make Andrew Grossman's Research Guide to Cases and Materials on Terrorism one of your first stops.

The author, a retired U.S. Foreign Service Officer and lawyer, writes in his introduction:

The point of this survey is not so much to list sources — many of these could be found with a search engine and legal database; others by using some of the better bibliographic sites listed here. It is rather to provide some assistance in planning research and in formulating issues to address — to examine the range of issues and provide links, first to sources that are considered reliable and unbiased, then to specimen law cases and scholarly articles and, finally, to opinions and arguments not otherwise adumbrated which, even if they are in support of a particular agenda are coherent, plausible and forthright in their advocacy or apologia. Collected here are many of the major court cases involving terrorism and terrorists of the modern era, as well as a sampling of issues related to terrorism.

Mr. Grossman's guide is hosted by New York University's GlobaLex, which publishes top-quality guides to researching foreign, comparative and international law. More information is available at the About GlobaLex page.

[A virtual hat-tip to GlobaLex editor Mirela Roznovschi.]

BooksOnPoint Helps You Find, Well, Books on Point

Just as politicians strive always to stay "on message," so do we librarians here at ZiefBrief. And our message for legal researchers is usually "Start with secondary sources" — meaning articles, practice guides, treatises, or their online equivalents. We push secondary sources because by covering the big picture, explaining rules, and citing to primary sources, they can save you hours of research time.

A new free tool, BooksOnPoint, makes it a little easier to find out which legal publishers might offer books on the topics you are researching.

WisBlawg has more at BooksOnPoint Indexes Web Sites of Legal Publishers.

Check it out… and don't forget to search your library catalog — that's Ignacio for folks at USF — and, if you have access, to check Westlaw and Lexis for secondary sources, too.

A grateful hat tip to Bonnie Shucha at WisBlawg.

Zief Law Library "Alumna" Leslie Campbell is Federal Librarian of the Year

Leslie Campbell, The Zief Library's head of public services from 1997 to 2001, has recently been named Federal Librarian of the Year. The Federal Library and Information Center Committee presents this award to a librarian who shows "active and innovative leadership and professionalism in the promotion and development of library and information services."

The award recognizes Leslie's accomplishments in her current role as  Law Library Program Administrator for the Administrative Office of the United States Courts. The citation says of Leslie:

…her energy and creativity raised awareness of the quality services provided by court librarians across the nation. She supported more than 15,000 judiciary legal researchers, managed the implementation of two national legal research contracts and protected judges’ personal information from illegal use. She also created a site for the judiciary’s Intranet that offers links to all online resources managed by the office and links to state, federal and general reference sites for 28,000 judiciary employees.

Congratulations, Leslie!

Filling the "Hollow Core" of Corporate Law - A New Article from Prof. Dibadj

Professor Reza Dibadj's new article, "Delayering Corporate Law," has just appeared in the latest issue of Hofstra Law Review. Writing in the wake of the recent corporate scandals, Prof. Dibadj offers new ideas for simplifying and revitalizing the core of corporate law.

Here's the abstract:

Corporate law has become unnecessarily complicated. Despite the proliferation of laws, problems fester and scandals erupt. Something is wrong. This Article seeks to delayer corporate law—to strip it down to its essence—and after doing so, offer concrete suggestions for reform. It is a first step toward a new minimalist architecture for corporate law.

The Article begins by arguing that the core of state corporate law—corporation statutes and fiduciary duties—currently offers precious little protection to shareholders. Contractarianism, manifested through enabling statues, reflects weak economics. Existing fiduciary duties are little more than rhetorical flourish. Rather than reexamine why the core of corporate law is empty, policymakers have instead added a series of layers, most notably securities laws. These reforms, however, merely operate as bandages to recover from the most recent scandal and further obfuscate the hollow core of corporate law.

The bulk of the Article offers a fresh path to reform. It draws on emerging paradigms in regulatory theory to argue that substantively, corporate law must reinvigorate fiduciary duties by resetting judicial "standards of review" to match "standards of conduct," while at the same time addressing the behavior of officers, not just directors. Finally, the institutional approach proposed is one of cooperative federalism: the federal government would set minimum standards, but implementation would occur through state courts via a "reverse-Erie" principle.

34 Hofstra L. Rev. 469-470

Dibadj, Reza R., "Delayering Corporate Law." 34 Hofstra Law Review 469 (2005) is available in full (as a PDF file) at the Hofstra Law Review web site. The article is also available in print in most, if not all, U.S. academic law libraries — including the Zief Library (where it's currently at the Circulation & Reserve Desk). In addition, Lexis subscribers can retrieve the article by using "Get a Document" and entering the citation: 34 Hofstra L. Rev. 469. Westlaw subscribers can use "Find by citation" or "Find & Print" and enter: 34 HOFLR 469.

[Other publications by Professor Reza Dibadj are listed on the Zief Library's Faculty Publications page. The USF Law School web site has this profile of Professor Dibadj.]

You Win Some, You Lose Some: Recorder and Other ALM Publications Leave Lexis

ZiefBrief had barely begun to celebrate the appearance of the Wall Street Journal on Lexis for law schools when word arrived that the Recorder, San Francisco's own legal newspaper, had been removed from Lexis — and not just the Recorder, but all other publications from American Lawyer Media, including the National Law Journal, the New York Law Journal, and lots of jury verdict data.

For USF law students, faculty, and staff, the news is not all bad. For now, Westlaw is maintaining its relationship with American Lawyer Media and still offers the Recorder (in the RECORDER-SF database), the National Law Journal (NLJ database), the New York Law Journal (NYLJ database), and other ALM content.

Some American Lawyer Media publications are also freely available at ALM's Law.com  site.

Lexis giveth, and Lexis taketh away…

The Wall Street Journal… Available on Lexis for Law Schools… At Last!

Law school students, faculty, and staff now — finally — have access to The Wall Street Journal on Lexis.

More than a year ago content from Factiva (The Wall Street Journal's corporate parent) moved from Westlaw to Lexis, and in the move law schools lost access to the Journal. At the time Lexis promised ZiefBrief that someday ("not never" was the exact time frame) the Journal would reappear, and now the day has arrived.

Along with The Wall Street Journal, law schools have also gained access to other Factiva content on Lexis, including the Asian Wall Street Journal, Barron's and Reuters News.

If you're an authorized Lexis user, you can get to The Wall Street Journal by following these steps: Select the "Find A Source" tab in the "Look for a Source" box; enter "Wall Street Journal" in the text box; make sure "Match terms in long names" button is checked. The Journal's coverage begins with January 1984.

[Thanks to Gleeson Library, all current members of the USF community have access to The Wall Street Journal via ProQuest Newspapers — which is why the law school did not feel the "Wexis" WSJ hiatus too keenly.]

Eliminating Trafficking via Women's Participation in Peacemaking & Peacekeeping - A New Article from Prof. de la Vega

Professor Connie de la Vega's new article, "The Role of Women in Peacekeeping and Peacemaking: Devising Solutions to the Demand Side of Trafficking," has just appeared in the latest issue of the William & Mary Journal of Women & the Law.

The article, co-authored by USF Law School alumna Chelsea E. HaleyNelson, appears as part of the Journal's 2005 Symposium on Women and War.

In their introduction, the authors write:

The liberation of a nation from armed conflict is a time of increased lawlessness and chaos that increases the vulnerability of women and children. There is little protection for women from exploitation during this period because the exploitation is either state condoned or state tolerated, with countries' own armed forces and United Nations (U.N.) peacekeeping forces committing or permitting some of the most egregious violations.

A country's post-conflict period is a critical time for including gender equality and ensuring women's involvement in the political processes that will subsequently shape the state. If new standards and conditions are to solidify into substantive changes in the post-conflict era and sexual slavery is to end, women must be involved in defining these new standards throughout the peace process. Yet, women are far too frequently left entirely out of peace discussions regarding the future of their nation, the drafting of peace accords, and the implementation of peace accords in the reconstruction period.

12 Wm. & Mary J. of Women & L. 437, 438-439

de la Vega, Connie & HaleyNelson, Chelsea E., "The Role of Women in Peacekeeping and Peacemaking: Devising Solutions to the Demand Side of Trafficking." 12 William & Mary Journal of Women & the Law 437 (2006) is available in print in most, if not all, U.S. academic law libraries — including the Zief Library (where it's currently at the Circulation & Reserve Desk). In addition, Lexis subscribers can retrieve the article by using "Get a Document" and entering the citation: 12 Wm. & Mary J. of Women & L. 437. Westlaw subscribers can use "Find by citation" or "Find & Print" and enter: 12 WMMJWL 437.

[Other publications by Professor Connie de la Vega are listed on the Zief Library's Faculty Publications page. The USF Law School web site has this profile of Professor de la Vega.]