INTERNET LEGAL RESEARCH WEEKLY
February 10, 2002
Tom Mighell

Welcome to Issue #59 of the Internet Legal Research Weekly, a newsletter that delivers relevant and timely legal research information, and other fun stuff, to your inbox every Sunday. If you like what you read, please forward this newsletter to anyone you think might be interested, and encourage him or her to do the same! To subscribe, all you have to do is send an e-mail to ilrw-subscribe@topica.com. It’s free!

And away we go…..

Notable News

British Cybercourts to Go Online
A new service launched by the UK Government will allow claims under £100,000 to be processed online.

Researching the Constitution State

In this issue we return to a review of legal research sites of the 50 states, and this week we’re up to Connecticut, the Constitution State. Connecticut recently revamped its state home page, and has taken advantage of the unique spelling of its name: ConneCT. The layout is basic and extremely user friendly, giving you links to the various branches of government at the top, A-Z links to help you browse for state information, and links to items “Of Special Interest,” such as Licenses/Permits, Towns/Cities, Tourism, Education, and Commerce. CLIC.com is one of the best sites I’ve seen for state licensing information. Here you can find forms for hundreds of licenses and permits for business, recreation, education, vehicles, occupations, environment, and more.

For head of state information check out Governor John Rowland’s page -- it offers information on bills signed by the Governor, executive action taken, and a transcript of his February 6, 2002 Budget Address to the General Assembly. And it's easy to find all of Connecticut's state agencies, too.

Heading over to Connecticut’s legislative branch, the Connecticut General Assembly is chock full of resources, with links to the House and Senate, and all sorts of legislative information. The General Statutes of Connecticut (updated to January 1, 2001) can be found with links to the 55 titles of Connecticut law. If you’re doing research on earlier laws and public acts of Connecticut, the Connecticut State Library has a page with these resources. Finally, a nice page of banking laws is provided by the State Department of Banking.

Connecticut’s Judicial Branch is well represented, its site a gateway not only for lawyers and researchers but also for consumers; here you can find juror information, links to child support, landlord/tenant, victim services, traffic violations, and other resources. One of the more interesting features on the site is E-Services, which will ultimately allow lawyers to complete electronic business transactions and transmit documents electronically to the Superior Court. You can also look up case information; I wasn’t able to try the service because I didn’t have a “Juris” number. The Judicial Branch Law Library also offers a terrific guide on Connecticut Legal Resources -- here you can access attorney tools for practice, cases, laws, legal associations, municipal information, administrative decisions, and much more.

Connecticut’s highest court is the Supreme Court -- you can also find links to state appellate cour sites on the Supreme Court page. There’s only one U.S. District Court in Connecticut, and only one U.S. Bankruptcy Court as well. Looking for court forms? FindLaw has a nice selection of Connecticut forms for you. We end our tour of the judicial branch with a visit to the office of Attorney General Richard Blumenthal.

Finally, some Connecticut general practice sites for your favorites folder. Law.com provides content from the Connecticut Law Tribune. Here you can find news from law journals not only in Connecticut but all over New England, as well as a great collection of links to state government and court information. The Connecticut Bar Association provides information to its members and others, such as case e-lerts, a weekly e-mail digest of court opinions – unfortunately only CBA members can use the service. The last site we’ll visit might come in handy if you’re looking for a lawyer in Connecticut. Connecticut-Lawyers.com provides information on different types of criminal and personal injury cases, and gives you a form to fill out to request a Connecticut Lawyer. I’m not sure who’s behind this site – the owner has a similar site for finding a lawyer in Massachusetts.

Are there any Connecticut websites you’ve used that might be helpful to others? Drop me a line at tmig-swbell.net and I’ll pass it along!

Help Desk

Weekly Computer Maintenance – Step #5:

Five weeks ago, I started with some helpful hints for keeping your computer in tip-top shape. This week, our last tip is to BACK UP YOUR DATA at least once a week. If your computer suddenly crashes, you’ll want to make sure the documents you use regularly aren’t permanently lost. What files do you need to back up? You know the answer to that better than anyone else. If you have Word/WordPerfect documents you don’t want to lose, make sure you back them up on a floppy once a week. I back up my Quicken financial files every week. Fred Langa has a great article on how to make Fast, Easy Backups.

Do you have a question about searching the Internet or your computer in general? Drop me an e-mail– I’ll post your question (don’t worry, I won’t use your real name) and try to get an answer for you!

Legally Relevant – Sites on the Internet

Acronym Finder
I originally reviewed Acronym Finder in my January 2001 article on searching for acronyms and abbreviations, and I thing it deserves another look. Last time I looked, this site boasted over 180,000 acronyms, abbreviations, and initialisms; now they’re up to over 227,000. If you know the acronym, just plug it in and Acronym Finder will go to work. If you don’t know the exact acronym, don’t worry – you can search by typing in the first few letters of the acronym or even do a wildcard search. And if you know one or two of the words, just do a reverse search and you’ll find the acronyms that match.

CataList
Looking for a mailing list to join? CataList can help – the site gathers information on over 53,000 mailing lists around the world and provides basic information on the lists here, with instructions on how to subscribe. CataList uses the ListServ database, so you won’t find my newsletter here – it’s not a ListServ newsletter. You can search for a list, browse by country, or see lists based on readership.

The Beige Book
This is a very basic site, but with tremendous information provided. The Beige Book is published by the Federal Reserve Board eight times a year, which summarizes information on current economic conditions in the United States by district and sector. You’ll find summaries here on prices and labor markets, manufacturing, services, retail sales, financial services, construction and real estate, energy, and agriculture for each district.

FACSNET Internet Resources
Sponsored by the Foundation for American Communications, the FACSNet Internet Resources page is primarily for journalists, but since registration is free, why not take advantage of a good resource? Once you’re registered, you can search the resources by topic or by state, or both. The topics include agriculture, business, computers, economics, education, environment, government, legal system, religion, science/technology, and many more. There are about 10-15 subtopics under each category to help you focus your search. There are some other great resources on the FACS pages – check them out!

LexiCool
LexiCool is truly a cool directory of bilingual and multilingual dictionaries, boasting over 1,000 translation dictionaries and glossaries. You can search by language – there are over thirty languages included. You can search by subject or keyword; LexiCool has links to topical dictionaries in aeronautics, business and finance, law, sciences, and telecommunications. If you find a dictionary that’s not included on the site, you can even ask them to add it.

And now for some fun and useful sites this week. If you’re a fan of the 2002 Winter Olympics, check out the official Olympics site. Gary Price has also compiled a great list of links related to the Olympic Games.

If you missed any of the commercials from last week’s Super Bowl (and you didn’t miss much, in my opinion), you can find ALL of them at Ifilm.

Finally, here's a site that will push your web browser around (warning: your browser may wander off the screen, so hit CTRL-W to make it go away).

Well, that’s it for Issue #60– I hope you liked it! If you did, pass this along to anyone you think might be interested, and encourage him or her to subscribe. Also, feel free to drop me an e-mail any time if you have questions, or if you have websites or other topics you want included in a future issue.

Tom Mighell

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