Articles Posted in 2010

On Friday, many law school graduates were eagerly waiting for their July 2010 New York Bar exam results.

The New York State Board of Law Examiners (‘BOLE’) promised law students that “the results of the July 2010 bar examination are being emailed to candidates beginning on November 5, 2010,” but warned candidates that there might be a delay of up to 24 hours before “your email system” would get them.

Any e-mail problems for the lawyers-in-waiting, however, paled in comparison to the results being posted online before they actually received them.  It’s sort of like you already know that your  significant other is going to propose to you, but you don’t know when.  Would you rather find out from him or her directly, or from Facebook first?

If you’re a regular reader of this blog or follow Justia on Facebook or Twitter, you may have noticed that in October we really picked up the pace on the Justia Law, Technology & Legal Marketing Blog. In the past, we used the blog to make announcements, cheer on fellow free law advocates, and occasionally talk about legal issues. This month, with a concerted effort and lots of whining about deadlines [me], we have been blogging daily, and covering a pretty wide range of issues and ideas. We’ve reviewed apps, movies, and judicial decisions. We’ve gone from Dora to DADT. We even got shout-outs from the Library of Congress and the ABA Journal.

“Conviction” tells a compelling tale of the love that siblings can have for one another, and the lengths to which some families will go to seek justice for their kin. This legal drama draws you into the movie from the outset, making you feel that you should have served on the legal team for Kenny Waters. Sam Rockwell, who plays Kenny, deftly portrays the wide range of emotions experienced by a person who has been wrongfully convicted of murder.

The opening of the film aptly sets the scene. The camera pans inside a trailer home with blood-stained walls depicting raging violence. We soon learn that the victim’s murderer brutally stabbed her more than 30 times. While chopping firewood for his grandfather, Kenny is soon accused by a local police officer of brutally murdering his neighbor.

FRONTLINE recently examined the controversial execution of Cameron Todd Willingham. The State of Texas had executed Mr. Willingham in 2004 for the death of his children in a fire, which the State Fire Marshal had concluded was intentionally set by the defendant.

It’s election day and all of us here at Justia hope you get out and vote! Given that we’ll have a new Congress at the beginning of the year, we’d like to point you to some iPhone apps you can download to keep informed on what’s going on in the U.S. Senate and House.   Note: All of these apps are FREE.

C-Span Radio – Listen to Congressional hearings along with audio streams of public affairs programming from C-SPAN Radio, C-SPAN and C-SPAN2.

Halloween is almost here–time to resurrect the ghosts of First Year Property Law past. . . with Stambovsky v. Ackley. This was my favorite case in law school, and I think about it every time I watch Ghost Hunters or Paranormal State. In a professional context, of course–don’t these people know what they are doing to their property values?! Who wants to disclose that their house was on a ghost reality show?

Stambovsky, as you may remember, attempted to rescind a housing sale contract on the grounds that the defendant seller failed to disclose to plaintiff buyer that the house was haunted. Because the seller publicized the “hauntings,” the house had a negative reputation in the community which affected the value of the home. Plaintiff, who did not live in the area, had no way to discover this reputation and the Court found an exception to the general rule of caveat emptor in real property contracts. It held that “as a matter of law, the house was haunted.” Stambovsky v. Ackley, 169 AD 2d. 254, 256 (New York App. Div. Dept. 1 1991). The opinion is full of colorful language:

Times have changed.  The legal job market now tilts in favor of law firms, not law school graduates.  Newly minted JDs are competing with laid-off associates who have years of experience, and are already admitted to the bar.

Some law schools have opted to subsidize their unemployed new graduates by either paying them or law firms, so that their JDs can garner relevant work experience in their new profession.

Here is a look at four law schools that subsidize unemployed graduates looking for work:

46 years ago, Ronald Reagan delivered the above televised campaign address for the Goldwater presidential campaign. With the upcoming election just one week away, a time for choosing is again upon us. If you are voting by absentee ballot, be sure to mail your ballot sufficiently in advance with the correct postage.

Recently, I had the chance to look through the online videos available at FedFlix. For those of you unfamiliar with FedFlix, it’s a joint venture between the folks at Public.Resource.Org and the National Technical Information Service (NTIS), a bureau within the Department of Commerce. Pursuant to their agreement, NTIS and other agencies, such as the National Archives, send public domain videotapes to Public.Resource.Org, which in turns digitizes the videos and uploads them to the Internet Archive, YouTube , and the Public.Resource.Org public domain stock footage video library. Public.Resource.Org then sends the videotapes back to the government along with a disc of the digitized video. At this point, the collection includes more than 1,500 videos from over 100 federal and state agencies and covers a wide-range of topics. For purposes of this post, I thought it might be interesting to browse through the available videos related to law, in particular the offerings from the Department of Justice, the Federal Judicial Center and the National Archives. What follows are just a few of the highlights from my search – check out more for yourself when you have time!