Legal Docs LibraryKnow Your Rights

To ascertain the current use of social websites/media in law firms, a survey was conducted among Law Librarians entitled Computer Use in Your Organization. In addition to the responses from law firm Law Librarians, several Law Librarians from law schools and county/state government law libraries also responded as did an independent Law Librarian. The opinions of Law Librarians was sought since they are typically among the first professionals in the legal environment to explore, use and recommend new computer innovations and trends useful to attorneys, judges and legal scholars regarding information gathering, information sharing, electronic legal research and current awareness. Part 1 of the Survey details the responses of fifty-six Law Librarians regarding computer use in their organizations. Part 2 will review the responses and take a close look at the implications of the responses and what, if any, patterns can be predicted for 2010.

Ken Strutin’s article focuses on threads of scholarly literature citing and commenting on the recent National Academy of Sciences report, Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States: A Path Forward, and highlights discussions where experts and practitioners rethink the merits of a wide range of forensic issues.

The November 17, 2009 Google launch of free caselaw searching via Google Scholar is the focus of John J. DiGilio’s timely content and resource review.

Peggy Garvin has updated her directory of useful government information resources online, the e-Government and Web Directory: U.S. Federal Government Online. Her research has found that federal web sites do not change as rapidly as users believe. The content on these sites is dynamic, constantly being refreshed and redesigned. However, the sites themselves, the ones that represent so much of the work of the federal government and are selected for inclusion in the book, are fairly stable.

Conrad J. Jacoby details approaches and exercises that contribute to a successful process for calculating - and staying within - a realistic budget for a litigation or regulatory document review.

Sabrina I. Pacifici’s completely revised and updated pathfinder focuses on leveraging selected reliable, focused, free and low cost sites and sources to effectively profile and monitor companies, markets, countries, people, and issues. This guide is a “best of list” of web, database and email alert products, services and tools, as well as links to content specific sources produced by government, academic, NGOs, the media and various publishers.

The court decisions, ethics opinions and articles comprising Ken Strutin’s guide provide background into current legal thinking about covert investigations, and include recent publications addressing online pretexting as well as the privacy limits of social media.

Conrad J. Jacoby discusses his experiences using the Peek mobile e-mail device (Time Magazine’s 2008 Gadget of the Year), which he believes is genuinely useful and an excellent value for its cost.

Attorney David Navetta contends that there there will be significant financial pressure on organizations to take advantage of the pricing and efficiency of cloud computing, and if attorneys fail to understand the issues ahead of time there is a serious risk of getting “bulldozed” into cloud computing arrangements without time or resources to address some serious legal issues that are implicated.

Stanford Law School deputy library director Erika Wayne describes an open source document access project focused on improving PACER (Public Access to Court Electronic Records), sponsored by a small group of research savvy and customer service oriented law librarians.