ZiefBrief

One in 100 Americans Behind Bars -- Pew Report Released

The Chronicle of Higher Education points out in this article that a new report on the US prison population and spending has just been released. The report is the work of the Pew Center of the States and is titled One in 100: Behind Bars in America 2008 (click here to link directly to a 37 page .pdf file.)  Why the interest by the Chronicle of Higher Education, you may ask? Well, it turns out that there are now 5 states (Vermont, Michigan, Oregon, Connecticut, and Delaware) that spend more on corrections than they do on higher education. California, with an $8.8 Billion budget for corrections is very close to this mark spending 83 cents on correction for every dollar spent on higher education. This report is a treasure trove of statistics and bibliographical information for anyone interested in prisons, policy, or the general population.  

Westlaw's KeyRules

Westlaw has released a new tool for litigators called KeyRules.   KeyRules "gathers all applicable rules governing common federal and state court procedures and condenses them" into one document with links to all of the listed rules.  This feature is currently available for motions, pleadings, and filings in all federal district courts, the Court of Federal Claims, and in some state and local courts in California, Florida, Illinois, Michigan, Missouri, Ohio, and Texas. 

KeyRules is easy to use.  You just select the court in which you're filing documents, then you select the type of filing that you will be doing from a detailed list (such as an amended complaint, motion to suppress, or notice of deposition).  After you've made these selections, KeyRules will generate a document for you, which lists applicable rules and supplies links to their text.  Your document will also contain a narrative that explains the rules' requirements.   A gentle warning, though -- this product is the product of human editors and, as we all know, even the best editors can mess up.  It's always best to double-check to make sure that you have reviewed all of the rules that apply to your filing.

You can access KeyRules from several locations on Westlaw, including the Litigation tab, the California tab, the Litigation subdirectory under the Westlaw Directory, and the Links tab for a court rule or procedural statute you are viewing.

A Flood of Free Federal Appellate Case Law

Suddenly, after years of doing without any decent free source of federal appellate decisions, legal researchers now have least two excellent options:

• The Public Library of Law (from Fastcase)
• US Court of Appeals Cases and Opinions (from Justia)

Both the Public Library of Law and Justia have federal circuit court cases going back to 1950. Their search engines are user-friendly, and each allows you to limit your search to a particular circuit.

(The Public Library of Law and Justia (via its Supreme Court Center) also have all Supreme Court decisions. In addition, Justia has federal district court opinions from 2004 to the present, and the Public Library of Law has state appellate and high court cases from 1997 to the present.)

Why so much new federal case law all of a sudden? As Robert Ambrogi explains it, in mid-February public.resource.org and the Creative Commons jointly released 18 million pages of public domain federal case law. After that, it was just a matter of days before Justia and the Public Library of Law took this raw data and rolled out search engines for the decisions.

[Thanks to Robert Ambrogi's Lawsites  for the tip about the Public Library of Law, and thanks to Bonnie Shucha of WisBlawg for the tip about Justia!]

Presentation on Research Strategy & Secondary Sources

Here is a copy of the presentation for students participating in a clinical program: Download ClinicalExternsSpr08.ppt

Helpful Roundup of Law Review Submission Resources

Concurring Opinions has a nice post summarizing some of the online resources for scholars submitting articles to law reviews.  Included are links to online guides to article length restrictions, law review contact info, law review ranking info, and electronic submissions. 

The Mother of all Jury Questionnaires

Anne Reed over at Deliberations has posted a proposed jury questionnaire for the upcoming federal corruption trial of former Orange County sheriff Mike Corona, his mistress, and his wife. It's a remarkable document -- because of its length and because of the extraordinarily detailed questions. Anne makes a great point in her post -- a proposed questionnaire of this length can be used by other attorneys as a voir dire checklist of sorts.  Here are some highlights from the Corona proposed questionnaire:

The defense's proposed questions: 

• Which statement do you agree with more? Birds of a feather flock together or opposites attract?
• Have you ever flown on a private jet?
• For you personally, what is the most offensive English curse word or profanity in use today?
• What are your feelings about marriage in general?

I am heartily glad I'm not a potential juror in Orange County! 

So you want to be a law librarian...

You're in law school and intend to complete your J.D., but are not so sure you want to practice law.  You're not alone.  If you're considering alternative careers, give some thought to law librarianship!  Just ask one of the several librarians here at Zief who have made the switch and have no regrets!

Anyway, if you're even remotely considering getting a Master's degree in Library & Information Science (required for most professional law librarian jobs), check out the University of Arizona's Law Library Fellowship program.  It's open to anyone with a law degree, and recipients get FREE tuition at Arizona's School of Information Resources and Library Science as well as a part-time job at the University of Arizona School of Law Library while working on their MLIS.  It's great experience to list on your resume, plus you can pay the bills.

For more information, click here, or contact Michael Chiorazzi at the U of A Law Library at michael.chiorazzi@law.arizona.edu.

Valentine's Day

Here is a roundup of notable Valentine's Day posts and news stories:

• Law and Letters: Against Love, Or At Least The Idea Of It
• Law Blog: Office Romances & The Law: a Q & A With Ashley Brightwell
• AP: Radio Station Giving Away Free Divorce.  What a way to observe Valentine's Day!
• South Carolina Family Law Blog: Valentine's Day Tips to Stay Happily Married
• CM Law Library Blog: Valentine's Day Research Contest
• And for you bargain-hunters out there, some recommendations on budget bubbly from the New York Times:  Champagne: How Low Can You Go?

Happy Valentine's Day! 

Web 2.0 for Legal Researchers

We're giving a presentation this week on just a few of the Web 2.0 applications that are useful for legal researchers.  You can find a copy of our presentation here: Download Web20LegalResearch.ppt

Successful Statute Searching on Lexis and Westlaw

ZiefBrief has noticed that researchers skilled in other aspects of Lexis and Westlaw struggle at times with statute searching.

Diane Murley of Arizona State's Ross-Blakley Law Library must have observed these struggles too, because she's been blogging succinct, invaluable tips for getting the most out of statutes on Lexis and Westlaw.

So far, there are four tips in the series:

• Finding Statutes on LexisNexis
• Finding Statutes on Westlaw
• Printing Statutes on LexisNexis
• Printing Statutes on Westlaw