Law Libraries

Canadian Lawyer Files Suit Claiming Westlaw Has ‘Purloined’ Lawyer Documents

A Toronto lawyer who represents a Canadian engineer alleging he was wrongly accused of terrorism and sent to Syria for torture is pursuing a separate but related suit that claims Thomson Reuters Corp. is improperly asserting a copyright in lawyers’ documents. Lawyer Lorne Waldman claims Thomson Reuters posted a document…

Jun 15, 2010 10:30 AM CDT

Should UT Change Dorm Named After Law Prof in KKK? Panel Will Study Issue

A University of Texas dormitory is named after a dead law professor who was a Ku Klux Klan leader. But the university doesn’t want to be too hasty in considering a name change. Instead the school has named a 19-member panel to make recommendations, according to stories in the Austin…

Jun 10, 2010 10:30 AM CDT

Kagan’s Civil Procedure Class Was ‘Nothing Short of Terrifying,’ Blogger Says

U.S. Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan is being praised for healing rifts as dean of Harvard Law School, but she also has a tough side, as Above the Law blogger Elie Mystal can attest. Mystal took Kagan’s civil procedure class and learned that Kagan doesn’t have much patience for students…

May 14, 2010 10:30 AM CDT

Judge Takes Court Docket Offline to Prevent Jurors From Accessing It During Trial

Concerned that jurors might improperly access public information from the online court docket, an Oklahoma judge ordered it taken down for the duration of the trial in a medical malpractice case. But a mistrial still resulted, because the jurors could not agree on a verdict, reports the Tulsa World. Tulsa…

May 4, 2010 10:04 PM CDT

U of Texas Launches New Dual Degree Program Focused on Law and Information

A new dual degree program being launched at the University of Texas at Austin will award both a juris doctor degree and a master of science and information studies degree after a three-year program of study. “The program results from the recognition that not only is digital information changing the…

Apr 14, 2010 6:25 PM CDT

DOJ Pays $15M for Legal Research, Including $4M for Pacer

An open records advocate contends that a free source of legal documents could eventually save the federal government $1 billion, and he offers the Justice Department as Exhibit A. A freedom of information request by Carl Malamud reveals that Justice Department paid more than $4 million in 2009 for access…

Dec 2, 2009 4:25 PM CST

Google Offers Legal Research for the Average Citizen—and Lawyers, Too

Updated: Google has announced it is adding a new search function that will find full-text legal opinions from federal and state courts. Users can go to the Google Scholar online search engine and type in case names, topics or key words to find the relevant cases. “We think this addition…

Nov 18, 2009 4:11 PM CST

Law.Gov Proposes Open-Source Stash of All Primary US Legal Materials

An ambitious project to create an open-source authenticated repository of all primary legal materials in the United States is being proposed by Law.Gov. Detailed by Law.Gov, the project is presently in a planning stage. A growing group of individuals and organizations including a number of well-known law schools and law…

Oct 15, 2009 7:24 PM CDT

Bloomberg Is Launching a New Legal Search Engine

After at least two years of development, Bloomberg is getting ready to launch a new legal search engine that could give industry leaders Westlaw and LexisNexis a run for their money, according to JD Journal. As a Bloomberg Law web page explains, the the new venture is a “legal, regulatory,…

Oct 7, 2009 12:04 AM CDT

Your Law Librarian Is Watching: ‘Hot Stuff’ Tracking Software Can Cut Costs

An increasing number of law firms are cutting their law library budgets, spurring some librarians to buy new usage tracking software to make decisions about resources. Forty-six percent of law librarians surveyed reported that their budgets had been cut, a substantial increase from 9 percent who reported lower budgets last…

Sep 2, 2009 12:56 PM CDT

Tired of Paying for PACER Docs? Princeton Group Offers Alternative

Many federal courts make their case documents readily available online—for a price. And even though it’s only 8 cents a page, that can quickly add up for frequent users. As some users unhappy about the cost of the PACER (short for Public Access to Court Electronic Records) system lobby for…

Aug 14, 2009 6:34 PM CDT

Brick, Mortar, and High-Tech

In an age where law students are more familiar with digital books than bound ones, Pennsylvania State University’s Dickinson School of Law is spending up to $140 million on two new buildings, including a new law library that is a masterpiece of modern architecture.

Aug 2, 2009 2:50 AM CDT

Finding Accurate Law Text Online Nearly Impossible, Panelists Say #ABAChicago

It sounded easy. Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s counsel, Denley Chew, slapped down some $2 bills and challenged a room of lawyers and legal researchers with laptops and iPhones to find the authoritative text of the landmark Fugitive Slave Act online. “Authoritative” was the catch. The money remained untouched.…

Jul 31, 2009 6:38 PM CDT

Users Ask Federal Courts to Improve PACER Document Access System

Led by a librarian from Stanford Law School, users are petitioning the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts in an effort to seek improvements in the PACER court document access system. Among the improvements being sought are reductions in the present 8-cent-per-page cost of viewing documents, free access at depository…

Jun 23, 2009 10:27 PM CDT

Library of Congress to Archive All Sotomayor Confirmation Tweets

The Library of Congress intends to compile all tweets about U.S. Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor during the confirmation process. The LOC announcement was made—where else?—in a tweet today on Twitter, reports the Hill’s Twitter Room. As the character limit on the social networking microblog requires, the LOC’s Twitter statement…

Jun 18, 2009 10:01 PM CDT