OCU Law's Lee Peoples to Speak at Georgetown Law & AALL Conference

Lee Peoples, Associate Professor of Law Library Science at OCU Law, is scheduled to speak at a Georgetown symposium titled: The Future of Today's Legal Scholarship held in honor of the late Robert Oakley, former Director of the Georgetown Law Library and a well respected law librarian. Peoples' will discuss the use of blogs in judicial opinions and litigation. Following the Georgetown symposium Peoples will speak at the American Association of Law Libraries Annual Meeting in a session titled: Law Librarians Abroad: Is a Foreign Study Program for You?

OCU Law's Darla Jackson to Speak at AALL Conference

Darla Jackson, Head of Reference and Access Services at the OCU Law Library, will coordinate and moderate a program titled: Understanding the Mean: How the Average Law Librarian Can Encourage Empirical Research Initiatives. The program will be presented at the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) Annual Meeting. The program description is included below:

The U.S. Supreme Court has long acknowledged the usefulness of information produced by social science research methods. In 2003, the Supreme Court cited statistical evidence in two cases. Recognizing the persuasive power of research concluded through empirical methods, court, firm and academic librarians are now contemplating how they can add value to the empirical research process. This program will provide an introduction to empirical research methods and assist librarians in understanding how two academic law libraries and a law and legal studies librarian at an academic library have supported empirical legal research initiatives. Speakers will discuss their experiences in supporting empirical legal research initiatives and provide advice on the types of support “average” law librarians can provide. Speakers will also suggest avenues for law librarians to develop a greater familiarity with
empirical research methods.

Best Wishes on the Bar Exam

The OCU Law Library wishes all OCU Law grads good luck on the bar exam this summer. And don't forget to check out the OCU Law Library guide for alumni.

Firefox Tools for Legal Research & Writing

Users of the Firefox browser will appreciate this helpful list of tools and add-ons compiled by Wislawblog.

New Hein Databases

The Law Library recently added several new databases to our Hein Online collection. Law students and faculty now have access to the following databases on Hein Online:

1) National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws - Archive Publications

2) Selden Society Publications and the History of Early English Law

3) Subject Compilations of State Laws

Hein Online is accessible from our databases page here. You can access it on campus and off.

Recent Acquistions - In the Reference Wing

You may have noticed that the recent acquisitions are now available for your review in the Reference Wing. A list of recent acquisitions for June 2009 is available here.

How Should Lawyers Dress

Apparently, the Seventh Circuit conference tackled the unusual issue of how lawyers dress. The consensus: Too sexy and too silly. Interestingly, they blame the law schools, in part, for this failure.

(hat tip to law school innovation)

Nolo's Free Legal Dictionary for iPhone

Nolo has developed a free legal dictionary for the iPhone. Nolo's Plain English Law Dictionary "contains nearly 4000 legal terms defined in everyday, understandable language," according to the iTunes descriptions.

Here's more about the app from iTunes:

"You'll find both the legal standards--Latin terms, courtroom jargon, contract basics--and newly minted terms that reflect the ever changing language of the law today. What does it mean to get "dooced"? Do you need that "pre-dup"? Had a run-in with a "patent troll" lately? Nolo is committed to finding and defining the latest twists in legal language that have entered our daily conversations--important words not found in other legal dictionaries. Nolo's Plain-English Law Dictionary is both authoritative and friendly, but it is not your grandfather's law dictionary."

Hat tip to WisBlawg.

Is Research on Westlaw / Lexis a Necessity in Texas?

A recent article in the Saint Mary's Law Journal “Practitioners Beware: Under Amended TRAP 47, “Unpublished” Memorandum Opinions in Civil Cases are Binding and Research on Westlaw and Lexis is a Necessity” Vol. 40, 2009, discusses the 2003 and 2008 amendments to the Texas Rule of Appellate Procedure (TRAP) 47, which deal with the citation and precedential weight of unpublished and memorandum opinions. Solomon writes:

“The 2003 amendment was seemingly designed to make the law more readily available by prohibiting the issuance of unpublished opinions in civil cases and and authorizing memorandum opinions in place of unpublished opinions. Despite this intention, the 2003 amendment has failed to make the law in civil cases more readily available because the newly created memorandum opinions are only available electronically via Westlaw, Lexis, and the court websites, even though these opinions are designated for publication. Also, the 2008 amendment has now made memorandum opinions issued in civil cases since 2003 fully precedential. As a result, to completely research binding law in civil cases, Texas attorneys must now have access to Westlaw or Lexis because the court websites lack sophisticated search engines necessary to conduct competent legal research.”

“The amendment is flawed because it makes memorandum opinions precedential even though those opinions are only readily available on Westlaw and Lexis. This has occurred in an era when only 60% of attorneys use fee-based online research services (i.e., Westlaw or Lexis) for state case law research.”

Solomon makes a number of recommendations, including “making all opinions readily available on a sophisticated, widely available, and unified website for the Texas courts of appeals.”

As it goes in the state song of Texas, “boldest and grandest, withstanding ev’ry test,” so an accessible, complete website for the courts in Texas seems only right.

(originally posted on Legal Research Plus)

Free Law Review Article Submission System: LexOpus

LexOpus (http://lexopus.wlu.edu) is a recently launched service at Washington and Lee Law School offering free online submissions to law journals. The service has two facets:

1) An author can make an article available to all interested law journals, inviting journals to make offers. Journals are able to limit by subject matter the articles that they see as open to offers.

2) An author can make offers to law journals in an author-specified journal list, LexOpus making on behalf of the author a short-term exclusive offer to each law journal in sequence. For non-peer-reviewed journals 'short term' is one week. Author offers continue past each journal's exclusive period, on a non-exclusive basis, until rejected by the journal or withdrawn by the author, but any journal with an exclusive period always has acceptance priority.

An author can make a work 'open to offers' as well as submit to specific journals, or can do one or the other. As the system does permit uploading of revisions authors might make working papers open to offers and then, if no acceptable offers have been received, when the finished work is available submit that version to specific law journals.

Works can be suppressed from public view if the author so desires. (hat tip to law librarian blog)

July Law Library Hours

JULY and August EXCEPTIONS

Independence Day

Friday, July 3 - Closed

Oklahoma Bar Exam Preparation

Saturday, July 11, Noon-7pm

Saturday, July 18, Noon-7pm

End of Summer Term

Friday-Sunday, July 31-August 2, Closed

You can always check the current schedule here