INTERNET LEGAL RESEARCH WEEKLY
February 23, 2003
Tom MighellWelcome to Issue #102 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 visit Inter Alia and fill out the subscription form -- it's free!
Busy weekend this week, so I'll just do a grab bag of stuff for you. Enjoy!
And away we go…..
News Update
A digital smoking gun
Fortune Magazine had an article this week on how e-mail is more often becoming Exhibit #1 in corporate prosecutions.Hiatus = 5 days
Just five days after mentioning that one of my favorite legal research sites, LLRX, had gone on hiatus, the site was updated February 15 with fresh new content. Enjoy it while you still can...The War on Spam
PC World features yet another article on how e-mail users are fed up with spam. Really?January Zeitgeist available
If you're interested in what other people are searching for, January's Google Zeitgeist is out. And just in case you were wondering, searches for "Joe Millionaire" outnumbered searches for the "Bachelorette" 9 to 1.Ready for an e-mail change? Check these programs out
I use MS Outlook on a daily basis, and I'm pretty satisfied with the way it works -- I'm especially looking forward to the new version of Outlook currently being developed. But not everybody feels the same way, and several software companies have developed e-mail clients they hope will lure you away from Outlook.Settling on the Internet
The Duke Law and Technology Review provides an assessment of online dispute resolution websites. The excellent article covers some of the sites offering this service, and also discusses the pros and cons of settling your claim online.This Week's Blawgs
Every week a new crop of law-related weblogs appears, and this week was no exception. Among the notables: Old Fox Den, from legal research specialist and information architect Terry Seale. Scott's Jurisprudence is maintained by Indiana attorney Michael Scott, who intends to provide "unique analysis and perspective on legal, business, social and artistic issues of the day." Scott isn't keeping this in chronological order, so it's a bit of a mess. And from the law student crowd, Adam White presents White Noize, the musings of a 2nd-year Harvard law student.Brendon Carr, an American lawyer living in Korea, has started Aurora Law Offices, devoted to issues of Korean law. I believe this may be the first blawg on international law issues. Election Law will discuss "the law of politics and the politics of law, including election law, campaign finance, legislation, and redistricting. This blog is maintained by Rick Hasen, a law professor at Loyola Law School (Los Angeles). And xrlq, "a rather eclectic blawg," is the product of California insurance regulatory attorney XRLQ (which is either an alias or his extraterrestrial designation).
Baton Rouge lawyer Steve Covell has started the Louisiana Supreme Court Report, for the latest news from that high court.(is it just me, or does Louisiana have more blawgs per capita than any other state?) And University of Iowa law school professor Tung Yin unveiled yin on Monday, with his "random thoughts on law, politics, sports, books, television shows, and movies.
Musings
I don't have time to write a full article this week, so here are a few thoughts I had this past week on the weblog, Inter Alia:
New Uses for RSS
Those of you who read weblogs on a regular basis should be familiar with the term RSS -- for those of you who aren't, RSS is simply a type of computer code that takes the "headlines" on a website and aggregates them for easy distribution to individuals or other websites. To read these aggregated headlines, you need to use a "newsreader" program such as NewzCrawler or AmphetaDesk. RSS and news readers allow the "news to come to you," and you save time surfing all those websites. To learn more about newsreaders, read this great article by J.D. Lasica.Currently the average legal researcher probably doesn't get very excited when he or she hears about RSS or newsreaders. But as more and more sites take advantage of this technology, researchers will have to take notice. I became aware of two such sites yesterday. First is a newsfeed for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. If you go to the site, you won't automatically find the RSS feed; you'll have to go to Syndic8, an RSS feed site, to get it. If you had a newsreader and this RSS feed, each day you would receive, with a click of a button, all of the news from this site delivered straight to you.
Okay, so maybe access to Florida law enforcement news isn't enough to get you pumped up. How about access to MedScape? The excellent health information site has raised the bar by providing RSS feeds on 32 different medical topics, including cardiology, family medicine, orthopedics, pediatrics, psychiatry and mental health, and others. Or subscribe to all the RSS feeds and get new articles in each topic. What a terrific (although not unexpected) use of this technology.
Appellate court sites on the Web
No matter what you think of our federal government, you have to admit that its web presence is pretty darned impressive. Federal courts are no exception; both district and appellate courts have all boasted websites for several years (I wish a similar standard could be created across the country for state courts). But our federal and state courts of appeal definitely differ in the quality of the services they provide online. Howard Bashman of How Appealing reviews some of these sites and discusses the best and the worst of them.It's a great article, but I have two minor complaints. First, why didn't Law.com provide links to the courts mentioned by Howard in his article? Tsk, tsk.
Second, Howard states:
The U.S. Supreme Court and many state appellate courts make online docket access available. Unfortunately, several years ago the Judicial Conference of the United States -- the governing body of the federal judicial system -- adopted a rule that requires U.S. courts of appeals and U.S. district courts to charge a fee for docket access of 7 cents per page. While that fee may seem paltry, users cannot access online dockets unless they have an account to which those charges can be billed. As a result, many lawyers and members of the public cannot take advantage of the ease of access that online docket entries provide.
Yes, PACER requires free registration and creation of an account in order to access court documents, and for security reasons it takes about a week to get your password and username mailed to you. But it's certainly not a serious obstacle preventing attorneys and other legal researchers from getting to the information, or forcing them to phone or mail the courts. In addition to providing simple docket information many courts are now providing PDF or scanned versions of pleadings, briefs, and other documents filed in a case -- how can you afford not to register?
Help Desk
For many of you, choosing a new PC can be a daunting task. With so many choices available, it's hard to know what computer system is best for you. For the next four weeks, I'll discuss how to pick the right PC, depending on the use you have for it. This week, the basic productivity PC. I imagine many of you fall into this category, for doing word processing, surfing the Internet, and reading e-mail. These are the *minimum* requirements for such a system; if you've got the need or the budget, you can always upgrade. Here's what you need:
- Lower-end processor, such as a 1.8 GHz(Gigahertz) Pentium 4/1.67 GHz Athlon
- Windows XP or 2000
- 20 gigabyte hard drive
- 17-inch CRT or 15-inch LCD (flat screen) monitor
- Integrated graphics card
- Integrated sound card
- Integrated speakers or basic speaker set
- 40x/12x/40x CD-Rewriteable drive and/or 12x DVD-ROM drive
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
TaxLinks
It's getting to be that time of year, so TaxLinks may be a useful site to have in your Tax folder. Well, maybe not -- TaxLinks claims to be "your online source for IRS Revenue Rulings." Indeed, the site posts rulings all the way back to 1954. There's also a link to TaxSites, which provides links to helpful tax information.GlobalCourts
This simply-designed site gives you access to supreme court decisions from around the world. There are links to the supreme courts of 95 countries, from Algeria to Zambia. There are also links to those courts that operate electronically or permit e-filing.Islamic and Middle Eastern Law
Although you might not find supreme court resources here, this page from the World Wide Web Virtual Library provides excellent print and Internet resources on Islamic and Middle Eastern law. Here you'll find primary sources, commentary and legal rulings, articles, constitutional law, international law, and texts from commercial, personal, and government sites.AGBIOS
AGBIOS is a Canadian company dedicated to providing public policy, regulatory, and risk assessment expertise for products of biotechnology. Under the Articles tab you can find information on topics such as biosafety, environmental impact, ethics, food security, gene flow, regulation, safety, and more. The Briefings area provides case studies and regulation information regarding genetically modified crops. There's also a database of safety information on different types of genetically altered crops. There are a lot of big words and acronyms I don't understand, but the content looks pretty good.BookKey
There are a lot of bookmark managers out there, both stand-alone software products and Internet-based applications. BookKey likes to think it's different, because instead of grouping by the usual hierarchy of folders it uses keywords organize, group, and access bookmarks. It's current a free beta -- give it a try.
Some fun and useful sites to start the week:
What if one of your online friends died, and you never knew? I know, not a topic you want to be thinking about. But DiedOnline wants to help. The service provides special HTML code that you can insert into your website or weblog, in your e-mail signature, or anywhere else you can place HTML code. Each time you log on to the Internet, the code shows you as alive. If you do not log onto the system by a specified time, you will be labeled as dead (their words, not mine). What a morbid but potentially useful site.
DeskTop News gives you access to the latest current events, sports, entertainment, and other breaking news? Just download the free toolbar, select from different news channels, and soon you'll have your own newsticker:
Well, that’s it for Issue #102 – 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
Subscription Information: If you want to keep on receiving issues of the Internet Legal Research Weekly, send me an e-mail, or visit Inter Alia and sign up there! If you no longer want to receive the newsletter, just click on the link at the bottom of this newsletter. Or, send me an e-mail and I'll remove you from the list.
Archives: Miss an issue? You can read previous issues of the Internet Legal Research Weekly in the Archives.
Questions? New websites? Just want to talk? Send me an e-mail.