It takes a lot to make ZiefBrief chuckle at something on YouTube but our crack librarian-in-training/intern Suzanne Mawhinney shared this with us and we thought we would pass it along. The work of Stanford Law students, it is only NSFW if you lip read. Enjoy:
ZiefBrief's authors are shocked and dismayed to find that ZiefBrief has not made it onto the list of the "50 most powerful blogs," compiled by the UK publication, the Guardian. How could we have been overlooked?
The top 5 on the list? The Huffington Post, Boing Boing, Techcrunch, Kottke, and Dooce. I'm sure we'll make it next year.
What would you do if you came home one day and found a mob of 30 people
looting your home? Robert Salisbury, a Jacksonville, Oregon contractor,
faced such a crowd and it appears that the Internet is to blame.
Someone placed an announcement on Craigslist stating that Salisbury was
moving and that everything was up for grabs -- and grab they did. The
distraught homeowner said "I informed them I was the owner, but they
refused to give the stuff back, they showed me the Craigslist printout
and told me they had the right to do what they did." Eventually, the
local constabulary arrived, but not before several cars and trucks
filled with Salisbury's possession had fled the scene. Read the full
Seattle Times article here.
This incident is eerily similar to one that took place about a year ago in Tacoma, Washington. In that case the police were successful in tracking down the author of the bogus ad and she was later charged with second-degree burglary, malicious mischief and criminal impersonation. Read the full Seattle Times article here.
Original link in the decidedly non-legal blog, BoingBoing
Here is a roundup of notable Valentine's Day posts and news stories:
Happy Valentine's Day!
It seems like everybody, but everybody has a blog these days (including Geoffery Chaucer at the ZiefBrief favorite Geoffrey Chaucer Hath a Blog.) Not wanting to be left out of the fun, the US Government is blogging up a storm at Govgab. This new effort is the product of the Office of Citizen Services and Communications out of the U.S. General Services Administration. This rather breezy look at the Federal Government has been around since September of '07 so it looks like it is here to stay. The bloggers state:
In our daily jobs, we encounter a staggering amount of U.S. government information and services that can benefit your life. From saving money and visiting National Parks to finding out about government auctions and the latest recalls, we want to bring these resources to you in a new way—through our blog.
This is not the site to go to conduct a legislative history or to track current regulations but it might be fun to add to your collection of blog feeds -- who knows when you might need to know about the Fed's take on Preparing for a Baby on a Budget or Buying a New Car.
Public.Resource.Org issued a press release today announcing that they will "release a large and free archive of federal case law, including all Courts of Appeals decisions from 1950 to the present and all Supreme Court decisions since 1754. The archive will be public domain and usable by anyone for any purpose." They are able to do this thanks to an agreement they reached with Fastcase, Inc.
Carl Malamud, the founder of Public.Resource.Org is famous for his efforts making the SEC's EDGAR materials available to the general public for free. There is a great story about Malamud and his effort to convince West Publishing Company to allow his organization to digitize West materials at Tim O'Reilly's (of O'Reily computer books) blog.
The newest edition of the Z-Flyer, the newsletter of the Dorraine Zief Law Library is available now. Featured articles include reports from librarians Lee Ryan and Shannon Burchard on their activities at the American Association of Law Libraries summer conference in New Orleans as well as a autobiographical essay from Jill Fukunaga, the newest member of the law library staff.
Click on this link to open a copy of the newsletter (requires Adobe Acrobat Reader or similar software that can open a .pdf file)
Concurring Opinions recently highlighted a fabulous post by Anne Reed at Deliberations, which compiles eye-opening thoughts on jury duty from bloggers who are either serving on a jury, experiencing voir dire, or otherwise engaged in jury service. Here's my favorite from The Hiding Place:
*sigh* How the hell did someone like me wind up serving on a jury? I'm easily bored, disagreeable yet strangely apathetic, and I spent the entire day making rude comments, poking a cricket with my shoe and rolling my eyes whenever one of the (many) idiots in the jury pool said something stupid... which was often. Plus, I think one of the attorneys is an absolute moron.
Funny thing - the judge kept yawning really hugely and dozing off during the trial. I think the bailiff might have napped a little bit, too.
If you're the defendant in a medical malpractice trial, it might be a good idea to refrain from expressing unflattering views about the jury on your blog while the trial is in progress. But Dr. Robert Lindeman, who was blogging anonymously on drfleablog as "Flea," decided to forge ahead and give his blunt and detailed assessments of the plaintiff, the plaintiff's attorney, and the jury on his blog, and it was only a matter of time before he was unmasked. According to this Boston Globe story, opposing counsel asked Dr. Lindeman while he was on the stand, "Are you Flea?" Dr. Lindeman admitted that "Flea" was his blogging persona, and the next day, the case settled for what was characterized as a "substantial" sum.
The implications of this story? Well, for starters, litigators may need to start asking their clients whether they blog at the very beginning of an engagement. If the answer is yes, attorneys would be well-advised to set some ground rules for their clients on what they can reveal about the litigation in which they are involved. Attorneys should also examine clients' blog content to ascertain whether any of the existing posts could have a negative impact on litigation strategy.
If you're looking for drfleablog, don't bother. It's been taken down, and there aren't any juicy bits from the trial on the archived pages on the Wayback Machine.
Update: New York Personal Injury Law Blog has some excellent and extensive posts on this topic, including some posts that were written before Lindeman's identity was revealed. Scroll through the posts tagged "medical malpractice" to read Eric Turkewitz's take on this story and to read cached versions of drfleablog.
Jill Fukunaga will be joining the staff at the Zief Law Library in June as our new Collection Development Librarian. As Collection Development Librarian she will oversee the process by which new materials are evaluated and selected for the library collection as well as working at the reference desk and teaching legal research techniques. Currently she finishing up a stint as a Reference Librarian & Lecturer in Law at the UCLA School of Law. What makes Jill noteworthy (or should that be "blogworthy"?) is that she has been profiled in the Law Librarian Blog, a member of the Law Professor Blogs Network.
To find out more about Jill and the road that brought her to the Zief Law Library check out the Spotlight on Law Librarians.
Regular readers of ZiefBrief will remember that librarian Amy Wright was singled out for a similar Spotlight back in November of '06.
