Jurist’s Paper Chase reports that the House of Representatives, by a vote of 281-146, passed the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act (the federal hate crimes legislation) as part of the larger Defense Authorization Act of 2010 (it is at page 1471 of the 1515 page H.R. 2467) to address an issue that has been an unfortunate part of American history: crimes of hatred and prejudice that include lynching, cross burning and vandalism of synagogues. In 1990, Congress passed the Hate Crime Statistics Act of 1990, to collect data “about crimes that manifest evidence of prejudice based on race, religion, sexual orientation, or ethnicity.” Since then, the FBI has published hate crime statistics every year. Reports for the years 1995 to 2007, available on the FBI website, breaks down hate crime statistics by type. The 2007 version reports 7,624 hate crime incidents involving 9,006 offenses from 2,025 law enforcement agencies. The 2008 report is due out this fall.

• Race – 4,724 offenses (Anti-White – 18.4 %, Anti-Black – 69.3 %, Anti-American Indian/Alaskan Native – 1.6%, Anti-Asian/Pacific Islander – 4.6 %)
• Religion – 1,477 offenses (Anti-Jewish – 68.4%, Anti-Catholic – 4.4%, Anti-Protestant – 4.0%, Anti-Islamic – 9.0%, Anti-Atheism/Agnosticism – 0.4%)
• Sexual Orientation – 1,460 offenses (Anti-Male Homosexual – 59.2%, Anti-Female Homosexual –12.6%, Anti-Heterosexual – 1.8%, Anti-Bisexual – 1.6%)
• Ethnicity/National Origin – 1,256 offenses (Anti-Hispanic – 61.7% and other – 38.3%)
  Disability – 82 offenses (Anti-Physical – 62 offenses and Anti-Mental – 20 offenses)

Passage of the Hate Crimes Prevention Act seems likely as in July the Senate passed a comparable bill (S.909) and President Obama has promised to sign the legislation into law. Besides questioning the inclusion of hate crimes legislation in an unrelated military appropriations bill, critics have raised First Amendment free speech and Fourteenth Amendment equal protection concerns as well as double jeopardy concerns. See for example Nat Hentoff’s article ‘Thought Crimes’ Bill Advances. The Assistant Attorney General Office of Legislative Affairs wrote a Memorandum Opinion that the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act is constitutional.

The Brooklyn Law School Library’s collection has several items on hate crimes laws including Hate Crimes: a Reference Handbook by Donald Altschiller (Call #HV6773.52 .A47 2005) with chapters: History of hate crimes legislation — Executive branch — U.S. Supreme Court decisions — Hate crimes legislation at the state level — Critics of hate crime laws — Recent hate crimes — Some major targeted groups — Hate crimes around the world — Gays and lesbians — Jews.

See also Scapegoats of September 11th: Hate Crimes & State Crimes in the War on Terror by Michael Welch (Call #HV6431 .W444 2006) including chapter titled Talking about terror — Seeking a safer society — Scapegoating and social insecurity — Crusading against terror — Hate crimes as backlash violence — Profiling and detention in post-9/11 America — State crimes in the war on terror — Claiming effectiveness — Assaulting civil liberties.

See also Violence, Prejudice and Sexuality by Stephen Tomsen (Call #HV6250.4.H66 T67 2009) with ‘Homophobia’ and the social context of sexual prejudice — Violence and ‘hate crime’ — Researching anti-homosexual killings — Killings as ‘hate crimes’? — Male honour and the ‘homosexual advance’.

With the current economic slowdown, recent legal periodical literature has articles helpful to law school students as they consider their future legal careers. The Fall 2009 edition of the American Lawyer Student Edition has an article by Tamara Loomis describing how the recession has changed large law firms with salary freezes and cuts, deferred start dates for first-year associates, and canceled or downsized summer programs. In reviewing how large law firms are responding to the recession, the article takes a look over the past period of unprecedented prosperity for the legal profession when law firm expenses rose by an average of 10.1 percent each year from 2000 to 2007. The article quotes Dean David Van Zandt of Northwestern Law School on how firms have now become choosier. “During the boom years, firms just needed bodies. Now firms are looking for students who not only can draft briefs and review documents but can also work well with clients and other lawyers.” He goes on to say that firms are starting to look more closely at a candidate’s basic project-management and communication skills.

This same point is made in another article by Debra Cassens Weiss in the ABA Journal which describes changes in interview techniques used by law firms with fewer job openings. The article says that more senior interviewers are using behavioral questions to learn more about students’ personalities. The interviews begin with question such as “Tell me about a time” or “Give me an example of a time.” The article describes the techniques that law firms to identify four behavior patterns:

• Decision-making and problem-solving skills. An interviewer might ask: Tell me about a difficult decision you had to make.
• Motivation. An interviewer might ask: Tell me about a time when you failed to meet expectations.
• Communication and interpersonal skills. An interviewer might ask: Describe an unpopular decision you made and how you dealt with the aftermath.
• Planning and organization. An interviewer might ask: Tell me about a time when you were too busy and had to prioritize your tasks.

The ABA article refers to a 2005 article published by the National Association for Law Placement in the NALP Bulletin. In particular, it helps students familiarize themselves with the purpose of —and how to prepare for—the “behavioral interview.” Students are advised to engage in significant introspection so that they understand such things as why they have made the life decisions they have made (this reflects their values, talents, and motivation); and how to provide specific examples of behavior that demonstrates they have the proficiencies and traits an employer seeks. The STAR method will help students keep their answers concise and specific. It entails briefly describe the Situation or Task; explaining the Action that he or she took and describing the Results of the action. The reprint which is worth reading.

Brooklyn Law School’s On-Campus Interviewing (OCI) Program has a number of videos that are accessible through SARA the online catalog including among others Student Advice about OCI Interviewing 08.

Digests: Slide Show: Oct. 2009

Chart of Fields and Segments for Searching Case Law

As a part of the library’s ongoing Lunch and Learn series, I ran a workshop on how to use digests to research case law.  Topics covered in this workshop included the anatomy of a case, the structure of the digest system, how to access the digest system both in print and online, and using the digest system to manipulate your keyword searches.  For those interested, I have attached the slide show and the handout I provided to this post.

The United States’ health care system is in crisis and in need of reform.   A majority of politicians on either side of the aisle would in fact agree on this.  Agreeing on how to reform the complex system is another matter entirely and is the fodder for debate both in Congress and in the media. Presently, there are several health care reform bills at various stages in the committee process.  Any one of these pieces of legislation would make for an interesting note topic or seminar paper topic.

For a law student researching health care reform, it is important to understand the underlying policy arguments behind the proposed legislation and the historical context within which the legislation fits.  Listed below is a selected bibliography of some resources the library has on the subject of health care law and policy.

Current Awareness Resources:

BNA’s Health Care Daily Report:  Available online through the library’s electronic resources page.

BNA is a leading provider for quality non partisan news on business and government.  BNA’s Health Care Daily Report is, as the name would suggest, a daily news service on the topic of health care.  For researchers interested in health care reform, one useful feature of this report is a chart, created by the BNA’s editors, called “Hill Watch: the Status of Major Health Care Legislation.”

Inside Health Reform:  To go directly into this database, access it through SARA, the library’s online catalog.

Available on Lexis, Inside Health Reform is a weekly publication that delivers news on the national health care reform debate.

Books and Treatises:

Health Policy: Crisis and Reform in the U.S. Health Care Delivery System (Charlene Harrington & Carroll Estes, eds., 4th ed., 2004).

Topics covered in this title include: access to health care, the economics of health care, private insurance and managed care, reforming the U.S. health care system and the international health system.

Medical Malpractice and the U.S. Health Care System (William Mm. Sage & Rogan Kersh, eds., 2006).

Topics covered include: malpractice reform as a health policy problem,  the effects of the U.S. malpractice system on the cost and quality of care, liability, patient safety, and defensive medicine, and caps and the construction of damages in medical malpractice cases.

Julius B. Richmond & Rashi Fein, The Health Care Mess: How We Got into It and What It Will Take to Get Out (2005).

This title examines the history of the United States health care system from 1900-2005. It examines the competing forces that shaped our current system and also discusses the system’s future.

Journals and Scholarly Publications:

Health Affairs:  Available online through the library’s electronic resources page.

Health Affairs is a peer-reviewed bi-monthly journal. The journal’s primary focus is on domestic health care, but international developments are covered as well.

Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law: To view the most recent issue, access the title through SARA, the library’s online catalog.

The Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law is an interdisciplinary journal which focuses on the initiation, formulation, and implementation of health policy and analyzes the relations between government and health–past, present, and future.

Medical Law Review:  Available online through the library’s electronic resources page.

The Medical Law Review publishes articles of international interest. In addition it carries two commentary sections. The first concentrates on UK law and includes case reports and legislation summaries followed by analytical interpretation. The second section concentrates on recent medical-legal developments in the USA, the Commonwealth, and Europe.

Databases and Online Resources:

Health Care Policy Tracking Service: Available online through the library’s electronic resources page.

This database serves as a gateway to tracking and finding bipartisan analysis of major health policy and legislation.

For additional materials available at Brooklyn Law School, search SARA using the subject field for “medical care united states” or “medical policy united states”.

In September, our librarians worked hard to create many new LibGuides for BLS researchers.  These guides are accessible through the BLS Connect portal > Library > Research Guides and Aids > LibGuides.  In these guides, librarians recommend free and fee-based databases, as well as print sources.  Guides include sources ranging from RSS feeds to slide presentations.  Feel free to provide feedback to authors of the guides!

English Legal Sources Available through BLS Library

Starting Points for EU Legal Research

Starting Points for Foreign Law Research

Researching Foreign Responses to the Global Financial Crisis

Selecting and Developing Your Seminar Paper Topic (primary focus: U.S. legal topics)

Locating Articles and Keeping Current