Legal Docs LibraryKnow Your Rights

Ken Strutin’s guide focuses on select current reports, surveys, legislative proposals and scholarship regarding criminal justice reform. It is only a small sampling of the increasing volume of publications on vital matters of interest to criminal practitioners and the public. Therefore, only a few themes are covered: criminal justice, discovery, forensics, juvenile justice, prosecutorial misconduct, public defense, sentencing and wrongful conviction.

I found this article from the Amherst Bulletin to be charming. Sarah McKee, a newly-elected trustee of the Jones Library in Amherst, Massachusetts, recently discovered a book on her shelves, Alvin M. Josephy’s The Patriot Chiefs, that she had borrowed from a public library in Arlington, Virginia in 1978. McKee, who is “plagued by a poor memory,” mailed the book back to the lending library along with a check for $25. A “lifelong bibliophile,” McKee worked as an attorney at the Department of Labor and the Department of Energy, and retired to Amherst with her large collection of books. She has been a trustee of the Jones Library since March, and has developed a “heightened awareness of the financial tightrope on which public libraries walk during tough economic times.” The Jones Library is well worth a visit if you are ever in the area. It contains special collections of two authors who lived in Amherst, Emily Dickinson and Robert Frost, and has a lovely garden in the back of the library. Read the rest of this entry »

This morning, GM began calling dealerships and letting them know they will no longer be part of their dealer network. The company is pulling the plug on 1,100 “underperforming and very small sales volume U.S. dealers” throughout the U.S.
“Dealers around the country nervously awaited news Friday morning, with some saying they were in the dark [...]

The Boston Globe’s Eric Moskowitz reports that New Hampshire governor John Lynch announced that he would sign the bill making same-sex marriage legal in the state providing that religious groups objecting to such unions would not be forced to perform ceremonies. Read the rest of this entry »

There has been a lot of talk in the mainstream media lately about a revival of sorts in asbestos litigation. Law.com bloggers and co-hosts J. Craig Williams and Bob Ambrogi welcome Attorney Kirk Hartley from the firm Butler Rubin Saltarelli & Boyd and Attorney Steven Kazan Managing Partner at Kazan, McClain, Abrams, Lyons, Greenwood & Harley, to discuss the recent victory for W.R. Grace in a Montana trial, how attorneys have been filing cases in other states with friendlier courts and what is being done to put the asbestos litigation system on the right path.

The Coca Cola Company real estate license agreement with Senomyx Inc. is correlated to a Collaborative Research, Development, Commercialization and License Agreement. The execution copy of this Real Estate License Agreements is available in its entirety on the RealDealDocs.com website.

The WaferGen Bio-Systems Inc. put option agreement with Malaysian Technology Development Corporation was drafted to induce the investor to sign a purchase agreement. The Gulfstream International Group put option agreement is a similar put option agreement detailing the right to require repurchase, exercise of the put option and various other terms for the agreement. Both of these Put Option Agreements are available in their entirety on the RealDealDocs.com website.

In order to crack down on cheating during exams, Syracuse Law School has instituted a new policy that limits the number of visits to the restroom that students can make during finals. According to the article in The Post-Standard, Syracuse Law School now limits first-year students to one bathroom break during exams, even during exams lasting as long as four hours. The reason for the new policy is that some students “are suspected of using cell phones or looking at papers in the bathrooms.” Even more disheartening for Syracuse’s administration, I suspect, is that there has been “a significant number of reports from (first-year) students alleging academic dishonesty” during this particular exam period. In addition to limiting bathroom breaks, the school has also hired more proctors; is inspecting bathrooms before and during exams; and is “reviewing computer logs to see if students have altered their answers after the exams.”

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What kind of impact has a weakened economy had on jury profiling and juror deliberations? In this edition of the ESI Report, host Michele Lange, Attorney and Director of Legal Technologies at Kroll Ontrack welcomes Dr. Laurie Kuslansky, Senior Jury Consultant for TrialGraphix/Kroll Ontrack and Fred Whitmer, partner at Kilpatrick Stockton, to discuss current juror trends, altered expectations and changing priorities in light of the recent economic downturn. In the Bits & Bytes segment, Kroll Ontrack Legal Correspondent, Meridith Socha, takes a look at the facts surrounding the recent discovery order issued in Stengart v. Loving Care Agency.

The UFA Renewable Energy Fund private equity right of first refusal agreement with Hoku Solar Inc was drafted to detail the provision of tax equity for the Hawaii Department of Transportation solar project. Sports Supplement Acquisition Group filed a private equity right of first refusal with Proviant Technologies setting the terms for Sports Supplement to acquire the assets for Proviant Tech. Both of these Private Equity Right of First Refusal Agreements are available in their entirety on the RealDealDocs.com website.