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.