INTERNET LEGAL RESEARCH WEEKLY
October 13, 2002
Tom MighellWelcome to Issue #85 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!
If you didn’t visit Inter Alia this week, you missed out on fourteen stories (that’s 14, folks!) you aren’t reading in this issue. That’s 14 potentially very helpful computer or research tips (or fun stuff) for you to use! What are you waiting for?
And away we go…..
News Update
How Did Your State Do?
Brown University's third annual survey of state and federal "e-governments" is out, and this year Tennessee pulls out the win.Blog of the Week: Lawyer Marketing
If you're interested in sharpening your marketing skills, the Lawyers' Guide to Marketing on the Internet weblog might be a good site to bookmark.First Monday
In case you were sleeping this week, the Supreme Court began its fall term, and one of Slate’s commentators, Dahlia Lithwick, weighed in on the tedium. You can also follow the goings-on of the Supremes at SCOTUSBlog and How Appealing.
The ADA and the Internet
Southwest Airlines is being sued for being inaccessible under the Americans with Disabilities Act, when a blind Internet user was unable to use his screen-reading program on the Southwest website.Trade Regulation Sites You Can Trust
On September 27, a Texas jury awarded a $173 million verdict against a hospital bed manufacturer for allegedly using illegal tactics to drive a San Antonio-based competitor from the high-tech specialty bed market. That makes it the largest antitrust verdict this year, because under antitrust laws it can be tripled to over $517 million. With that much money involved, I decided this would be a good week to explore what the Web has to offer on antitrust and trade regulation. It turns out the pickings are quite good.
Since antitrust is a creature of federal law, you would be right in assuming some of the best sites come from the U.S. Government. Let’s start with the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division. The front page is very simple, with just a few links to recent news, case filings, or speeches given on trade regulation. The real value comes from the links on the side – from there you can access recent press releases, antitrust case filings back to 1994, and forms for obtaining documents through FOIA requests or reporting a possible antitrust violation. The best part of this site is clearly the Public Documents page; it contains appellate briefs (from 1993), business reviews, criminal enforcement, speeches, testimony, links to worldwide antitrust sites, and much more. The Federal Trade Commission also has a “Bureau of Competition." Among the many interesting resources to be found there is “Promoting Competition, Protecting Consumers: A Plain English Guide to Antitrust Laws,” a well-written set of articles on the basics of trade regulation.
Maybe you don’t know much about trade regulation, and want to learn more before you launch yourself upon the DOJ’s Antitrust Division. Cornell’s Legal Information Institute can help with an overview of antitrust law. Here you can get a great summary of the Sherman Act, as well as links to the statute. Also available are links to recent Supreme and Appellate court antitrust decisions, state statutes, and other state information. You can also just see the Sherman Act if you want. And if the lingo of trade regulators has you confused, you might check out the Glossary of Antitrust Terms -- it’s part of the “Antitrust Law and Economics Review,” a journal that does not appear to have been updated since 1997. Nevertheless, the glossary is still a good resource, because definitions usually never go out of date.
Another solid resource is provided by the ABA Section of Antitrust Law. The home page features the section calendar, recent publications, comments, task force and other reports, and membership activities. The menu on the left contains some great links, including Antitrust Magazine, Antitrust Law Journal (abstracts only) and the online periodical Antitrust Source. There are also 33 trade regulation mailing lists from which to choose – some of these require moderator approval prior to joining. You can also find a nice directory of antitrust chiefs for the various state attorney general offices nationwide.
There are a few other antitrust sites worth mentioning. First up is the American Antitrust Institute. The mission of AAI is to increase the role of competition, assure that competition is fair, and challenge unduly concentrated power in the American and world economy. The front page contains mostly news headlines, which appear to be updated regularly, but one of the really neat areas of this site is the Guide to Antitrust Resources on the Web. Here you’ll find links to statutes, news, court decisions, antitrust gateways, mergers, and much more.
Another interesting site is Antitrust Policy. Like the AAI, the home page contains news headlines, but this site’s goal is to link four type of information: antitrust case documents, enforcement guidelines and speeches, economic bibliographies, and current antitrust issues in the news. The menu takes you to information on mergers, merger simulations, vertical restraints, and price fixing, and other issues.
Finally, a quick look at three other trade regulation websites. First up is the Supreme Court Antitrust Debates, a collection of excerpts from 72 of the U.S. Supreme Court’s antitrust opinions from 1885 through 1993. And the Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics provides information on convictions, sentencing, and other criminal statistics on antitrust cases.
Do you have an antitrust or trade regulation site to recommend? Drop me an e-mail and I’ll mention it in an upcoming issue!
Help Desk
As much as I use the computer, I know I could be a more efficient user – still, I often forget to take advantage of the myriad of keyboard shortcuts offered by Microsoft to help navigate Windows. Here are a few you might not know about (and a few you might):
CTRL-S Saves current document CTRL-P Prints current document CTRL-A Selects all files (or text) in the current window CTRL-C Copies selected items CTRL-X Cuts selected items CTRL-V Pastes copied or cut items CTRL-B Bolds selected text CTRL-I Italicizes selected text CTRL-U Underlines selected text CTRL-Z Undoes last operation CTRL-Y Repeats last command CTRL-ESC Opens the Start Menu (CTRL-Windows Key, too) 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
Questionable Doctors ($$)
Consumer interest groups have tried for some time to make public the names of doctors disciplined by state or federal governments. Questionable Doctors is a step in that direction. Right now there are 27 states whose reports are available online (more are on the way). You can see if there’s a report on a particular doctor, but to view the whole report you’ll have to purchase a subscription, which is only $!0 for six months. If you sue or represent doctors, this is a good site to check up on them.SECInfo
SECInfo claims to be the most sophisticated EDGAR/SEDAR database service on the Web, with over one billion links created within the U.S. SEC and Canadian CSA filings. The home page will let you search for reports by name, industry, business, area code, and other criteria. You can also browse recently filed reports, news headlines, and insider trading reports, among other information. Register for the site and you can create your own personal page containing your most recently accessed filings, industries, and registrants. Best of all, it’s free.National Center for State Courts
This organization was created by Chief Justice Warren Burger in 1971, its highest priority to restore public trust and confidence in the courts – not an easy task. Although there are some worthy resources in the menu on the side, the best links are to be found in the Popular Links, Court Information Database, and Court Info Portal areas. In addition to, well, popular links, the Popular Links area includes recent topics such as court security planning, court collection methods, family violence, and more. The links offered are tremendous, as well. The Information Database contains PDF files on various subject areas, including Access and Fairness, ADR, Administration, Budgeting, Technology, and many others. There are some really terrific resources here.VitalSeek
I have repeatedly stated in this newsletter that medical and healthcare sites often provide inaccurate information, and there are no universal standards that medical websites must follow before posting such information. VitalSeek feels my pain, and wants to help. The people behind this site are based at the University of Kansas, and they have created a medical search engine that claims to provide only quality results. Last month VitalSeek partnered with URAC, also known as the American Accreditation HealthCare Commission, to allow users to specifically request sites that have been accredited by URAC. VitalSeek’s filters are its unique feature; you can screen by medical topic, accreditation, reading level, audience, credibility, topic coverage, privacy policy, symptoms, prognosis, treatments, and many other filters. You can also restrict your search to .edu, .gov, .org, or .com domains. This is a nifty tool – I really should devote an article to its review.Addressing Formats
Do you know how to address a postcard to Ghana? With Addressing Formats, you’ll never have to wonder where all of those funny words and letters go when sending mail overseas. Just select a country, and you’ll get a detailed page on how to address mail to be delivered there. Very cool.And now for some fun stuff, from the past week at Inter Alia:
Halloween is just around the corner, and if you don't know the best pumpkin patch in your area, Local Harvest does.
Want to know what your name looks like in hieroglyphs? Learn how to write like an Egyptian. A fun site, but how do you know whether it's right or not? I have no idea.
Finally, a useful site. Seat Guru displays seating charts for every plane type on American, Continental, Delta, US Air, and United Airlines, giving you advice on which seats are best and which to avoid.
Well, that’s it for Issue #85– 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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