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SCOTUSBlog v. US Law Week – Throwdown

This is the culmination of a week’s worth of blog posts comparing various ways of staying current with the USSC and focusing in on the two big contenders: BNA’s United State Law Week and SCOTUSBlog.

Although we took a fairly close look at the official USSC website itself there is no way that it can be in the running for the best source of current information. It is simply too clunky, too old-fashioned, with no Web 2.0 features, and no analysis or commentary.

So how do the two real contenders stack up in the four most relevant categories for staying current?

US Law Week – Supreme Court Today -
Fee: yes
Access to Documents: limited to opinions, orders, docket, calendar, merits briefs
Updates: by email
Analysis: post-decision

SCOTUSBlog and Wiki -
Fee: none
Access to Documents: everything in the file including petitions and amicus briefs
Updates: RSS feed, as often as they post (daily)
Analysis: both pre- and post-decision

So, despite the fact that US Law Week is probably the most reliable source (after all, as Tom Goldstein would say, a blog is just a blog) the features on SCOTUSBlog make it the best choice for staying current. The pre-argument analysis is on point and access to all of the documents is priceless. When you factor in the cost – well, there really is no contest.

But, since we are all lawyers here, consider these caveats and disclaimers. SCOTUSBlog has only been in existence a short time; US Law Week has been in it for the long haul. Does reliability count? You bet. And, for overall research of past USSC decisions Law Week absolutely beats SCOTUSBlog. Law Week’s backfile of decisions, bolstered with a human-generated index makes Law Week a legitimate research source.

Smart researchers will continue to use both because they are both worth watching. Not unlike these two guys in rubber suits slugging it out for world dominance:

Keeping Current with the USSC - Part Four

In Part Three we examined BNA United States Law Week and its well-regarded Supreme Court Today feature. This is a wonderful source but it comes with a price tag. What if you can’t or don’t want to pay?

The free alternative to US Law Week is the SCOTUS Blog and SCOTUS Wiki. This is the brainchild of Tom Goldstein, a partner at Akin Gump. Like Law Week, SCOTUS Blog offers national legal news. But, as serious blog, this news can be delivered by RSS feed on a daily basis. SCOTUS does not have the same size of reporting staff as BNA but they do a great job. Since the Akin Gump name is on the line you can see that they would be careful about the kinds of stories they would post.

There are several user friendly features in the tabs across the top of the main page: Orders and Opinions, New Filings, and Term Tracker. There are two additional features that will make your job of following the Court much easier. Petitions to Watch highlights interesting cases up for consideration at the Justice’s conferences throughout the term. You should also follow Commentary and Analysis that gives insight into issues and cases facing the Court. Look for the daily Today at the Court feature (this is the one for October 9th) that recaps the day’s activities and the Round-up feature (this is the one for the whole week) that does the same.

But for serious Court watchers the best feature is the link to the SCOTUS Wiki. On the Wiki you can find a complete review of the cases pending or recently heard by the Court. If we follow the link to Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission you will see links to the Docket, the original Circuit Court opinion, the Merit Briefs, and the Amicus Briefs. In an appropriate case there is a link to the Petition for Certiorari. These are scanned copies of the original documents actually on file with the Court. Scroll down the page to find Pre-Argument Articles, Argument Preview, and, when the case has been heard, Oral Argument Recap, Opinion Analysis and links to other online sources such as the Oral Argument Transcript. These features are closely edited by the Wiki editorial staff.

In the history of the world there have been many titanic battles for dominance: King Kong v. Godzilla, Red Sox v. Yankees, Alien v. Predator. And now: US Law Week v. SCOTUS Blog. In the Throwdown, one person’s opinion about which one wins.

Keeping Current with the USSC - Part Three

In Part Two we looked at staying current by using the USSC official website. Is there an easier way to stay current? Yes. And the first way to answer that question is to use the traditional, reliable source, Supreme Court Today. This is a part of BNA U.S. Law Week. How to get there? Here's the breadcrumb trail for UConn law students...

Library Main Page > Research Databases > BNA Electronic Publications > browse the list to United States Law Week. You can access this directly on campus; from off-campus be ready with your UConn netid and password.

You will land on the US Law Week page. This page is a prime source for national legal news. BNA takes pride in source-checking its stories. They have a regular staff of reporters.

For the USSC page, use the hyperlink in the left column - Supreme Court Today Home Page. Your landing page (Most Recent Action) will be deceptively simple and spare but quite functional. Browse down it to find links to summaries of recently argued cases and recently entered orders (granting or denying certiorari) . There is a search function that will allow you to find previous cases.

Use the navigational links in the left hand column to get to the Court's Journal, the Argument Schedule, and the Status of cases. You can search for the text of Opinions by case name, court term and topic. And, use the Argument & Review Stories to get the summary of all of the important activity in the case including an analysis of what happened at oral argument and the issues raised by the briefs.

Back at the U.S. Law Week site there is more than just current news: the Research Tools function that includes human generated indexing; a From The Editors feature that puts the past term in perspective: the Circuit Splits feature where federal Circuit courts of appeal splits are noted.

So, is this the best answer on how to stay current with the USSC? Just remember that this is a fee service. All of this great, reliable information comes with a price tag. And, unless you are a paid subscriber (like UConn Law is) you can't get updates delivered automatically by email.

If you want free, you might want to try the newcomer - SCOTUSBlog.

Metanoia: Online Databases for Women Studies Research at UConn

Those attending Metanoia may be interested in these cross-disciplinary research databases available to the entire University of Connecticut community.

Women Writers Project

The Brown University Women Writers Project is a long-term research project devoted to early modern women's writing and electronic text encoding. The goal is to bring texts by pre-Victorian women writers out of the archive and make them accessible to a wide audience of teachers, students, scholars, and the general reader.

Women and Social Movements in the United States

Collection of primary materials on the history of women in social movements in the United States between 1600 and 2000. Includes a Dictionary of Social Movements.

Women’s Studies International

Core topics in women's studies as well as current topics in feminist research. Includes sociology, history, political science, public policy, business, and education. Indexes journals, newspapers, newsletters, books, proceedings, and dissertations.

Defining Gender

Coverage from 1450 – 1910, contains complete scanned books, pamphlets, periodicals, collections of letters, biographies, short stories, novels, and poetry, as well as recent thematic essays by leading scholars in the field of Gender Studies which place the documents within a broad historical, literary and cultural context. Currently containing sections on Conduct and Politeness and Domesticity and the Family, Defining Gender includes some of the seminal texts used in Gender studies from authors such as Christine De Pisan, Daniel Defoe, Delarivier Manley, Margery Kempe, and Mary Wollstonecraft. Some key areas of behavior of men and women addressed include cookery, health, courtship, marriage and role of husband and wife, sexuality, courtly behavior, children, education, class, and religion and morality.

LGBT Life with Full Text

Covers traditional academic, lifestyle and regional publications. Includes the full text of significant GLBT journals, magazines and newspapers as well as some books. Full-text journals include The Advocate, Gay Parent Magazine, Girlfriends, GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian & Gay Studies, James White Review, ISNA News, Ladder, Lesbian Tide, New York Blade, ONE, Tangents, Washington Blade, and many more.

Sociological Abstracts

Scholarly journal articles about sociology and other social and behavioral sciences including women’s studies.

Alternative Press Index

Index to articles from alternative, radical, and left periodicals, covering cultural, economic, political, and social change, with coverage from 1991 to the present.

Alternative Press Index Archive

Index to articles from alternative, radical, and left periodicals, covering cultural, economic, political, and social change, with coverage from 1969 to 1990.

Metanoia: Research Resources on Feminist Legal Research

Those attending Metanoia events may be interested in these recent publications available at the law library:

"Trivial complaints": the role of privacy in domestic violence law and activism in the U.S., by Kirsten S. Rambo (2009).

Call number K3263 .R37 2009 (4^th floor)

Race to injustice: lessons learned from the Duke lacrosse rape case, edited by Michael L. Seigel (2009).

Call number KFN7977 .R33 2009 (2^nd floor)

Equal : women reshape American law, by Fred Strebeigh (2009).

Call number KF226 .S87 2009 (5^th floor)

The rights of women : the authoritative ACLU guide to women's rights, by Lenora M. Lapidus, Emily J. Martin, and Namita Luthra (2009).

Call number KF478 .L37 2009 (5^th floor)

Sharing our stories of survival : native women surviving violence, edited by Sarah Deer (2008).

Call number E98.W8 S43 2008 (4^th floor)

Rape as a weapon of war: accountability for sexual violence in conflict: hearing before the Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law of the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, One Hundred Tenth Congress, second session, April 1, 2008.

Available online here

Are women human? and other international dialogues, by Catharine A. MacKinnon (2006).

Call number HQ1236 .M33 2006 (4^th floor)

Feminist legal theory : a primer, by Nancy Levit and Robert R.M. Verchick ; foreword by Martha Minow (2006).

Call number KF478 .L49 2006 (5^th floor)

Keeping Current with the USSC - Part Two

The USSC website is the obvious first stop for anyone who wants to keep current with the Supreme Court. In fact, this is one of the first places to look for recently issued opinions. The website design is simple and clean but unintuitive. The Sunlight Foundation has proposed a complete website redesign. You can find mock-ups of the proposed new pages here. According to the SCOTUS Blog, the Sunlight Foundation made the mock-ups after the Supreme Court asked for the power to control its own website.

From the current site you can do keep track of what's happening at the Court. You will be able to find 2009 Term opinions here and archived opinions back to the 2006 Term here. You can even find the (almost) official bound volumes - we have the official paper copies in the federal room at the Library.

Argument calendars are here, transcripts of oral arguments are here. Transcripts are now being posted very quickly. Monday's arguments are already available. There is a link to the ABA site that provides access to merits briefs. There is even a link to an Orders and Journal page where you can keep track of the Court's routine business of granting or denying certiorari.

So what's missing? (1) There are no RSS feeds, no way to be notified about events as they happen. (2) There is no real news and analysis. To be sure, there is a way to access the Questions Presented by cases accepted for hearing by the Court (just try it). But this is a long way from news and analysis. (3) There is no way to access any documents other than the merits briefs. No way to look at a petition for certiorari, no way to see the amicus briefs.

In short, the current site is functional, but only with practice, patience and perserverance. It will make you say - there has to be a better way. There is. In the next installment - BNA US Law Week...

Keeping Current with the USSC - Part One

Today is the First Monday in October and that means it is time to become United States Supreme Court watchers. Not that we don't already do that. But, October is the time when we begin to pay even closer attention than usual.

And how to we begin to pay attention? How do we follow the Court? Staying current is always a problem for lawyers. We can read newspapers, listen to NPR, and watch the news on Fox television. But these generalized sources can be unsatisfactory. These sources do not give lawyers sufficient detail, analysis, or access to the primary documents to allow us to stay up to date.

If we are interested in one particular case we can, of course, set up an Westlaw or Lexis alert of some kind (and there are several kinds, all very effective and fairly costly). But if we want to follow the trends in the Court, see how the current Term of Court is progressing, or find about about issues that we might not have been aware of, we have to hew to some middle ground between popular media pablum and the laser-like and tunnel vision focus of RSS feeds.

Three ways of staying current with the general workings of the Court are immediately apparent.

1. The USSC website itself. Brought to you by our friends in the federal government, this one is free.

2. The BNA service, Supreme Court Today, a feature of US Law Week. BNA's product page is here. This is a commercial service and there is a fee.

3. The relative newcomer - SCOTUS Blog with its direct links to SCOTUS Wiki. This is a free service from Akin Gump, a D.C. law firm that specializes in practice before the USSC.

So which is better? If you are just interested in keeping track of the USSC which of these three will serve you best? This week we present a multi-part look at these three sources for news about what is happening at the USSC. Tomorrow, the USSC site.

Metanoia: Preventing Violence Against Women Week

UConn Law School Metanoia events for the week include:

Monday, October 5, 2009 - Evening Film and Discussion
6:30 p.m.
William R. Davis Courtroom, William F. Starr Hall
View "The Accused" along with members of the Law School community.
A panel discussion will follow the movie.
Light snacks and beverages will be served.

Tuesday, October 6, 2009 - Information Exchange and Ice Cream Social
11:00 a.m.
Quad in front of the library. Rain plan to be announced.
Come and enjoy a special treat while browsing through literature. Sign your name or write a message on posters that will be hung in the library foyer.
Representatives from Connecticut Sexual Assault Crisis Services, Inc. (CONNSACS), the UConn Health Center and local shelters will be on hand to talk about the services they provide.

Wednesday, October 7, 2009 - "Preventing Violence Against Women in Connecticut: Reflections on the 25 Years since Thurman v. Torrington"
5:30 p.m. panel discussion with reception to immediately follow
Panel discussion: William R. Davis Courtroom, William F. Starr Hall
Reception: Reading Room, William F. Starr Hall
Join members of the Law School community, graduates and other guests for a discussion of the Tracey Thurman case.

Thursday, October 8, 2009 - Jill Davies on "Confronting Violence Against Women in the Practice of Law"
12:30 p.m.
Starr Reading Room, William F. Starr Hall
Join members of the Law School community for lunch and a discussion with Jill Davies, deputy director of Greater Hartford Legal Aid and author of "Violence Against Women."

RSVP is required for all events.

Looking for more? UConn is in full swing this week with Metanoia:

This year's Metanoia coincides with the 30 year anniversary of our 1979 Metanoia, "Violence in the Community." The 2009 Metanoia on Preventing Violence Against Women is a week of events beginning Sunday, October 4, 2009, the date of the 1979 event. Wednesday, October 7th and Thursday, October 8th are preferred dates for keynote speakers, whose presentations will be complemented by in-class discussions led by faculty and staff. The program is being planned by a committee of students, staff, faculty, and community partners and represents all of UConn's campuses. A variety of programs and events will take place across the University campuses during this week.

And finally, for suggestions in keeping with Metanoia, check out this Feminist Law Profs post of sexual assault prevention tips "guaranteed to work," putting the responsibility firmly where it belongs.

CT Judge finds exception to protect at-will employees who experience domestic violence

This recent case breaks new ground as New London Superior Court Judge A. Susan Peck finds a public policy exception to the at-will employment doctrine in cases of domestic violence. The court stated, in short, that employers cannot fire employees simply because they have experienced domestic violence. For those new to employment law, at-will employment means that the employer can, in most situations, fire their employees for any or no reason at all (excepting state and federally protected categories, such as race, sex, etc.). Exceptions to this doctrine are made infrequently.

The court stated that “[t]he plaintiff has sufficiently stated a claim of wrongful discharge in violation of a clear public policy against domestic abuse” as reflected and established in numerous state laws. Further, the plaintiff lacked any other statutory remedy.

In this particular case, the employee's husband assaulted her, she came to work with some physical evidence of the battery, and her doctor recommended she work part-time instead of full while she recovered. Her employer thought, apparently, that having a battered employee reflected poorly on their institution. I hate to say it, but she worked in a library.

Read the full story at the Connecticut Law Trib (subscription resource, will work on campus only). If you're interested in the docket, find it here.

Stay tuned next week for Metanoia, as we provide a series of posts discussing the wealth of resources available at our library for those seeking to promote peace with women.

Is There a Law of Cloud Computing?

During the summer Kindle owners who had purchased George Orwell's book, 1984, received a truly Orwellian surprise - the book was removed from their Kindle without any real notice. Here's a great post by David Pogue explaining what happened. Still, this raised an interesting question: does Amazon have the legal right to do this?

Here's another issue for all of you who are using OpenOffice for word processing: what are your privacy rights and who owns/controls your stuff, anyway? And did you realize that OpenOffice was a Cloud platform?

David Navetta is publishing a series on the Legal Implications of Cloud Computing on LLRX. Here's the link to Part I. Navetta is the Vice-Chair of the ABA's Information Security Committee, and is also Co-Chair of the PCI Legal Risk and Liability Working Group. He probably knows what he's talking about.

There are many interesting legal problems associated with using the Cloud. Consider discovery. If we are conducting discovery at present we can search for emails and documents on a party's computer. But if that party has its documents on the Cloud who owns them? Will that party be able to retrieve them? Will the other party be able to make an effective Request for Production? What are the duties and obligations of the owner of the Cloud platform?

And, what is a document or business record, anyway? As Navetta says:

...considering that multiple copies of data may be created, stored, recompiled, dispersed, reassembled and reused, the idea of what constitutes a "record" or a "document" for evidentiary purposes may be difficult to grapple with in the cloud.

Stay tuned for further links as the series develops. Or, set up an RSS feed from LLRX for yourself.

Davidoff Book Excerpt on NYT: Gods at War

Steven Davidoff is the newest member of the UConn Law faculty. His just published book, Gods at War: Shotgun Takeovers, Government by Deal, and the Private Equity Implosion, is currently excerpted in the New York Times. Congratulations, Steven!

Publisher description:

An engaging exploration of modern-day deals and deal-making

Gods at War details the recent deals and events that have forever changed the world of billion-dollar deal-making. This book is a whirlwind tour of the players determining the destiny of corporate America, including the government, private equity, strategic buyers, hedge funds, and sovereign wealth funds. It not only examines many of the game-changing takeover events that have occurred in the past years, but also puts them into context and exposes what is really going on behind the scenes on Wall Street. Gods at War completely covers the strategic issues that guide the modern-day deal, and since they unfold under the shadow of the law, it also focuses on the legal aspects of deal-making and takeovers.

• Each chapter unfolds through the lens of a recent transaction, from the battle between Yahoo! and Microsoft to the United Rental/Cerberus dispute
• Provides in-depth explanations and analysis of the events and actors that have shaped this fast-moving field
• Examines the federal government's regulation by deal approach to saving the financial system and explains the government's biggest "deals", including its bail-outs of AIG, Bank of America, Bear Stearns, and Citigroup

Filled with in-depth insights that will enhance your understanding of this field, Gods at War offers an engaging look at deals and deal-makers in the context of recent historical events. It's a book for those who want to understand deals, takeovers, and the people and institutions who shape our world.

It will be available at the UConn Law Library momentarily. Request through interlibrary loan here.

Constitution Day

Five years ago, Congress decided that our citizenry should know more about the founding document of our nation. Constitution Day was thus created, published in the U.S.Code, and later fleshed out in the CFR, requiring educational institutions that receive federal funding to provide yearly programmatic events on the topic of this most fundamental legal instrument.

At UConn, our own Dean Paul is introducing this year's keynote speaker, John E. Finn, Professor of Government from Wesleyan University, who will discuss “How We Lost the Constitution: Civil Liberties and Presidential Power in the Global War on Terrorism.” The event is open to the public on Thursday, September 17 from 5 - 6 pm in Konover Auditorium in the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center on the Storrs Campus. A short reception will follow.

Libraries, despite their reputation for being quiet places of study and solitude, are actually hot beds of constitutional controversy. The First Amendment looms large in decisions about library collections and book banning remains a viable alternative for some who oppose certain content. Libraries have traditionally served as meeting places for community groups, some of which espouse beliefs abhorrent to other members of the community. What to do? Libraries and the First Amendment takes a look at the most frequent constitutional issues facing libraries and lets "You be the Judge" on landmark cases.

For something on the lighter side, the National Constitution Center has created this lovely quiz: Which Founding Father are You? (I happen to be Roger Sherman. Who knew?!)

Law Dictionaries for Your iPhone

There are three law dictionary apps available for download to your iPhone: the free Nolo’s Plain English Law Dictionary (reviewed here); the moderately-priced Barron’s Law Dictionary (reviewed here); and Black’s Law Dictionary, the most citable and definitive, but also the most expensive (reviewed here). All are available through iTunes.

For reviews of other useful iPhone apps, go to the University of Kansas Law School blog, where they have ranked the top 10 apps for law students, or check the iPhone J.D. web site’s index of apps.

Air Force Legal Materials

The Air Force Criminal Court of Appeals will be on campus this week providing a mock argument demonstration for our students. Those interested in air force legal research might take advantage of some these resources available via the library. There are many other available databases in both Westlaw and Lexis. If you want to know more, please ask at the reference desk.

Military Criminal Justice: Practice and Procedure (2008), via LexisNexis.
Also available in print on the 5th Floor: KF7620 .S34 2008

Military Rules of Evidence Manual, via LexisNexis
Also available in print on the 5th Floor: KF7628 .S26 2006

Air & Space Power Journal, via Westlaw

Federal Human Resources - U.S. Air Force Materials, via Westlaw

Federal Military Law - Cases, via Westlaw

Air Force Law Review (AKA United States Air Force JAG Bulletin, AKA United States Air Force JAG Law Review), available via HeinOnline.

U.S. Air Force Academy Journal of Legal Studies (1990 - 2003), via HeinOnline.

Civil Law Opinions of the JAG, available via LLMC Digital.

Homeland defense: actions needed to improve management of air sovereignty alert operations to protect U.S. airspace : report to congressional requesters (2009), available via GPO Access.

Interdisciplinary Legal Research

There is traditional legal research and then there is ... Interdisciplinary Legal Research. As you might expect, this involves combining law with another field of study. Examples might be elder law and gerontology, environmental law and green technology, oil & gas law and geology.

Where do you go to find interdisciplinary resources? Here at UConn we have access to a huge number of online journals and databases. You can reach those by going to our Research Databases page and looking for a database that might fit your research needs. There is both a search box and a browse function.

If you are interested in the legal aspects of oil & gas exploration you will want to search a database on geology. Just search for geology using the search box - you'll find the GeoRef database that is searchable by keyword. You can find dozens of articles about oil & gas exploration.

Still can't find what you want? Try the Homer Babbidge Database by Subject page. This page organizes the databases of articles by subject.

If you are interested in finding articles about the battered woman/spouse syndrome you might look at the databases compiled under the Women's Studies link. This will take you to the Women's Studies International database. A simple keyword search brings up dozens of articles about battered women.

Doing interdisciplinary research means that you might need to step outside the standard, typical legal research resources. Fortunately, we have hundreds of those non-law sources available.

Celebrating Dean Blumberg

This week marks the 90th birthday of University of Connecticut Law School's Dean and Professor of Law and Business, Emeritus, Phillip Blumberg.

He is a magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, 1939 and of Harvard Law School (1942) and has an LL.D. degree (hon.) from The University of Connecticut. Before turning to legal education, he practiced law on Wall Street for 20 years and was the Chief Executive Officer of a NYSE listed financial corporation. He has since served as Professor of Law at Boston University School of Law (1968 to 1974) and has been at Connecticut since 1974, serving as Dean (1974-84) and as Professor since. For decades, he has conducted research and published on the legal problems of large corporations. His seven volumes in the series on The Law of Corporate Groups (1983-98) have attracted world-wide attention. He has written other books, including The Multinational Challenge to Corporate Law (1993) and The Megacorporation in American Society (1975). He has published several dozen articles in legal periodicals and has presented papers at international conferences on multinational corporations in England, Italy, and Australia. He has been a visiting lecturer at universities in The Netherlands, Poland, and Australia. He is a member of the American Law Institute and has served as an Advisor in three A.L.I. Restatements (Corporate Governance, Suretyship, and Agency). He has also served on the Legal Advisory Committee of the New York Stock Exchange.

He is pictured here with Kurt Strasser, the Phillip I. Blumberg Professor of Law. He is perhaps most famous for his publication, The Law of Corporate Groups, which you can find on Reserve at the law library's Circulation Desk. His most recent scholarship, coauthored with Professor Strasser, focuses on the disparities between the legal models governing enterprise groups and the reality of modern business entities.

Blumberg has shifted his attentions in the past few years toward a topic with little to do with corporate groups. Cambridge University Press will be publishing The Repressive Jurisprudence of the Early American Republic: The First Amendment and the English Legal Heritage next spring.

The law library has created an exhibit in the display case across from the Reference Desk where you can read more about Dean Blumberg's many contributions to UConn Law School and to the legal profession. His dedication to both may be unsurpassed in both depth and longevity. Happy birthday, Dean Blumberg!

"However much I would like to read, think, travel, exercise, and walk in the woods, I really prefer to work on The Law of Corporate Groups."

-- The Starr Report
Summer 1990

Hat tip to Lea Wallenius and Janis Fusaris.

The 25 Greatest Legal TV Shows

The August issue of the ABA Journal lists the 25 greatest legal TV shows of all time, as chosen by a panel of experts who write or teach about the nexus of law and pop culture. Did your favorite show make the list?

You might also want to check out one of the following books on the subject of television and the law:

• Law and Justice as Seen on TV


• Prime Time Law: Fictional Television as Legal Narrative


• Lawyers in Your Living Room: Law on Television

Serial Set Now Available on LexisNexis Congressional

LexisNexis Congressional now includes full text access to the United States Congressional Serial Set (1789 to 1969). The Serial Set, considered one of the most important historical collections of federal publications in existence, contains reports and documents either produced or ordered by Congress, as well as presidential communications and treaty materials. It includes Congressional reports on public and private legislation; Congressional journals, directories, and manuals; annually submitted reports from Federal executive agencies; survey, research, and statistical agency publications; and selected reports from non-government agencies. All documents are fully searchable and in PDF format. For more details about the contents of the Serial Set, click here.

Attention Students! Library Carrel Reservations

Why Sign-Up for a Library Carrel?

All students at the Law School are eligible to reserve open carrels on the first, fourth and fifth floors of the library on a first-come, first-served basis.

It is not necessary to have a reserved carrel to use the library, but its another tool available to assist with research and study. Open carrels are great for storing library materials when doing legal research.

Schedule for Carrel Reservations:

Open carrels are available on a first-come, first-served basis. Just stop by the Circulation Desk to reserve your carrel. Carrel reservations are for one academic year.

Third and fourth year law students and LL.M. students: Reservations begin today!

Second year law students: Reservations begin Tuesday, September 15th

First year law students: Reservations begin Tuesday, September 22nd

Please stop by the Circulation Desk for more details.

Tracking Congress with Web 2.0

Congress is back today from its August ("Townhall Meeting") recess and Advanced Legal Research classes are starting up. There is no better time to look at how to track Congressional activity via Web 2.0 tools.

Interested in a particular bill? Using these two sites you can have information about any bill sent to you via email or, using your RSS reader, it will magically appear on your desktop.

1. GovTrack.us. This is an official government site. They freely admit to using material from Thomas, the Library of Congress site. But, GovTrack.us makes use of a series of Web 2.0 tools to allow tracking bills, resolutions, the activities of members of Congress, voting records, and actions by Congressional committees. As you can see, they added most of these tools this summer. The most interesting is a widget to allow you to have automatic feeds posted to your website or facebook page.

2. OpenCongress.org. This is a private site posted by the Sunlight Foundation and the Participatory Politics Foundation. The interface is different from GovTrack.us. OpenCongress.org, however seems to have a slightly easier to use RSS feed mechanism with a completely intuitive "subscribe to this bill" feature that sends updates about a particular bill right to your reader. This site also have a "Battle Royale" feature that aggregates users' reactions to a particular bill (approval ratings, comments, tracking and so forth).

It is worth taking a look at this post by Peggy Garvin on LLRX or this one by Jason Sowards on the RIPS blog to get a fuller picture of these two sites.

Don't have a reader? Try the reader that comes with MyYahoo or iGoogle. Don't like the interface? Branch out and try Bloglines, Google Reader, Newsgator, Netvibes or one of the dozens of free RSS aggregators.

Labor Day Weekend Hours

The Library will be closed on Monday in observance of the Labor Day Holiday.

We are are open regular hours tomorrow (9:00-5:00) and Sunday (1:00-9:00).

We hope everyone has an enjoyable holiday.

Sacred Cows Begone: More Firms Forced to Pick Lexis or Westlaw

When the money flows, large law firms and their libraries provide access to all manner of sophisticated legal and financial research databases, reports law.com today.

"[C]osts for electronic re­sources other than LexisNexis and Westlaw rose in 2008, with the average firm spending just over $1 million, compared to some $929,000 in 2007."

Many of these resources seemed indispensable, until the economy crashed. Now a growing number of law firms are being forced to make the ultimate choice: Westlaw or Lexis. They can no longer afford or justify access to both.

Last year just 12 percent of firms said they intended to move to a single-vendor strategy. This year, 31 percent did. "In good times, we could all have Coke and Pepsi," says a library chief. "Now management is more willing to say that we'll make do with one."

Some firms, even BigLaw, are looking for cost-effective alternatives. Earlier this year Locke Lord Bissel & Liddell made news when it published a memo requiring that all non-billiable research be done first in Loislaw.

All non-billable legal research involving case law, statutes or regulations at both the state and federal level should first be performed using Loislaw. Loislaw should also be used for billable research where appropriate, resulting in a much lower cost to the client. If additional research is required on Lexis or Westlaw that research must be billed to a client/matter. [Locke Lord Bissell & Liddell Memo]

Fortunately for you, UConn Law School Library provides access to Loislaw. Please ask at our reference desk if you have any questions about Loislaw or any other non-"wexis" legal research alternatives.

Guantanamo: Abuse of Executive Privilege?

The West Hartford Town Hall Forum is hosting Wells Dixon, Staff Attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights, on Monday, September 21 at 7:00 pm where he will discuss executive privilege and prisoner abuse at Guantanamo.

Wells Dixon is a West Hartford native and attended West Hartford schools. He graduated from John Hopkins University and University of Colorado Law School. He is a former law clerk to the Honorable Christopher Droney of the US District Court for Connecticut. At the CCR he works on the Guantanamo Global Justice Initiative callenging the detention of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. He lectures and comments frequently on national security issues, executive detention and torture. Wells Dixon says the government seems to have given drugs to detainees whose extended captivity made them distraught or rebellious. “Many of these men have become desperately suicidal,” Dixon says. “And the government’s response has been to administer more medication, often without the consent of the prisoners.”

Read this Washington Post article for more information.

Location: 50 South Main Street, West Hartford Town Hall. Free validated parking available at the forum. Cost: Free to the public. For more information, contact Flo at 860- 232-8993.

Hat tip to Susan Severo.

U.S. Patents Visualized

Typologies of intellectual property graphically represents patents filed with the United States Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO). From the About Us page:

This webapplication provides a way to navigate, explore and discover the complex and interconnected world of ideas, inventions and big business. Patens are categorized by classification (subject of the patent), agents (lawyers), company, inventor and country. Within each category, unique icons are generated based on the values of each instance, and how they relate to other categories.

Every icon, patent or list item is clickable and amounts to a new relational search query. This enables you to create an endless route through the data, finding some great inventions along the way.

Hat tip to Computational Legal Studies.

Multitasking Bad. Focus Good

As you start the new semester you might want to take heed of a recent study reported in the NYTimes this weekend. Stanford researchers have determined that multitaskers are not doing many things better; they are doing many things worse. The study began as an attempt to find out why multitaskers could do so many things so well. Instead, the researchers found the opposite.

So. When you are switching back and forth between tasks remember that focusing on one thing at a time will help you do that thing better.

There are some exceptions. Apparently, listening to instrumental music can actually help sharpen your focus.

The really scary thing is that there appears to be a lasting effect. That is, multitaskers continue to be impaired even after they stop. It may take some time to learn how to be focused.

Maybe this is why when you are sitting in a bar, listening to live music, watching the crowd and talking with your friends you can't seem to carry on a coherent conversation. That doesn't seem to be the best time to discuss the "strict scrutiny" test.

Welcome UConn Class of 2012

We're thrilled you're here!

To make your life as a 1L a little smoother, and to take the guess work out of the library, we've created a cheat sheet just for you of the resources in the library that are most applicable to your life right now (there's lots more stuff in the library than this, but you don't need to know about it till later in your illustrious law school career...).

The cheat sheet tells you where to find library copies of your textbooks, past exams to use for studying, and which study aids are best for which classes. Only first year subjects are included.

If you have any questions about this or anything else, feel free to ask at the reference or circulation desks.

Library's Regular Semester Hours

The Library's regular semester hours have begun!

We are open:

Monday - Thursday: 8:00am - 11:00pm
Friday: 8:00am - 9:00pm
Saturday: 9:00am - 5:00pm
Sunday: 1:00pm - 9:00pm

We will be closed Monday, September 7th for Labor Day.

More information about our hours can be found on our website.

We're on Twitter!

RSS got you down?  Tired of the same old feedreaders?  Can't bother with checking a website?

Then follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/UConnLawLib!

Welcome!

Welcome to the University of Connecticut Law School Library Blog!

Here you will find:

• Library news and updates
• Study suggestions and secrets
• Information about UConn law school events 
• Current awareness updates
  
• Janis Fusaris' famous Tip of the Week
• Legal news and curiosities 
• Legal information and research industry

 So check us out!