Due Process: The Georgetown Law Library Blog - Technology News

The Cornell e-Rulemaking Initiative Announces a Beta Test of "Regulation Room"

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 15:18:35 -0500

The Cornell e-Rulemaking Initiative is previewing its new Regulation Room at http://www.regulationroom.org/. Regulation Room utilizes collaborative tools and other innovative features to "increase and enhance public engagement during the administrative rulemaking process."

From November 12th - 22nd, Regulation Room is running a test commenting period on a proposed National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) rule on new tires. Note that this is only a test, however, as the NHTSA is no longer accepting public comments on the proposed rule.

The Regulation Room is moderated by Cornell Law School students under the close supervision of Law School faculty and the Industrial & Labor Relations (ILR) School's Scheinman Institute on Conflict Resolution. It is hosted by Cornell's Legal Information Institute (LII).

For more information, see the "About" and "FAQ" sections of the Regulation Room website.

Free case law searching through Google Scholar

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 09:10:00 -0500

Through Google Scholar's advanced search page, it is now possible to limit your search to case law and law journals available on the web. This includes law journal articles contained in select subscription databases. It is also possible to search journal articles and legal opinions combined, just federal case law, or just case law from a state of your choosing. The Internet for Lawyers web site has more information.

While this is an exciting and useful development, it is important to remember that not all law journals or case law is searchable through this interface at this time.

To be able to access journal articles in subscription databases when you are off campus, be sure to edit your Google Scholar Preferences to add Library Links for "Georgetown University Law Library."

Tweeting is illegal in District Court

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 10:26:09 -0500

In a recent decision issued by the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Georgia, a reporter's use of Twitter during a trial was prohibited according to Rule 53 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. The reporter for the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer requested permission to issue tweets throughout the court proceedings of a criminal case, but the court found that this constituted "broadcasting" which is not allowed under the current rule.

West releases 29 law book titles for Kindle

Fri, 09 Oct 2009 11:54:00 -0500

West announced yesterday that 29 of its most popular law book titles are now available for the Kindle eBook reader. Titles include Guerilla Tactics for Getting the Legal Job of Your Dreams, Contracts in a Nutshell, and Justice Scalia's Making Your Case: The Art of Persuading Judges. A complete list is available from their press release.

Facebook Agrees to Shut Down Beacon in Class Action Settlement

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 09:05:00 -0500

In a proposed settlement for a class action suit, Facebook has agreed to shut down its Beacon marketing system. The agreement is before the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California: Lane v. Facebook Inc., N.D. Cal., No. 5:08-cv-3845, 9/18/09).

Beacon is a controversial Facebook system that monitors a users purchases on certain online venders and then publishes that information on the user's news feeds, read by the user's Facebook friends.

Facebook aslo proposes creating a $9.5 million settlement fund, partially to pay damages. Part of the of the fund would launch a privacy foundation to fund and sponsor programs designed to educate users, regulators, and enterprises regarding critical issues relating to protection of identity and personal information online through user control, and to protect users from online threats.

Read more about the case through the library's subscription to BNA Privacy Law Watch.

Full text of the Motion for Preliminary Approval of Class Action Settlement Agreement is available at http://0-op.bna.com.gull.georgetown.edu/pl.nsf/r?Open=dapn-7w6jg2.

Full text of the proposed Stipulation and Agreement is available at http://0-op.bna.com.gull.georgetown.edu/pl.nsf/r?Open=dapn-7w6jjb.

Ten Online Social Networking Mistakes by Lawyers and Judges

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 09:06:00 -0500

IMS ExpertServices posted an online list of 10 mistakes that lawyers and judges made while using online social networks.

Highlights of the list include a lawyer who asked for a continuance because of a death in the family but had posted Facebook status updates about going partying.

Another highlight was from a judge who friended a lawyer trying a case in his court. The lawyer posted a status during the litigation that "I have a wise judge." Opposing counsel moved for a new trial and the judge removed himself from the case and granted the new trial. The state's Judicial Standards Commission issued a public reprimand for violating the prohibition against a judge engaging in ex parte communications.

California Court May Order a Blog to Reveal the Identity of an Anonymous Commenter

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 09:44:00 -0500

This week the Sacramento Bee reported that a California judge ruled that a litigant may learn the identity of a person who posts an anonymous comment on a blog.

In the case Calvin Chang, a police officer for the University of California in Davis filed suit against UC, claiming discrimination and breach of a settlement agreement in a prior lawsuit. David Greenwald, who operates a blog called The People's Vanguard of Davis, wrote about the suit and people commented. Chang believes that one anonymous comment was written by a 'managing agents' of the university and contained information that would violate the agreement of the prior settlement agreement.

The California judge ruled that Chang can hire a third-party to investigate whether the author of the comment was a manging agent. If it was the court would allow Chang to request that Google, the Vanguard's former host, provide him with the anonymous poster's e-mail addresses and log-in information.

The Sacramento Bee also reported that the judge ruled that the First Amendment generally protects anonymous speech, but online anonymity may be breached. "When vigorous criticism descends into defamation, constitutional protection is no longer available."

Read more about the case in the Chronicle of Higher Education, provide through the library's subscription.

AALL keynote speaker Prof. Jonathan Zittrain's recent NY Times Op Ed

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 11:11:58 -0500

Harvard law professor Jonathan Zittrain also spoke this spring at Yale's Library 2.0 conference; this past Sunday, July 19th, his opinion piece "Lost in the Cloud" appeared, with a run-down on the up-and down-sides of cloud computing, both practical and legal. He proposes some possible improvements: requiring social networking and other cloud-inhabiting companies to 1) give your data back to you if you ask, 2) use better security, and 3) improve privacy protection. But he also raises the interesting questions of innovation, competition and control. Stay tuned!

Firefox Add-on For Finding Legal Documents Online

Wed, 03 Jun 2009 14:49:00 -0500

Jureeka is a useful tool that works with the Firefox Web browser. It recognizes legal citations and automatically searches the Web for a free version of the cited document. By using Jureeka, you don't have to search several legal sites (Findlaw, Justia, etc.) to find a particular document. Jureeka searches all of them at once.

Remember that while free legal information sites can be quite helpful in your research, they do have significant limitations. For more information, see the Law Library's Free & Low Cost Legal Research Guide.

Amazon Kindle DX to be Piloted at Universities this Fall

Thu, 07 May 2009 14:05:00 -0500

Amazon just announced a large-format version of their electronic book reader, called the Kindle DX, which you can see in action at engadget. The product doesn't launch until this summer, but it could be in the hands of many university students for a pilot coming to five schools this fall. Library Journal reports that these schools are: Arizona State, Case Western Reserve, Princeton, Reed College and Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia. As of yet, there are no law schools who will try this out. Because Kindle books are typically locked into a single device, this could mean the disappearance of a used book market. That said, it means fewer dead trees and possibly more publishing options for content producers. In law schools, where much of the raw source material is in the public domain, casebooks and case compilations could be done very economically, if not for free.

An interesting feature of the new device is that it supports native PDF documents, instead of forcing people to pay to convert them to a proprietary Kindle format. This means you could get class notes or reading materials in PDF format and read them directly. It's not clear if this would support image-based formats like scanned law reviews from Hein Online or published reporter cases from Westlaw. If so, this could be a boon for students willing to pay almost $500 for the device.

In the past, there has been some debate over whether libraries can lend Kindle readers to their users. One problem with having a Kindle in a library is that book purchasing is tied directly to the account on the device. A library owning one to lend would have to disable purchasing options. Books purchased for the Kindle cannot be transferred to another device.

In advance of the latest Kindle announcement, the New York Times ran a story about large format e-book readers, exploring questions of whether these could save daily newspapers. Media conglomerate Hearst Corporation is rumored to be launching a wireless e-book reader. They publish everything from Harper's Bazaar to Good Housekeeping to Popular Mechanics. It will be exciting to see how electronic books develop over time. They look like a possible life preserver for print media. Perhaps this Fall we'll see how they fare in the education sector.

Update: Additional coverage, including law school topics, is found here:

Courts Must Keep Up with New Technologies - Twitter, Facebook, etc.

Wed, 18 Mar 2009 13:12:44 -0500

Judges are realizing that jury instructions & court rules may have to be amended to take the most recent technological craze into consideration. The New York Times and the Associated Press published interesting articles yesterday on this phenomenon, commenting on the number of mistrials resulting from juror's use of Twitter and Facebook.

For more information on Jury Instructions and Court Rules, check out our Research Guides on both topics.

New on LLRX: Using Wikis to Collaborate

Tue, 10 Feb 2009 11:16:21 -0500

In a new article on LLRX.com entitled "Collaboration through Wikis at Hicks Morley," author Heather Colman discusses how her law firm started using wikis to collaborate and share their work product. The article includes an overview of the decisions made by the firm throughout the process of development as well as a series of recommendations for the successful implementation of wikis. Also, it is worth noting that one need not be a company to find wikis useful. Even small groups who are trying to collaborate on one or more projects can use wikis to better centralize their work product. Click here to see the full text of the article.

Lexis Offers (in Beta) Legal-Specific Search Engine for the Web

Wed, 14 Jan 2009 09:36:26 -0500

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.

Finding Information in the Deep Web

Tue, 06 Jan 2009 17:32:46 -0500

Is there any way to reach the 1 trillion or so pages of information on the World Wide Web that cannot be found by current search engines (the so-called "deep web")? In a new article on LLRX entitled "Deep Web Research 2009," Marcus P. Zillman seeks to provide a guide for researchers that encourages both a better understanding of the deep web and better ways to search it. There are links to relevant articles on the deep web as well as search tools and other research resources.

Best Legal Blogs

Tue, 02 Dec 2008 15:25:20 -0500

ABA Journal has published its second annual list of the 100 best law blogs. All of the blogs chosen are updated at least once a week and are divided into categories like News & Politics, Practice/Career Management, and Legal Theory. There is even a category for blogs written by current law students.

You can also vote for your favorite law blogs between now and January 2nd.