Articles Posted in 2011

This week, I want to point our readers over to a recent post by Joe Hodnicki at the Law Librarian Blog. Joe notes a letter sent recently to the Librarian of Congress, James H. Billington, requesting that Dr. Billington appoint a Director of the Congressional Research Service (CRS) to assist in the release of unclassified and non-confidential CRS Reports. Among others, the American Association of Law Libraries, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, Free Government Information, Public Citizen and the Sunlight Foundation signed the letter. (A full list appears in the blog post.)

The letter speaks to the accessibility of these valuable public policy (and public domain) documents, which are prepared by the Congressional Research Service for the members and staff of the U.S. Congress. While U.S. taxpayers spend nearly $100 million to fund the CRS, Congress does not disseminate the reports in any systematic way, and no comprehensive list of these reports is even publicly available from which to request reports.

I know it’s not lost on most of you that this is a movie we’ve seen before (or, rather, we see time and time again). It’s time to remove the barriers to access and paywalls we see that surround all public domain legal and government materials.

New Jersey’s governor Chris Christie vetoed a bill on Thursday that would have legalized online gambling inside the state’s borders. Several other states, including Iowa, California, and Florida are considering similar legislation.

In New Jersey, those in favor of the bill touted it as a way to create 1,500 jobs in Atlantic City, the only part of the state where casino gambling is currently legal, and bring in $35 million in tax revenue. Christie vetoed the bill because he felt that voters should be the ones to approve such a measure. Polls show that 67% of New Jersey voters are not in favor of legalized online gambling.

The Supreme Court has handed down opinions in some of the cases that we blogged about back in October. Here are the updates.

FCC v. ATT

Back in October, I wondered whether this case would add to the growing list of personal rights for corporations. The short answer is no. The Court held that corporations are not entitled to a “personal privacy” exemption from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act. 5 U. S. C. §552(b)(7)(C).

Students participate in mock trial and moot court competitions all over the country. From high school to law school, the pressure and nerves ramp up as teams prepare witnesses, finalize arguments, polish their briefs, and seek to advance from local to national level competitions. This also means that lawyers will have plenty of opportunities right around the corner to donate their time.

The various advocacy competitions going on in our neighborhoods are not only great learning opportunities for all students alike, but also an option for fellow lawyers to give back to their communities and to help shape the lawyers of tomorrow. Recently, I participated in two very different advocacy competitions: I scored the Barristers 2011 Mock Trial Competition and volunteered as a presiding judge for the regional ABA NAAC Moot Court Competition here in San Francisco.

Last month, the Black Economic Council, Latino Business Chamber of Greater Los Angeles and National Asian American Coalition staged a protest at Google, demanding data on the racial make-up of its employees.

The specific dataset sought by the protesters was the EEO-1 Report, which is filed by all employers with 100 or more employees or certain federal government contractors with 50 or more employees. This report collects the race/ethnic, gender and job categories of employees, and is confidential. The EEOC estimates that this reporting requirement impacts about 45,000 private employers and imposes “599,000 burden hours,” costing respondents $11.4 million and the federal government another $2.1 million–that’s bureaucratese for time and money sink.

This week, I thought it might be helpful to pull together a few online resources for anyone interested in tracking the labor dispute with Wisconsin’s Governor Walker.  I’ve also included some general U.S. labor law resources, and for music lovers, don’t miss our bonus track!

Wisconsin

• “A Brief History of the Key Issue in the Wisconsin Standoff” — Informative time line discussing the history of collective bargaining.
• Full Coverage: Governor Walker’s Budget Repair Bill
• University of Wisconsin Law School Forum on Legal & Political Issues Raised by Governor Walker’s Budget Repair Bill

Two months ago, a huge celebration marked the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT), the policy that allowed the military to treat gays and lesbians differently than heterosexual members of the armed forces. The repeal represented a big win for the LGBT community.

This week, I wanted to note a recent New York Times editorial, “Dangerous Threats.”  The piece comments generally on the disturbing trend of increased threats made to federal judges and prosecutors.

The Times focused on remarks made earlier this month by Representative Denny Rehberg (R-MT) before a joint session of the Montana Legislature. In speaking on a recent decision about wolves and the Endangered Species Act, Congressman Rehberg wondered, “How can we put some of these judicial activists on the endangered species list. I am still working on that!”

While some retailers are celebrating Presidents Day with aggressive discounts on ENERGY STAR® qualified appliances, we thought a more respectful commemoration that honored the accomplishments of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln would be appropriate. If you are a presidential trivia afficiando, you probably already know that in the U.S. Code, today’s legal public holiday is Washington’s Birthday, not Presidents Day. See how many of the following questions you can answer.

1. George Washington is often referred to as the “Father of his country.” Did he sign the Declaration of Independence?

Have you heard that Judge Richard Posner hates the Bluebook? Of course you have. It’s been all over the blawgosphere lately. But thanks to the UGA Law Library Blog, which posted a direct link to the article, I actually read it. True to form, the article is brief, articulate, and humorous. As someone who is regularly frustrated by citation practices, I could appreciate Posner’s points. Particularly interesting is the inclusion of the style sheet that Judge Posner provides to his own clerks.

By far, the best tip I got out of his article was a reference to a terrific piece by Professor Ian Gallacher: Cite Unseen: How Neutral Citation and America’s Law Schools Can Cure our Strange Devotion to Bibliographical Orthodoxy and the Constriction of Open and Equal Access to the Law. 70 Albany Law Rev 491 (2007). Professor Gallacher argues that the current citation format fetish reinforces the West/LexisNexis caselaw duopoly: