Yale Law School has created a new, web-based judicial nominations database, available at http://judges.law.yale.edu. The database covers nominations from the 103rd Congress onward, and provides nominee names, nomination dates, nominating President, hearing dates, and nomination result. The database also provides RSS feeds of new nominations. Currently biographical information is provided only for nominees who are Yale graduates.

The Law Library has acquired a new database of English legal history materials from HeinOnline called Selden Society Publications & the History of Early English Law.

The Selden Society is devoted to the study of English common law and its legal system. Since the 19^th century, the Society has published original source materials, many which were previously unpublished, in its Annual Series. These materials include case reports, judges’ notes, treatises, and other legal documents, all published in full, along with translations to modern English.  

The database contains all volumes of the Annual Series, from 1887 to 2000. It also contains the Society’s Supplementary Series (from 1965-2000), which includes legal history bibliographies, as well as some original source documents that were not published in the Annual Series.

Along with these official publications of the Society, the database also contains a collection of scholarly articles about English legal history, as well as the English Reports and Statutes of the Realm. We encourage members of the Law Center community to take a look at this valuable new resource.

LexisNexis's new Associates Serving Public Interests Research (ASPIRE) Program provides free Lexis access to recent graduates working in public interest positions, including those deferred from law firm jobs and those who elect public interest work as a permanent occupation. Under this program, eligible gradutes may extend their Lexis access until September of 2010.  To read the eligibility requirements and apply, see http://www.lexisnexis.com/lawschool/registrationdeferredfalls.aspx.

Rumor has it that Westlaw has a similar program in the works, so we will provide additional information on it once more details are released.

The Library of Congress today announced the beta launch of its free Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers database, available at http://www.loc.gov/chroniclingamerica/home.html. The database allows users to search and view American newspapers from 1880-1910, and to find basic publication information (e.g., title, publisher, place and dates of publication) about newspapers dating from 1690 to the present.

    The WomanStats Project is designed to be the most complete online source for statistics on the status of women around the world.  The database is available free of charge and compiles over 260 variables and indicators of the status of women for 175 countries.  By registering for the site, researchers are able to construct their own tables of data by tailoring a search of variables to specific countries.  Variables include a variety of indicators, such as indicators of violence against women (ex: instances of rape and sexual assault), women's economic well-being (ex: employment restrictions based on gender), women's legal security (ex: citizenship laws), security for maternity (ex: social acceptance for breastfeeding), and health (ex: differential access to health care based on gender).

   The website and database are maintained by a group of scholars from three universities (Brigham Young University, University of Minnesota-Duluth, and University of California-Santa Barbara) who also have the goal of "assessing the linkage between the security of women on the one hand, and the security, stability, and behavior of nation-states on the other."  To provide users with more information both on new information and statistics available on the website as well as broader research findings, the organizers of the website also maintain a blog.

Earlier this month, Westlaw released the Obama Presidential Documents database (PRES-OBAMA).  It contains a series of documents issued by (or otherwise related to) the Obama White House since Barack Obama's election on November 4th, including executive orders, the inaugural address, and other statements.  In the coming months, Westlaw plans to add additional documents reflecting the policies of the Obama administration, such as bills, regulations, and laws.

For more information on accessing presidential documents from both the the current and prior administrations, see the Georgetown Law Library's Presidential Documents Research Guide.

Our undergraduate library subscribes to many interdisciplinary databases that law students may find useful for seminar paper research.  Socrates is a proprietary database which monitors and rates U.S. corporations using social and environmental criteria. Corporate profiles rate the strengths and concerns of these corporations on many issues, such as charitable giving, compensation, corporate governance, clean energy, employee benefits and much more.

Additionally, researchers can search by company name, ticker symbol, issues and involvement. Company statistics shed light on a corporation's diversity, charitable giving , employees and environmental liabilities. Searching by involvement lets researchers view all corporations involved with KLD defined "controversial businesses", such as firearms, gambling and nuclear power.

LexisNexis has introduced Lexis Web, a free way (at least as long as the search engine is in beta format) to search the web for legal authority and content.  Lexis Web is a legal-specific search engine that provides access to free web content.  According to the company, all results come from legal sites vetted by LexisNexis attorney editors.  Some example types of sites included in the search results include legal blogs, news, advocacy organizations, think tanks, court websites and government websites.

The search engine also allows users to filter and navigate their results using a left navigation frame and limit results by such factors as geography, company or individual name, or citations to specific cases.  Results can also be augmented by subscribed content available on Lexis (for users who have subscriptions to Lexis).

A free Reference Guide to using Lexis Web is available as a pdf file.  Try it out when searching the free web for legal information and post comments here about what you think.

In January, HeinOnline will add the United States Code to its core collection. The Code will be available in its entirety, including past editions back to the first from 1926 when the Code consisted of a single volume. The Code will also be searchable and in pdf format. You can read more about this new resource at the HeinOnline Weblog.

Have you ever been curious about what exactly happens to a case between the time it's released and the time it shows up on Westlaw, filled with headnotes and other value-added features?  If so, spend a few minutes watching a recent webcast produced by West entitled "A Day in the Life of a Case."  The webcast goes behind the scenes and traces the path of the recent U.S. Supreme Court case District of Columbia v. Heller (which struck down the D.C. gun ban) through the West editorial process.