David Badertscher

August 31, 2010

New York is Moving Forward on E-Discovery and E-Filing

In his August 31, 2010 New York Law Journal article, Court Rule Altered to Buttress E-Discovery; I-Filing Advances, Joel Stashenko discusses the amended Uniform Rules of Trial Courts of the State of New York as an effort to insure that lawyers keep “up to speed” regarding their clients’ records at the early stages of discovery. The amended rules were published August 18 and went into effect immediately, having been approved beforehand by Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman and the presiding justices of the four appellate division departments.

Much of this activity has been influenced by a New York court system report, Electronic Discovery in the State of New York, published in February 2010. The key recommendations of that Report includes: establishing an e-discovery work group; improving the preliminary conference; more e-discovery programs in Education and Training; more court attorney referees serving as e-discovery specialists, establishing an institutional presence at the Sedona Conference; and working harder to improve the quality of E-Discovery practice.

On the second front mentioned in Mr. Stashenko’s article, electronic filing of litigant papers is said to be proceeding in New York at a deliberative pace. While more than10,000 lawyers registered for New York’s electronic filing system in 2009, compared to only 300 in 2002, there is , as Chief Administrative Judge Ann Pfau has observed, “there is a long way to go: before e-filing and E-Discovery are required in all New York Courts. After 11 years of experimentation with electronic filing, New York has accorded permanent status to the effort and is now beginning to institute mandatory e-filing in limited areas.

August 20, 2010

Network Neutrality: Some Background and Perspectives (Updated August 26, 2010)

by David Badertscher

David Badertscher

Introduction

In an August 6, 2010 posting on the AALL Washington Blawg, “As Talks Break Down, What is Next for Neutrality”, Emily Feldman discussed the implication of talks on network neutrality between the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and stakeholders of network neutrality falling apart, or at least being sidetracked, as part of the fallout from the private proposal presented by Google and Verizon regarding the management and possibly financing of internet traffic. As Ms. Feldman correctly noted, network neutrality is a priority for the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) because law librarians “are providers, creators and users of digital information, and it is up to law libraries to ensure that everyone has equal access to the information they need”.Although librarians are special stakeholders in issues relating to the nature and the existence of network neutrality due to the nature of their mission, everyone in our society should have special concerns about the outcome of these discussions and debates because of the increasing perception of web based information as increasing in value as a service, and even perhaps as a commodity (or something like a commodity).

August 16, 2010

OCLC Update 2010

by David Badertscher

Today we received a link to a slide presentation by Glenn Patton, Director of Wordcat Quality Management at OCLC on July 11 at the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) Annual Meeting in Denver, Colorado. We are sharing this information with you because these slides convey an important message regarding the urgency of establishing acceptable standards and developing techniques based on those standards for ensuring continued and improved access to structured data stored in various formats on web.2.0 and future versions as they evolve. .Topics covered include updates regarding the Connexion client, some discussion of the Virtual Internation Authority File (VIAF), and the ISO 27729 ISO Standard, International Standard Name Identifier (ISNI).

August 5, 2010

U.S. District Court Rejects Same Sex Marriage in California

by David Badertscher

On Wednesday August 4, 2020 Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker in San Francisco struck down California’s ban on same sex marriage in a 136 page opinioon, ruling that voter approved Proposition 8 violates the constitutional right of equal protection. Proposition 8 defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

This high profile case, Kristin Perry et. al. v. Arnold Schwarzenegger Case3:09-cv-02292-VRW, is being watched closely by both supporters and opponents of same sex marriage, as many believe it will make its way to the U.S. Supreme Court where it could result in a landmark decision.

Below are links to a discussion of this decision in the August 15 New York Times and to the decision as decided on Wednesday.

July 28, 2010

The War Logs: Deciding What to Publish – And What Not to Publish

by David Badertscher

According to the New York Times, the articles published on July 25 are based on thousands of United States military incident and intelligence reports – records of engagements, mishaps, intelligence on enemy activity and other events from the war in Afghanistan – that were made public on Sunday on the Internet by WikiLeaks, an organization devoted to exposing secrets of all kinds. These reports are used by desk officers in the Pentagon and troops in the field when they make operational plans and prepare briefings on the situation in the war zone. Most of the reports are routine, even mundane, but many add insights, texture and context to a war that has been waged for nearly nine years.

The New York Times article, Piecing Together the Reports, and Deciding What to Publish, explains the process of deliberation through which the New York Times decided to publish, and sometimes not to publish, material from some 92,000 individual reports made available by WikiLeaks to the Times, The Guardian newspaper in London, and the German magazine Der Spiegel.

July 22, 2010

Gloria Dinerman

by David Badertscher

Like others who have expressed their condolances, I felt both saddness and a sense of loss upon hearing that Gloria Dinerman, a prominent Information Sepecialist and business person, had passed away in New Providence, NJ on Sunday July 17, 2010. As mentioned in the obituary below, Gloria will be remembered by all of us for her “….unique style, sharp wit, and cultural savvy”. I also remember her as a person of humanity and caring who was always ready to lend assistance when needed.

David Badertscher

Below is an obituary from the Home News Tribune July 21, 2010. followed by links to two articles by Gloria.:

July 21, 2010

The U.S. Intelligence Community and Top Secret America

by David Badertscher

More than a dozen Washington Post journalists spent two years developing Top Secret America, a multimedia presentation put together by compiling hundreds of thousands of public records of government organizations and private sector companies. From these records, the Washington Post identified a web of these organizations, both government and private, that are engaged in top secret work for the government. According to Dana Priest and Matthew M. Arkin, two Washington Post reporters who have written about the Project, these findings amount to “…a Top Secret America hidden from public view and lacking in thorough oversight.”

Here are some additional links for those interested in the Washington Post Project:

Introductory Video: http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america/

July 19, 2010

Chambers of the Sea: Who Needs Law Libraries? It’s All Free on the Internet

by David Badertscher

Many thanks to Jonathan Stock, recently retired as Supervising Law Librarian at the Connecticut Judicial Branch Law Library at Stamford, for writing this fine, thought provoking article. It has been published in the July 2010 issue of AALL Spectrum and we have linked to the Spectrum article with Jonathan’s permission.

Jonathan’s article is truly an allegory which can be considered from many perspectives, not the least of which are Jonathan’s impressions of recent efforts to help save many of the court law libraries in Connecticut from possible oblivion.

Before linking to the actual article, I would like to share a bit of our e-mail exchange after his article first appeared in AALL Spectrum

June 24, 2010

New York County District Attorney: New Policy Regarding Prosecution of Business Entities and Organizations

by David Badertscher

Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance, Jr., has announced the District Attorney’s Office’s (DANY) new policy on the prosecution of businesses and organizations. Below are links to the DANY Press Release announcing the new policy and the May 27, 2010 DANY memorandum which contains the actual policy
http://www.manhattanda.org/whatsnew/press/2010-06-01d.shtml Press Release June 1, 2010
http://www.manhattanda.org/whatsnew/press/ProsecutionofOrganizations.pdf Memorandum “Considerations in Charging Organizations” May 27, 2010

June 23, 2010

Can Some Forms of Grand Larceny Be Viewed as Hate Crimes?

by David Badertscher

Apparently prosecutors in Queens County New York think so. This month Queens prosecutors have charged two women with stealing more than $30,000 from three elderly men they had befriended separately. The women were charged with grand larceny as a hate crime.

This strategy of treating some hate crimes as larcenous behavior is considered a novel approach. Indeed Kathleen Hogan, president of the New York State District Attorneys Association and Scott Burns, executive director of the National District Attorneys’ Association have both said they had not heard of another jurisdiction using this Queens County approach to hate crimes.

According to a New York Times article by Anne Barnard, A Novel Twist for Prosecution of Hate Crimes, “the legal thinking behind the novel method is that New York’s hate crime statute does not require prosecutors to prove defendants ‘hate’ the group the victim belongs to, that they commit the crime because of some belief, correct or not, they hold about the group.”