Legal Docs LibraryKnow Your Rights

On Law Technology Now, host Monica Bay welcomes Bob Ambrogi, author of Law Technology News Web Watch column and Jim Calloway, director of the Oklahoma Bar Association’s Management Assistance Program, to discuss the latest web-based search tools, including the recent launch of Microsofts “Bing.” Bob and Monica will give you a sneak preview of the September 21st Social Media: Risks & Rewards program and will help your organization exploit the best from social media tools, while protecting your intellectual property, reputation and employees.

Disney is looking to aquire the comic book powerhouse Marvel Entertainment in an attempt to strengthen its appeal to the young male audience.
Marvel’s CEO Ike Perlmutter is planning to work directly with Disney to build and integrate Marvel’s properties into the powerhouse.
“The Walt Disney Co. today announced that it had agreed to acquire comic-book giant [...]

University of Maryland law Professor Danielle Keats Citron has an interesting article on SSNR, “Law’s Expressive Value in Combatting Cyber Gender Harassment.” Also at vol. 108 Mich. L. Rev. (2009). (A nice coincidence that this pops up right after Marie’s post about the new dean at U. Maryland!) The abstract reads: Read the rest of this entry »

With the 111th Congress of the United States reconvening on September 8th, e-gov expert Peggy Garvin highlights new tools and sources that enhance and expand your ability to track and monitor the action.

I saw a posting about fellow alumna Phoebe Haddon in my Smith College alumnae newsletter. The posting linked to this story from the Baltimore Sun about Haddon, who is the new dean at the University of Maryland School of Law. I didn’t have the pleasure of knowing Dean Haddon at Smith, which is a women’s college; however, I was interested in her comments about the special insights women bring to the law:
Read the rest of this entry »

Roger V. Skalbeck and Meg Kribble describe how the majority of social media activity during the 2009 AALL conference took place on Twitter, and how this technology impacts the profession and the free exchange of information, moving forward.

Mandatory arbitration in credit card agreements are in the legal spotlight again after the Minnesota Attorney General recently sued the largest national arbitration firm, National Arbitration Forum. That resulted in a settlement shutting down part of NAF’s business and has raised questions about the outcomes of arbitration versus action in civil court for consumers. Lawer2Lawyer co-hosts, Bob Ambrogi and J. Craig Williams call on experts on both sides of this controversy, Attorney Deepak Gupta from Public Citizen Litigation Group, who focuses on consumer rights and Attorney Alan Kaplinsky, senior partner at Ballard Spahr Andrews and Ingersoll in Philadelphia, who pioneered the use of pre-dispute arbitration.

Stanley Kaplan died recently, the entrepreneur behind the Kaplan test preparation company. The link above takes the reader to a lengthy obituary in the New York Times from August 25. Kaplan was born in Brooklyn, and continued to live in the New York area to the end of his life, with homes in Manhattan and Boca Raton. He was a philanthropist to several large New York institutions, with named buildings at the NYU Medical Center and Lincoln Center for Performing Arts. In fact, his business began in his parents’ home in Brooklyn, and grew out of his tutoring for the New York Regents’ exams.

Read the rest of this entry »

Over at Johnny B: Renaissance Man, John Beatty wrote a terrific call to arms (click on the title to this post to go read it in full). After reviewing the dismal recent events in West’s relations with librarians (AALL sponsorship refused; pulling printers from Puerto Rican law schools and non-ABA accredited law schools; and finally the ad stating that knowing your librarian’s first name was proof that you were spending too much time in the library), John recalls for his readers that West is no longer a family-owned business, but part of a multi-national mega-corporation. The guiding rule is stock price and profit for these large businesses now, and librarians need to get used to the idea that their vendors and publishers are no longer the small, closely held, family-owned houses they once were.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Morgan Library and Museum in Manhattan has mounted a show entitled “Pages of Gold” which showcases leaves that were separated from manuscripts and sold individually to collectors. The New York Times reviewed the show in June, but it took me awhile to get there. The exhibition is small–it fills one good-sized room–but very affecting. It is organized by country–Italy, Spain, France, the Netherlands, Germany, Hungary–which allows the viewer to compare the different styles of medieval illumination. Some particular standouts–a page from the Winchester Bible (late twelfth century) illustrating the life of King David and showing David mourning the loss of his son; a grisly depiction from a Hungarian devotional album (14th century) of the flaying of St. Bartholomew; and an exquisite “Virgin and Child with Female Saints” (circa 1500) by the Flemish painter Gerard David. The show is on view until September 13, and if you are going to be in the New York metropolitan area, it is well worth a visit. Read the rest of this entry »