ZiefBrief

HeinOnline Is Blogging!

Need PDF versions of law review articles, sections from the Code of Federal Regulations, or Federal Register pages? Trying to find an older law review article that isn't available on Lexis or Westlaw?  Looking for federal legislative history?  If your answer is "yes" to any of these questions, you need HeinOnline, an online resource available to all USF law students, staff, and faculty. 

For tips on using HeinOnline, you can visit the rather quaintly-named HeinOnline Weblog, which gives all kinds of valuable tips on how to get the most out of this fabulous online resource!  Almost all large law firms subscribe to HeinOnline (92% of the top 100 law firms in the U.S. are subscribers, to be exact), so it's a good idea to become familiar with this resource in law school so that you can search with ease when you begin practicing.

Memo to Associates: Lose the Uggs!

According to an article in today's Wall Street Journal, law firm associates are having a hard time figuring out what to wear to the office. The disgruntled partners interviewed for this story told the WSJ that associates are just not getting that suits are still an essential part of good lawyering.  Tom Mills, a partner in Winston & Strawn's Washington office, called associate attire "abysmal."  (Note the spiffy pocket hanky in Tom Mills' website profile photo -- very sharp!)  Renee Brissette, a partner at Manatt Phelps in New York, admitted that she chose to give a coveted assignment to a well-dressed associate instead of to a "brilliant" but slovenly associate who wouldn't improve his attire.  And at Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft, associates who wore their Ugg boots all day allegedly received a note reminding them to "change out of their snow boots" after they arrived at the office. 

The bottom line -- if you're working in a mid-sized to large law firm, you should follow your mom's advice and "dress for success" when you have client meetings or courtroom appearances.  Wondering what that means?  Check out the excellent "Guide to Dressing for Interviews with Legal Employers" (short PDF) for some tips on dressing for important occasions from the University of Missouri-Columbia School of Law's career services staff.  Although the tips were created for OCI, new associates can use them to choose the right wardrobe for the courtroom or boardroom.  For those working in a "business casual" office, here are some good tips from Virginia Tech's career services office.

Photo credit: "UGG australia" by chrisjohnbeckett, Creative Commons license.

Westlaw Hornbook & Nutshell Initiative Leaves Law Students Out

ZiefBrief was surprised to learn recently that Westlaw now includes some hornbooks and nutshells. (As of today, there are 7 hornbooks, and 16 nutshells — a tiny percentage of what's available in print.)

ZiefBrief was not at all surprised to discover, when we tried to field test these online nutshells and hornbooks, that they are not included in law school subscription plans. Having nutshells and hornbooks available to law students on Westlaw would no doubt completely undercut the market for the print versions of these excellent study aids, and we can't imagine that West's book publishing division would put up with that.

So who does this help? Researchers with commercial accounts. Nutshells and hornbooks are great way for lawyers to get up to speed quickly on new and unfamiliar areas of law, and having them on Westlaw puts them in the hands of attorneys who wouldn't normally have print copies hanging around.

(To see what hornbooks and nutshells are available, log on to Westlaw, and enter "IDEN" in the "Search these databases" textbox. At the IDEN search screen, switch to "Terms and Connectors," and run this search: hornbook or nutshell. Academic users can run this search, but they won't have access to the publications .

United Nations Treaty Series - Online and Free

The United Nations has quietly eliminated all access fees for its online U.N. Treaty Series.

The U.N. Publications office offers this free access via a generic username and password:

Username: treaties

Password: 12345

To search the treaties, visit the United Nations Treaty Collection, select "Access to Databases"  (near the bottom of the page), then select "United Nations Treaty Series." Results include full text and exact page images.

[Thanks for the tip to U.N. research expert Wiltrud Harms of the U.C. Berkeley Law Library!]

[Update, January 30,2008]  Wiltrud Harms brings more news from the U.N. Treaty Section on the status of the online U.N. Treaty Series. The Treaty Section confirms that access is now free, but also writes:

But at the same time, we need to alert you to the fact that the website that you see will be abolished and replaced by a new website, which is currently under construction.

As the opening page of the current site mentions: the site was frozen per 15 November. This means that the status of the multilateral treaties has not been updated since. The Depositary Notifications have been added since then.

Stay tuned for further updates once the new U.N. treaty web site is up.

Professor Richard Leo's New Book on Police Interrogation

Professor Richard Leo's new book, Police Interrogation and American Justice, will be available from Harvard University Press in February 2008.  Professor Leo "draws on extensive research to argue that confessions are inherently suspect and that coercive interrogation has led to false confession and wrongful conviction. He looks at police evidence in the court, the nature and disappearance of the brutal 'third degree,' the reforms of the mid-twentieth century, and how police can persuade suspects to waive their Miranda rights."  Police Interrogation and American Justice will be available in the Zief Law Library in a few weeks.  You can find Richard Leo's faculty profile here along with a list of his extensive scholarly works on criminal justice issues.

Handy Guide to Tackling Multi-State Legal Research

If you practice with an institution that represents clients with national or multi-state business activities, you can be sure that, at some point in your career, you'll be asked to "find the laws relating to X legal issue" in a handful of states.  If you're really unlucky, you'll be asked to do a 50-state survey of the laws in a particular area. 

Two law firm librarians, Margi Heinen and Jan Bissett, have just published a very useful research guide designed to help researchers tackle multi-state legal research efficiently.  You can find this guide, "Reference From Coast to Coast: Learning to Love Those 50 State Surveys," on the always-excellent LLRX.com.  The authors cover resources for multi-state research from Lexis and Westlaw as well as great free Internet resources, like the National Conference of State Legislatures' 50 State Legislative Tracking Web Resources, which links to multi-state surveys on different legal topics available on the web. 

Will Clients Kill the Billable Hour?

It's no secret that most law firm clients hate the billable hour.  Cisco general counsel Mark Chandler recently had this to say about billing by the hour -- "the most fundamental misalignment of interests is between clients who are driven to manage expenses, and law firms which are compensated by the hour."

As associate salaries skyrocket, legal news sources are reporting that clients are not just grumbling about the billable hour, they're actually demanding alternative payment mechanisms for legal services.  Lisa Lerer has an article on Slate entitled, The Scourge of the Billable Hour, which speculates that the legal industry may soon divide into "three fairly autonomous markets" because of client unhappiness over the billable hour.  Lerer argues that:

Companies will still pay hourly rates to hire white-shoe law firms for specialized, bet-your-company kinds of work. On the opposite end, however, clients will stop taking their rote legal work to law firms altogether. Companies already outsource relatively simple matters like document review to consulting services. And as technology improves, more programs will let companies handle their own contracts online.

Some smaller, regional law firms have already started to use client discomfort with the billable hour and high associate salaries to their advantage, publicizing their willingness to delay billable hour requirements for new associates.   I think Lerer is right -- the mega-firms probably will continue with the status quo.  But if mid-sized firms are smart, they should be able to position themselves to cash in on some of this billable hour discontent by offering clients alternative ways to pay for legal services.