Legal Docs LibraryKnow Your Rights

For the first time, I had a student write in my Advanced Legal Research class that they wished that Lexis and Westlaw. I had heard other librarians moan about this but had just not run across it til now. It really gave me pause to have it in hand. And it made me think, it challenged me. Why should this student not get her wish? If I sat down with this young woman and had a conversation, what would I say about why I disagreed? There must be more than just a knee-jerk revulsion against the transformation. What would be my reasoned argument to her?

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Bayer HealthCare Pharmaceuticals is facing a growing number of lawsuits claiming that the company concealed the health risks associated with the top-selling birth control pills Yaz and Yasmin. Co-hosts and attorneys J. Craig Williams and Bob Ambrogi welcome Attorney Mike Danko from the Danko Law Firm and James T. O’Reilly, Professor of Law at University of Cincinnati College of Law, to a look at the basis for the litigation, the reported side affects, the FDAs role, Bayers continued marketing campaign and the federal lawsuit against the makers of Yaz and Yasmin.

On Law Technology Now, host Monica Bay welcomes Judi Flournoy, CIO of Loeb & Loeb, past president of ILTA, and a long-time member of the Law Technology News Editorial Advisory Board, to discuss how her firm upgraded its BlackBerry program. Monica and Judi will look at the new system, how it saves time and aggravation for users and administrators and dramatically cuts costs while increasing services.

The GAO has released a new report on the cost of legal education, according to a news brief in Inside Higher Education. The Chronicle of Higher Education also covers the new report in an article published yesterday. Some individuals and groups, notably ALDA, have blamed the ABA accreditation process for piling on “unnecessary requirements that discourage innovative practice (and stifle competition from new schools) and … drive up costs for students.” The GAO concluded that aacreditation requirements are not causing tuition increases; rather, “the move to a more hands-on, resource-intensive aproach to legal education and competition among schools for higher rankings appear to be the main factors driving the cost of law school.” Tuition has increased by 7.2 percent over the last twelve years at public law schools, but only by 5.3 percent at public medical schools. What has contributed to rising tuition costs at law schools? It is cheaper to staff large (100+ students) classes than it is to staff clinics and other programs that require a lot of interaction between professor and student; more faculty are required, and faculty salaries represent the lion’s share of expenses at most law school. Tuition at public law schools has increased in response to declining levels of state funding. Academic support programs, which are of fairly recent vintage, have increased costs. And how much money has been spent to move law schools higher in the U.S. News and World Report rankings?

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I loved Marie’s excellent post last week on Edmund S. Morgan, celebrator of libraries! The wonderful quotes she included made me consider for the first time libraries as storehouses of dangerous ideas, sort of boxes of the ingredients of weapons of mass destruction, just waiting for the right mind to wander in and see how to put it together! (here is the quote!) Read the rest of this entry »

In this edition of the ESI Report, host Gina Jytyla, Managing Staff Attorney in the Legal Technologies division at Kroll Ontrack, welcomes Joe DeMarco, Partner with DeVore & DeMarco LLP and Jason Paroff, Senior Director of Computer Forensics Operations at Kroll Ontrack to discuss a recent case from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, United States v. Comprehensive Drug Testing, Inc. Mr. Demarco and Mr. Paroff will take an in-depth look into the courts analysis, including the potential impact on law enforcement agencies who conduct investigations where digital evidence is at issue. In the Bits & Bytes Legal Analysis segment, Kroll Ontrack Legal Correspondent, Kelly Kubacki will take a look at the discovery order issued in United States v. Sensient Colors, Inc.

Newsweek has published an insightful discussion of passwords, which it calls “the weak link in computer security.” The author, Nick Summers, reveals that he created a password a number of years ago and kept using it “as the requirements for passwords evolved … [he] added extra nines, cobbled on a question mark, and blended it with [his] alternate password.” The result of all this tweaking was a password that would access Mr. Summers’s laptop, email, bank accounts, blog, work PC, health insurance, Facebook, Skype, Snapfish, Hulu, tax returns, “and at least 39 other sites across the Internet.” After making this confession, Mr. Summer is quick to note that he is changing his password.

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Will lawyers ever move past the ever-present legal pad as their most trusted tool for practicing law? Tablet PCs have been around for quite a while, but lawyers are now using iPhones, iPod Touches and other devices with touch screens. Are the days of the paper legal pad numbered? In this episode, co-hosts Dennis Kennedy and Tom Mighell discuss whether lawyers will ever embrace touch technologies. After you listen, be sure to check out Tom & Dennis co-blog and book by the same name, The Lawyers Guide to Collaboration Tools and Technologies.

PCWorld has published an article touting Barnes & Noble’s new Nook e-reader, which the author, David Coursey, feels will “convince e-book skeptics that this is the time to start moving from Gutenberg to gigabytes.” Coursey lists the features he thinks will make the Nook a hit: color multi-touch screen; ease of purchasing e-books from the ubiquitous Barnes & Noble; openness to third-party applications; the ability to “loan” e-books to other Nook users and to users of other electronic devices. Is the price–$259–too high? Coursey thinks so, but believes the price will drop in the coming year. Be sure to check out PCWorld’s tour of the Nook. As for me, I’ll check it out the next time I’m in Barnes & Noble. Read the rest of this entry »

Faculty Voices - Top 10 Things Patent Practitioners are Talking About with Respect to KSR and Bilski - Suffolk University Law School offers five academic concentrations. Within our Intellectual Property concentration, we offer a specialization in Patent Law. In this podcast, Kirk Teska, a member of our adjunct faculty, discusses KSR and Bilski.