Top Ten Stories for Week Ending January 8, 2010.
Layoffs BigLaw Laid Off More than 12,000 People in 2009, the Worst Year Ever
Jan 4, 2010, 06:55 am CST
ABA Journal Weekly Newsletter. December 30, 2009.
Top Ten Stories for Week Ending December 30, 2009:
Legal Technology
100 Best Blawgs of 2009
ABA Journal Weekly Newsletter. December 23, 2009.
Top Ten Stories for Week Ending December 23, 2009
Lawyer Pay
First-Year Associates Bear the Brunt of Lower Bonuses; Some See Cuts of 71%
ABA Journal Law Journal Weekly Newsletter
Top Ten Stories for Week Ending December 18, 2009:
Trademark Law
The North Face Sues The South Butt for Trademark Infringement
After Being Pronounced Dead Kirkus Reviews Appears to be Back With Us
David Badertscher
Although not primarily a reviewer of legal materials, Kirkus Reviews is one of the most outstanding and respected review magazines devoted to book media. It was founded in 1933 by Virginia Kirkus (1893-1981) a former head of the children’s book department of Harper & Bros. with the idea of holding book reviewing to a very high standard, being selective in both the books reviewed and the people assgned to review them. The first year they received about 20 advance galley proofs.
By all accounts Kirus has managed to maintain these high standards throughout the years, becomeing one of the true standard bearers for the authoritative reviewing of all types of titles including those related to law. According to their website, Kirkus currently reviews about 5,000 titles per year “with the idea of of providing Kirkus regulars (librarians, newspaper editors, agents, film producers, booksellers, and those throughout the book world in general) with professional, informative, and impartial descriptive evaluations of forthcoming titles, and to do so on a timely basis.”
User Driven Enhancements to THOMAS Launched on its Fifteenth Birthday
THOMAS was launched on January 5, 1995, at the inception of the 104th Congress. The leadership of the 104th Congress directed the Library of Congress to make federal legislative information freely available to the public. Since that time THOMAS has expanded the scope of its offerings to include many features and content including those listed below.:
Bills, Resolutions Activity in Congress Congressional Record Schedules, Calendars Committee Information Presidential Nominations
Now, fifteen years later in response to user feedback and in celebration of its fifteenth anniversary, THOMAS has been updated for the second session of the 111th Congress.
Findlaw Case Summaries: Criminal Law and Procedure 32
December-28, 2009 – January 1, 2010
To view the full-text of cases you must sign in to FindLaw.com. All summaries are produced by Findlaw.
U.S. 1st Circuit Court of Appeals, December 28, 2009 US v. Dyer, No. 08-1343 Sentence on a defendant convicted of possessing child pornography is affirmed where: 1) the district court properly interpreted the trafficking cross-reference under U.S.S.G. section 2G2.4(c)(2) to include situations in which a defendant intended to exchange child pornography without any commercial purpose; 2) defendant’s argument that the government must necessarily show the defendant actively and subjectively desired that others would get images of child pornography from him and that ordinary general intent does not suffice is rejected; 3) district court did not err in concluding that defendant’s online conduct showed an “intent to traffic” under section 2G2.4(c)(2); and 4) defendant’s argument that agent’s testimony violated his Confrontation Clause rights because the grand jury testimony was never part of the record and because he had no chance to challenge that testimony during the sentencing hearing is rejected as without merit.
U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, December 30, 2009 US v. MacPherson, No. 08-1829 Defendant’s drug distribution sentence following a guilty plea is affirmed where: 1) the agreement and the plea colloquy put the defendant on notice that the Pimentel drug quantity estimate was not binding on the prosecutor and that if the estimate was wrong, the plea could not be withdrawn; and 2) there was no authority that prevented a sentencing judge from using facts of the offense conduct both to determine the applicable Sentencing Guidelines range and to select a sentence within that range.
U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, December 28, 2009 Smith v. Smith, No. 08-7139 In an inmate’s 42 U.S.C. section 1983 suit against a prison nurse claiming deliberate indifference to his serious medical needs, district court’s judgment in favor of the defendant is reversed and remanded where: 1) the inmate made out a claim for a deliberate indifference and the district court erred in finding that he failed to state a claim under the Eighth Amendment; and 2) because the district court premised both the grant of the motion to dismiss and qualified immunity on its finding that plaintiff failed to allege deliberate indifference in his complaint, the immunity analysis was prematurely concluded on the erroneous basis that plaintiff did not plead facts sufficient to indicate defendant had deliberate indifference to his medical need.
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Findlaw Case Summaries: Constitutional Law 29
December-28, 2009 – January 1, 2010
To view the full-text of cases you must sign in to FindLaw.com. All summaries are produced by Findlaw.
U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, December 30, 2009 Wilner v. Nat’l. Sec. Agency, No. 08-4726 In a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) action filed by attorneys for Guantanamo Bay detainees seeking information regarding whether the government intercepted plaintiffs’ communications relating to the representation of their detainee clients, an order upholding the National Security Agency’s (NSA) and Department of Justice’s responses neither confirming nor denying the existence of such records is affirmed where: 1) a Glomar response was available to agencies as a valid response to FOIA requests; 2) an agency may issue a Glomar response to FOIA requests seeking information obtained pursuant to a publicly acknowledged intelligence program, at least when the existence of such information has not already been publicly disclosed; 3) the NSA properly invoked the Glomar doctrine in response to plaintiffs’ request for information pursuant to FOIA Exemption 3; 4) the government’s affidavits sufficiently alleged the necessity of a Glomar response in this case, making it unnecessary ! for the court to review or to require the district court to review ex parte and in camera any classified affidavits that the NSA might proffer in support of its Glomar response; and 5) there was no evidence in the record that the NSA invoked Glomar for the purpose of concealing activities that violated the Constitution or were otherwise illegal.
U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, December 28, 2009 Smith v. Smith, No. 08-7139 In an inmate’s 42 U.S.C. section 1983 suit against a prison nurse claiming deliberate indifference to his serious medical needs, district court’s judgment in favor of the defendant is reversed and remanded where: 1) the inmate made out a claim for a deliberate indifference and the district court erred in finding that he failed to state a claim under the Eighth Amendment; and 2) because the district court premised both the grant of the motion to dismiss and qualified immunity on its finding that plaintiff failed to allege deliberate indifference in his complaint, the immunity analysis was prematurely concluded on the erroneous basis that plaintiff did not plead facts sufficient to indicate defendant had deliberate indifference to his medical need.
U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals, December 30, 2009 Hamblen v. US, No. 09-5025 District court’s denial of a 28 U.S.C. section 2255 motion to vacate a sentence for possession of machine guns and unregistered firearms by defendant, a volunteer with the Tennessee State Guard who had built nine machine guns in response to the events of September 11, is affirmed as the Second Amendment does not confer an unrestricted individual right to keep and bear machine guns.
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New York State Office of the State Comptroller: Citizen Centric Report
The New York State Office of the State Comptroller has issued it’s first Citizen-Centric Report for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2009. The format for the Citizen-Centric Report was developed by the Association of Government Accountants (AGA) and is intended to foster innovative means of communication between governments and their citizenry. The AGA believes that government financial information should be provided to citizens in a visually appealing, clear and understandable four-page document.
To view the Citizen-Centric Report for the fiscal year ended March 31,
2009, please click on the link below:
Characteristics Which Can Help Save Libraries in a Highly Competitive and Dynamic Environment
BY: David Badertscher*
I have been following with great interest recent discussion on listservs and in the literature regarding a perception that libraries are becoming less relevant in a technologically-oriented society that relies increasingly on “instant gratification”(achieved largely through online searching and related techniques).
Technology is wonderful, and I think should it should be embraced, but not at the expense of alternative tools and methods that produce better results and may be more cost effective. If they are to accomplish their mission and remain relevant over time to their parent organizations, libraries must always be prepared to use a variety or mixture of techniques and materials, both technical and non-technical, to achieve results that are accurate, timely, efficient, cost effective, and deemed by patrons and managers to be trustworthy. The alternative is to increase the risk of libraries being perceived as no longer capable of meeting growing expectations and thereby becoming possible candidates for eventual closure.