Articles Posted in 2010

Sometimes people mistake Justia’s mission, “To advance the availability of legal resources for the benefit of society,” as being only about advancing the availability of legal resources for lawyers, but society is much larger then the legal community. This week’s App of the week is free for the iPhone and iPad from our friends at Nolo, and it’s geared at making the often confusing landscape of legal terms easier to understand for everyone.

I am not a lawyer myself, nor have I gone to law school.  I came to Justia as a programmer.  While I have learned much about the law since I started working here in 2006, I still find myself constantly coming up against legal terms that I don’t know.  There are a few places I turn to find out what those words and phrases mean discreetly so when the lawyers in my midst say them I can pretend I knew what it was all along, and one of the best sources I’ve found is Nolo’s Plain English Legal Dictionary available for free at nolo.com/dictionary.

On this day in 1966, the Supremes became the first all-female music group to attain a No. 1 selling album: The Supremes A’ Go-Go.

This little piece of trivia made us think of the “Supremes” of the legal world: the Justices on the Supreme Court of the United States. This term, for the first time ever, female justices compose one-third of the bench, and have the potential to contribute significantly to the Court’s jurisprudence. Many reporters have already speculated on how these female justices may shift the direction of the court and affect certain decisions.

OnGuard Online, a website by the Federal Trade Commission, urges people to exercise discretion when using social networking sites. While their advice is targeted towards parents of young children, it applies equally to people of all ages.

In general, the FTC cautions people to only post information to social networking sites that they are comfortable with others seeing. While the FTC recommends the use of privacy settings to restrict access to your social networking profile, we would add that once you send an e-mail or post a message or photo on your social networking page, this information can easily be viewed by or forwarded to persons outside of your intended network, regardless of your privacy settings.

Do you like free, quick access to case law and codes? Of course you do. What’s not to like?

With an iPad or iPhone, you can download the free Fastcase app to research state and federal court opinions, as well as find state and federal codes.

That’s right, it costs you and your firm nothing. Nada. Rien. Zilch. You pay nothing to get it, and nothing to use it. No other legal app out there gives lawyers and legal professionals this much portable legal research, convenience, and speed for virtually nothing.

Part of our work here at Justia is the promotion of  “free law,” through which we’ve had the opportunity to engage in projects and partnerships that support free online access to primary and secondary source legal materials for legal practitioners and lay people alike.  In that regard, we were excited to participate in the many Law.gov work shops put together by Carl Malamud at Public.resource.org held all over the United States earlier in the year.  We have also been introduced to some cool librarians who are increasing open access to legal scholarship by creating and promoting The Durham Statement which, “calls for all law schools to stop publishing their journals in print format and to rely instead on electronic publication coupled with a commitment to keep the electronic versions available in stable, open, digital formats.”

This week, Duke University will host a one-day work shop co-sponsored by the J. Michael Goodson Law Library at Duke Law School, the Center for the Study of the Public Domain and Harvard Law Library titled  Implementing the Durham Statement:  Best Practices for Open Access Law Journals. The work shop, primarily aimed at student law review editors, law librarians, law review advisers, and publishers (but also for anyone interested in open access and legal publishing) will cover issues and best practices for law journals to consider as they migrate to electronic publishing.  While registration for the conference is now closed, we encourage you to watch the free live web cast of the proceedings on Friday, October 22nd.  You can also post comments or questions remotely, some of which moderators will share with the participants.  For those of you unable to catch the live web cast, the proceedings will also be archived and posted online.

Yesterday, we discussed some of the evidence presented at trial in Log Cabin Republicans v. United States of America et al., a case heard in the United States District Court Central District of California by Judge Virginia A. Phillips. Today, we continue with the court’s analysis and conclusion.

Analysis of Evidence and Findings of Fact

Based on the evidence presented, the Court found the following negative impacts from DADT:

Discharge of qualified servicemembers despite troop shortages

From 1993-2009, the Government discharged 7,856 servicemembers under the Act. Troop shortages in the midst of two wars are a pressing issue for the Armed Forces.

On Wednesday, U.S District Court Judge Virginia Phillips issued a permanent injunction against enforcement of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT) law. The injunction was issued pursuant to a claim brought by the Log Cabin Republicans, an LGBT Republican organization.

The Court’s Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law (per FRCP 52) explained the decision to grant the injunction.

Hi Friends,

Soby and I went to Ann Arbor to see my parents and Anna at Michigan Law School and watch Michigan lose to MSU… when you are down by 3 scores in the late 4th quarter you don’t punt… unless you are coach Rich Rodriguez and want to lose by less. But it was good to see Anna and my parents 🙂

Most of us are probably familiar with The Library of Congress THOMAS web site – a terrific resource where you can find a wealth of federal legislative information dating back to the 104th Congress. While THOMAS is a great place to find current legislative resources, the Library of Congress (LOC) also has some really interesting online collections consisting of primary and secondary source legal materials relating to the formation of the United States. As well, the LOC provides an entire century of US Congressional documents, statutes, journals and debates in their Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation collection, which covers Congress from 1774 – 1875. Below are some links to help get you started on an exploration of these incredible archives.

Creating the United States

This LOC exhibition and collection consists of the founding papers and documents of the United States. Browse through the various sections to see such things as a rough draft of the Declaration of Independence,  James Madison’s notes on “the great compromise”, or the letter notifying George Washington of his unanimous election to the be the first President of the United States. The Exhibit is broken up into three main sections: Creating the Declaration of Independence, Creating the United States Constitution, and Creating the Bill of Rights.

Credit: Original by Arnob Alam

Last week, Caitlin Sanchez, the voice of Dora the Explorer, sued MTV Networks and Nickelodeon/Viacom Consumer Products, Inc. In her complaint filed with the Supreme Court of the State of New York in the County of New York, Sanchez alleged that she was swindled out of millions in “promised compensation for merchandi[s]ing, re-runs (also known as ‘residuals’), promotional work and recordings.”

Sanchez accused Nickelodeon and Nickelodeon Consumer Products of colluding with her talent agency Cunningham-Escott-Slevin-Doherty Talent Agency, Inc. and her agent Jason Bercy to induce her to sign an allegedly unconscionable contract “with convoluted, vague, incomplete, and misrepresented terms.”