September 13, 2006

Welcome to Issue #240 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!

Marketing Your Practice with a Blog
Each month the ABA's Law Practice Today offers "The Best of ABA TECHSHOW," featuring some of the great educational content that attendees receive at ABA TECHSHOW. This month, I'm pleased to announce that LPT is publishing Blawg: Marketing Your Practice with a Weblog, a session I presented in April along with my good friend Jim Calloway. Be sure to check new issues of Law Practice Today each month, not only for the great TECHSHOW articles we're featuring, but also for the other terrific articles on law practice management.

Road Warrior Links
In addition to the article on blogging, this month's Law Practice Today features my latest Strongest Links. For August I offer the Strongest Links for Road Warriors, which serves as a companion of sorts to my guide to mobile security. It's a collection of fun and useful links any lawyer should know about before they hit the road.

Blawgs of the Week
Here's the latest selection of law-related blogs I previewed this past week on Inter Alia:

I can't remember if this is a repeat tip -- if so, it bears repeating, because it's a great tip for Excel users. When you're working on a long spreadsheet, it's hard to see the information contained on the header row once you scroll past one screen of data. Here are two different ways to fix that.

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!

Drug Enforcement Administration
Continuing on our weekly visit of government agency websites, this week we're up to the DEA. As you no doubt know, the DEA enforces controlled substances laws of the United States. On its site you'll find a lot of background information about the agency, as well as substantial resources on various types of drugs, including cocaine, oxycontin, ecstasy, and the like. The Law Enforcement area provides information on drug fugitives, major drug operations, stats and facts, as well as training programs. Probably the best places for a legal researcher to visit are the Drug Policy and Legislative Resources pages, with links to governmental laws and regulations on the subject.

The University Channel
Here's an example of how podcasting and videocasting can change the distribution of information on the Internet. The University Channel is an initiative of Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School of Public Affairs, but over 20 other universities are contributors to the program. The idea is simple: the site makes videos and audios of academic lectures available to the public. You can subscribe to feeds of podcasts or videocasts, or you can just view the streaming video from the site.

LoPucki's Bankruptcy Research Database
The BRD claims it is "the most powerful business bankruptcy research tool on the Web." It allows you "to design and execute an empirical study of large, public company bankruptcy cases in seconds -- in the most complete, accurate data available anywhere." Just click on the "Design a Study" link to query the database. You can view the data by company, or customize the report in a number of different ways. There's also a Professional Fees Calculator that allows you to estimate the total fees the court will award depending upon the debtor's assets and some other factors. This is a great bankruptcy resource.

American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry
Here's a site to find some information on the subject of pediatric dentistry. Most of the site is dedicated to members of the AAPD, but there are several links for researchers. You can view abstracts of articles from Pediatric Dentistry or the Journal of Dentistry for Children back to 1979. The links to Dental Health Resources and Info for Parents also contain some helpful resources on dentistry for kids.

World Trade Online ($$)
Looking for news on world trade? Look no further -- here you'll find the latest headlines, major documents, reports, and decisions. However, you need to be a subscriber to access all these great resources -- about $600 for a single license. If you only want to purchase an individual article, you can do so for much less at World Trade Online's Newsstand.

Nowadays you don't need to be shipwrecked to send a Message in a Bottle -- you can send an Oceangram, online (why, I have no idea).

Your phone is ringing, and Caller ID says "Name Unavailable." Want to find out who it is that is calling you? Try Who Called Us, where other people may be receiving calls from the same number.

Well, that’s it for Issue #240 – 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.

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.

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Questions? New websites? Just want to talk? Send me an e-mail at tom(at)inter-alia(dot)net.