INTERNET LEGAL
RESEARCH WEEKLY
July 18, 2004
Tom
Mighell
Welcome to Issue #159 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!
I'm taking a short vacation next week, so your next issue won't arrive until August 1. See you then!
And away we go…..
Shepardizing A La Carte
Lexis and Westlaw are wonderfully powerful services, but let's face it, they're darned expensive to use. That's why I love to hear when there's a new way to use these services in a way that won't send your clients to your front door complaining about the size of their bills. From Carole over at Internet For Lawyers comes this handy tip: rent your Shepard's Citations. For $32/day, $52/week, or $107/month, you can do all the Shepardizing you want -- and it won't cause your client a conniption.Citing a Site
Written on the Wind discusses the relatively uncommon practice of citing Internet sites in legal documents, and how to take care when doing so.Another challenger to GMail
Walla Mail is signing up users for free e-mail accounts, promising 1GB of storage, or the ability to store 40,000 e-mails, 2,000 pictures, or 50 1-minute video clips. PC World has more. One of the interesting things Walla Mail is offering is the ability to view video clips directly in the e-mail.Your health, online
It seems to me that the Internet and healthcare should enjoy a special relationship. With all of the physicians we see, it sure would be nice if one doctor had an easy and convenient way of verifying my medical history. It sure would be nice if that emergency room team could see if an unconscious patient has a drug allergy before administering treatment. Wouldn't it? Others feel the same way, and want to see all medical records online by 2015. In the article Do No Harm: Should Medical Records Go Online?, the author examines the pros and cons of online medical records, including the tradeoff of convenience for privacy.Find music you like
SearchDay has a review of Musicplasma, a search engine for music. Just type in the name of a performer or band, and you'll get a Kartoo-like graphical layout of the "universe" of artists/bands surrounding that particular performer. It's a neat way to find singers with similar styles of music. You'll also find a list of albums by that performer, although the list didn't come up too well in FireFox.Browse by keyword, courtesy of Google
Google has added a new feature to its toolbar that allows the user to navigate the Web by typing in a name rather than a URL. The update will be uploaded automatically to all users, but as of yesterday not everyone had been updated. Search Engine Watch has more.Say it ain't so!
Carolyn Elefant points out that my favorite investigative site, Accurint, has been bought out by Lexis (well, Reed Elsevier). Carolyn worries that Lexis may tinker with Accurint's formula and raise prices in the process. Let's hope not.Blawgs of the Week
Hughes & Luce attorneys Chad King and Heath Dixon are publishing PrivacySpot, where you can find news, commentary, and resources about current privacy law and data protection topics and issues. The Center for Legal Policy at the Manhattan Institute is publishing the group blog PointOfLaw.com, which includes discussions from some of the nation's top legal scholars on the American civil justice system. The California Labor and Employment Law weblog features just what you'd expect from the title, over in California. The UCL Practitioner is a specialized blawg, the first and only weblog on California's Business and Professions Code Section 17200, otherwise known as the "Unfair Competition Law." Library Law discusses issues concerning, appropriately enough, libraries and the law.When you mistype a domain name, do you ever notice that Internet Explorer launches a Microsoft search engine to help you find the right name? I find that pretty annoying; here's how to turn off that feature in Internet Explorer. Select Tools, then Internet Options, then Advanced, and scroll down to Search from the Address Bar. Choose the behavior you prefer there, and the Microsoft search page need never appear again.
Do you have a question about searching the Internet or your computer in general? Drop me an e-mail at tom(at)inter-alia(dot)net – 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
MassMostWanted
Wanna catch a criminal in Massachusetts? Head over to MassMostWanted, select a region, and you'll find a list of individuals currently wanted for robbery, theft, assault, and other offenses. You can even search by the type of crime or physical characteristics of the individual.How to Use the Federal FOI Act
If you have ever needed to request records from the U.S. government, you'll know that navigating the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act can be tricky. This guide hopes to change all that, with helpful information about the FOIA, how it works, and how to make a request. There's even an FOI letter generator -- just fill in the blanks, and the site generates a form letter for you to send in.BNA Intellectual Property Professional Information Center
A free offering from BNA, a great pay resource for legal information. The page looks a little like a weblog, with a few recent stories posted. The link to the Archives takes you to a list of categories; I clicked through a few of these, and found that most of the articles come from 2002 and 2003. It was odd to find very recent stories on the home page, and such old stories in the archive, with not much in between. There's a link to subscribe to a free e-mail digest of stories from the Professional Information Center, so you don't have to visit all the time.isbndb.com
Those of you who spend time in a library knows that ISBN stands for International Standard Book Number, and the ISBNDB is a database with tons of them. At last count the database listed over 820,000 books, which are located in libraries all across the world. You can browse by category, which range from Arts to Society, or you can search by keyword or author. The results will provide you with both the Dewey Number as well as the LCC number, details on the book, libraries where the book is located, links to books on the same subject, and information on buying the book. This is a great book research resource!Labor Research Portal
Part of the Institute of Industrial Relations Library, the Labor Research Portal provides links to lots of great labor-related resources, including the Labor Blog, Web Guides, and Berkeley Labor Guides. The Web Guides provide a Digital Reference Library, information on California labor and international labor unions, and links to labor education, libraries, and news sources. The Labor Guides can help you with such subjects as corporate research, employee rights, globalization, labor culture, and more.Directory of Legal Academia
This great directory provides listings for all the law schools in the United States. You'll find a link to each law school, the printed address and phone number, and links to faculty directories or e-mail search engines for that law school, if they are available. A very handy resource.
Finally, some fun and useful sites to begin your week:
Doing home maintenance is a pain, and knowing when it needs to be done can be confusing. Demesne aims to help you with that -- just click on a month, and you'll find a checklist of the maintenance to be performed during that time.
Want to learn more about the lingo your teenager is speaking these days? The Source: Teen Lingo is the shizzle.
Well, that’s it for Issue #159 – 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 at tom(at)inter-alia(dot)net, 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 at tom(at)inter-alia(dot)net 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 at tom(at)inter-alia(dot)net.