BarclayBlog

Law Firm Hiring practices in the economic downturn

2009-08-28T13:43:00.003-04:00

The economy continues to impact the traditional large law firm hiring cycle:

A NY Times article focuses on 2Ls waiting for the chance to interview in the fall: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/26/business/26lawyers.html?em Some famous firms have stopped interviewing at Yale...
Gerry Shih, Downturn Dims Prospects Even at Top Law Schools, NYT 8/25/09

There have also been reports of delays of offers to those students who were fortunate enough to have a summer associate position in 2009.
http://www.nylj.com/nylawyer/news/09/08/082709l.html?hbxlogin=1
Gana Passarella, Please Continue to Hold...Your Career will be Determined by the First Available Agent (published in the Legal Intelligencer) 8/27/09

--Greg.

Movin' On

2009-05-04T13:16:00.002-04:00

To my faithful readers: After many happy
and productive years at the Barclay Law
Library, I will be moving on to become
Executive Director of the Dewitt Community
Library. This was a tough decision, but as
a former library director always told me,
change is good!

New Online Legal Magazine a "Refreshing Alternative" to Traditional Law Reviews

2009-04-26T15:01:00.008-04:00

The Legal Workshop is a new online legal journal
that seeks to disseminate legal scholarship to a broad
audience of readers. The new endeavor is produced by
a consortium of academic law reviews: Stanford Law
Review, New York University Law Review,
Cornell Law Review, Duke Law Journal, Georgetown Law
Journal, Northwestern Law Review, and University of
Chicago Law Review.

According to the press release (4/21/2009), the new journal
"offers an engaging alternative to traditional academic articles
that run 30,000 words with footnotes," instead featuring short,
plain-English articles about legal issues and ideas, written by
an author whose related, full-length work of scholarship
is forthcoming in one of the participating law reviews."

Library of Congress on YouTube

2009-04-26T14:39:00.002-04:00

The Library of Congress has a new YouTube site.
Currently, the site features 74 videos, organized
into the following playlists:

2008 National Book Festival (Readings by
authors from the National Book Festival, Washington DC,
Sept. 27, 2008)

Books and Beyond (Public talks at the Library of
Congress by authors of recently-published books)

Journeys and Crossings (Library staff provide
insights into historically significant materials in
the LC collection)

Early Films: Westinghouse, 1904
(Classic historic industrial films from the Westinghouse
Works, produced in April-May 1904)

Kluge Center Series: Prominent Scholars on Current Topics
(Prominent scholars present public lectures, book talks
and workshops)

Early Films: Edison Companies (Examples of popular
content filmed by Thomas Edison's labs in the 1880's)

Black's Law Dictionary Now Available for iPhone/iPod

2009-04-26T14:25:00.002-04:00

West, part of Thomson Reuters, has launched a Black's Law
Dictionary on iTunes. The new application for iPod or iPhone
features the most recent edition (the 8th) of the dictionary,
edited by Bryan A. Garner. The iPhone version, which sells for
a whopping $49.99, features hyperlinked cross-references and
audio pronunciations for some terms.
Check it out at the iPhone App Store.

Hat tip to Robert Ambrogi.

Law Professors Seek Injunction Over 'Sham' West Treatise Supplement

2009-04-16T08:59:00.002-04:00

Shannon Duffy (The Legal Intelligencer, 4/16/2009)
reports on a claim by two law professors that West
Publishing falsely identified them as authors of a
2008 supplement to their Pennsylvania criminal law
treatise.

According to the article, David Rudovsky of the University
of Pennsylvania and Leonard Sosnow of Widener Law School
"claimed that the December 2008 supplement...to their
book, Pennsylvania Criminal Procedure -- Law, Commentary
and Forms, was so poorly researched that it will harm their
reputations if allowed to remain on library shelves."

A lawyer for West, reports Duffy, "insisted that although West
was not proud of the first version of the supplement, it has
recently mailed out a new version that cures [the] defects
and includes a revised cover page that clearly explains
that Rudovsky and Sosnov ended their work on the updates
in 2007."

Senior U.S. District Judge John P. Fullam is expected to
rule soon the law professor's request for a preliminary
injunction.

National Archives to Release Reagan and Bush 41 Presidential Records

2009-04-16T08:50:00.002-04:00

National Archives news release:

"Acting Archivist of the United States Adrienne
Thomas announced [April 10, 2009] that 245,763 pages
of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush Presidential
records will be opened for research on Monday, April 13,
2009, at their respective libraries. These records, which
were still pending with the George W. Bush Administration
as of January 20, 2009, today cleared the review process
established by President Barack Obama under
Executive Order 13489."

Hat tip to beSpacific.

Best Academic Presses in Law

2009-04-14T20:06:00.001-04:00

Brian Leiter has posted the results of the poll here.

Internally Displaced Persons: Guide to Legal Information Resources on the Web

2009-04-14T19:44:00.004-04:00

Elisa Mason has published a new annotated web guide
on internally displaced persons on LLRX.

According to the 1998 United Nations Guiding Principles on
Internal Displacement, internally displaced
persons (IDP's) are "persons or groups of persons who have
been forced or obliged to flee or to leave their homes or
places of habitual residence, in particular as a result of
or in order to avoid the effects of armed conflict,
situations of generalized violence, violations of human
rights or natural or human-made disasters, and who have
not crossed an internationally recognized State border."

The web guide encompasses international and regional
legal instruments and national legislation as well as
institutional arrangements for IDP's, conflict and disaster
IDP's, development IDP's and additional resources.

AAUP Releases Annual Faculty Salaries Report

2009-04-14T19:33:00.003-04:00

The AAUP (American Association of University Professors)
has released its 2008-09 Report on the Economic Status of
the Profession [PDF].

Paul Caron on the TaxProf Blog links to related data
and extracts faculty salary information for selected
top universities here.

Sources on the Law Review Submission Process

2009-04-09T15:31:00.003-04:00

Brian Leiter (and commentators) have noted
several useful sources for law grads and new
law faculty looking for guides on how the law review
submission process works.

Avvo Law School Rankings

2009-04-09T15:10:00.002-04:00

Avvo, the free web site that provides legal information,
rates lawyers and offers client reviews of lawyers, has started
its own law school rankings web site. The rankings are based
on Avvo's attorney ratings, which are gleaned from bar associations,
lawyers' Web sites, and lawyers themselves. This year, alumni
from 492 law schools are represented in the rankings. The
complete directory of law schools ranked may be found here.

U.S. News won't be getting nervous about the competition
from Avvo any time soon, but prospective law students
and their families will undoubtedly be checking out Avvo
as part of their research.

Hat tip to the Law Librarian Blog.

LSAT-Free Law School Admission

2009-04-09T14:54:00.003-04:00

Paul Caron at TaxProfBlog points us to the following
articles on the subject of law schools offering selected
undergrads the option of applying to its law school
without taking the LSAT.

ABA Journal
National Law Journal
Tuscaloosa News

Tax Planning for Professors on Visits and Sabbaticals

2009-04-07T09:28:00.002-04:00

Paul Caron on the TaxProfBlog brings our
attention to a practical article for law faculty
planning a sabbatical or visit to another
law school. Tax Planning for Professors on
Visits and Sabbaticals, by Myron Hulen (Colorado
State University, College of Business), William Kenny
(Portland State University, School of Business
Administration) & Anne L. Christensen
(Montana State University, College of Business),
was originally published in the Journal of Legal Tax
Research in 2005.

Social Networking Online & Criminal Justice

2009-04-07T09:15:00.002-04:00

Ken Strutin (Director of Legal Information Services at
the New York State Defenders Association) has published
a new article on LLRX that "provides a snapshot of many
of the novel and varied uses of social networking evidence
in the field of criminal justice. The resources [listed
in this web article] explore basic concepts about social
networking online, the use of materials found on profiling
sites for investigation and their impact on criminal litigation."

Web Archive of Blawgs from the Library of Congress

2009-04-07T08:45:00.004-04:00

The Legal Blawgs Web Archive (Library of Congress)
is a selective collection of authoritative sites (associated
with American Bar Association approved law schools,
research institutes, think tanks, and other expertise-
based organizations) that contain unique, born digital
content. These blogs contain journal-style entries,
articles and essays, discussions, and comments on
emerging legal issues, national and international. Sites
are domestic and in English, although foreign sites may
be included later in the duration of this project.

I'm proud to note that Syracuse University College of
Law's Impunity Watch is among the international and
comparative law selections.

The site may be browsed or searched.

Hat tip to Robert Ambrogi at LawSites.

Jury Finds that Ward Churchill Was Wrongfully Fired by U of Colorado

2009-04-05T18:12:00.002-04:00

The NY Times reports on the case here.
According to the article, "the jurors found that
Mr. Churchill’s political views had been a 'substantial
or motivating' factor in his dismissal, and that the
university had not shown that he would have been
dismissed anyway." Ward Churchill, who came
under attack for his controversial views about the
Sept. 11 attacks, was dismissed in 2007 from his
tenured faculty position at the University of Colorado.

University of Denver law students blog about the
trial and verdict on the Ward Churchill-
First Amendment Suit. Read Brian Leiter's
2007 posts on the case here and here.

The Life.com Photo Archive

2009-04-05T17:51:00.002-04:00

LIFE and Getty Images have collaborated to provide
readers with instant access to millions of photographs
free of charge. LIFE.com offers access to the legendary
LIFE and Getty photo archives as well as to more
than 3,000 new photographs added daily.

You can browse broad subject categories or search the
site. Additional features include guest editors'
photo picks, an email newsletter, and a list of most popular
photos.

You can link to photographs, email them to yourself
or others, download them as preview images (make
sure to read the terms of use) or share them through
popular social networking sites such as Facebook. All
photographs are for personal, non-commercial
use only.

Watch Eric Posner & Jack Balkin on "The Politics of Emergency"

2009-04-05T17:22:00.002-04:00

Bloggingheads.tv offers an entertaining and provocative
split-screen streaming video - a "diavlog"- of Eric Posner
(Chicago) and Jack Balkin (Yale) discussing
The Politics of Emergency.

Topics include:

Executive power in a time of emergency
Can the president change reality?
Obama’s political Ponzi scheme
Secrecy in the Obama administration
Jack vs. Eric: Should we fear the modern presidency?
Imagining an executive branch 2.0

Hat tip to the University of Chicago Law School
Faculty Blog.

HeinOnline Tip of the Week: How to Print a Specific Section or Document Within the Federal Register

2009-03-30T10:33:00.003-04:00

The HeinOnline Weblog announces a useful new
Tip of the Week tutorial on how to use the Table of
Contents at the beginning of the Federal Register
to identify where a section begins and ends (which
then makes it easy to print the document using
the custom page range printing tool).

This step-by-step illustrated tutorial makes the
process clear and easy.

Google Enlarges Its Search Results "Snippets" for Some Searches

2009-03-30T09:18:00.003-04:00

Google has announced that it will increase the length of
its search result "snippets" (abstracts) for more
complex searches.

Why is this change useful for researchers? When you enter
a longer query with more than three words, regular-length
snippets may not give you enough information nor provide
a meaningful context. Now, Google will increase the number
of lines in the snippet to provide more information and
show more of the words you typed in the context of the page.

For example, a search for "hearing impaired disability
employment rights Australia" now retrieves this four line
'snippet' that includes all of our search terms. A significant
term, hearing impaired, appears only in the last line, which
may have been omitted in the earlier Google results model.

Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission Website
Following Australia 's ratification of the Convention on 18 July, ...
National Mental Health and Disability Employment Strategy : We have
continued to .... to oversee a project examining human rights issues
for hearing impaired and deaf ...www.hreoc.gov.au/disability_rights/
update/0808.html - 36k - Cached - Similar pages

New Legal Site Focuses on LGBT Community Legal Needs

2009-03-30T09:06:00.002-04:00

Legalout is a subscription-based online resource center that
provides the GLBT community with assistance in preparing
legal documents through an online format. Documents are
available on estate planning, living wills, domestic partnerships,
financial and health care power of attorney, co-parenting
agreements, and many others. In addition, the site provides
links and other information to support the legal needs of the
GLBT community.

The first document is free, after which users can choose either
a monthly subscription of $19.95 or an annual subscription of
$119.95. There is also an option for professionals that allows
multiple users and additional sharing and collaboration features.
All subscription levels allow unlimited access to the legal documents.

Hat tip to Robert Ambrogi on LawSites.

Webinar on "Getting Started" in HeinOnline

2009-03-23T14:46:00.003-04:00

Could you or your students benefit from a tutorial
on the basics of using HeinOnline? If so, check out the
webinar being hosted by Hein on Wednesday, April 15th
from 2:00 p.m.-3:00 p.m. EST.

The webinar (for HeinOnline subscribers)
will cover the following topics:

Logging in to the database and accessing the content
Navigating from one collection to another
How to navigate within the content using the interface

How to use the Field and Advanced Search options
How to print/download documents
Where to find additional help and resources for specific collections

To register, email marketing@wshein.com. Please include your
full name, name of your institution, and the email address to which you
would like HeinOnline to send the webinar invitation.

Getting Serious About Research Online

2009-03-23T14:02:00.002-04:00

Sarah Kubik (associate faculty member in visual
communications and design at Indiana University-
Purdue University) writes in Higher Ed Today
about the value of authoritative online research
sources in the evolving academic information
landscape.

Kublik, who was "shocked at [a student's] apparent
laziness and naiveté on conducting research" when he
presented three website addresses as his research
source list, realized that students are not being trained
to analyze online sources and select quality information
because many academics dismiss Internet sources
out of hand.

Kublik encourages academics to "take seriously issues related
to citing materials in media that didn’t exist a generation ago."
She advocates for recognition of online-only journals
(generally not peer-reviewed) that are frequently located
by students in web searches and cited in their research.
She suggests that, "while it once made sense to equate
print with quality, it’s time to embrace newer forms of
communication as valid. If they need academically
sound forms of verification and procedures for citation, let’s
get to work."

Make sure to look at the comments following the article.

Hat tip to Marie S. Newman at Out of the Jungle.

LitiLaw: Legal Article Research Portal

2009-03-23T13:55:00.002-04:00

From About LitiLaw:

A tremendous amount of high-quality legal research has
been written by lawyers as part of continuing legal education
(CLE) programs or conferences, or published in legal magazines
or articles...[o]ften they represent the best writing available
on a legal subject, but can be difficult to find.

Litilaw gathers descriptions of and links to these articles and
organizes the articles into an easy to use searchable collection.
We include the title, authors, a description, the publication,
year published and number of pages. The collection is text-
searchable to allow users to find articles by applicable keywords.
Articles are available full-text in PDF or PPT formats.
Articles are categorized and organized into over 50 substantive
and procedural areas of law.