The BLS Library recently completed its successful series of Spring 2011 Lunch and Learn Workshops.  The fourth and final session on February 23, 2011 covered New York State Legislative History research.  This presentation followed one on February 16th on Federal Legislative History research.  While federal legislative histories are sometimes easier to compile because there are many documents produced by Congress and Congressional committees, such as debates in the Congressional Record, hearings and reports in print, online and in microfiche, New York State legislative history research can be more difficult to track down because of the paucity of some documents produced by the New York State Legislature.

However, things have begun to improve in the last decade.  The New York State Assembly and Senate now provide live coverage on the Internet and on cable television of floor proceedings; the New York State Archives makes bill jackets available online since 1996 and Westlaw has a New York legislative history database, for example.

The BLS Library gets requests for assistance with legislative history research from students, alumni and even from inmates.  We recently had a request from an inmate who was doing research for his parole hearing.  He needed a sponsor’s memorandum from 1975 dealing with the necessity of the parole board to provide reports to inmates on why they were denied parole.  Of course, we were happy to help and provided a copy of the memorandum from the 1975 New York Legislative Annual.

To learn more about New York Legislative History, view the PowerPoint presentation by clicking here.

A summons for jury duty from my local county New Jersey Superior Court evoked thoughts like those of many others: serving will be time-consuming, inconvenient, and tiresome. What excuses work to get out of jury service? That instinct is understandable. With pay for jurors set at $5 for each day of service, no one wants to miss work and wait all day to sit on an actual jury. The law (N.J.S.A. 2B:20-14) imposes fines up to $500. Those who are barred from serving as jurors are non-citizens, ex-felons, illiterates, minors, and those whose disabilities would prevent them from serving. The New Jersey Orientation Video is in two parts here:

The privileges and benefits of performing jury duty are explained in The Jury and Democracy: How Jury Deliberation Promotes Civic Engagement and Political Participation by John Gastil et als. (Call JK1764 .J87 2010) available in the Brooklyn Law School Library main collection. Through a combination of narrative, quantitative analysis, and anecdotal illustrations, the authors argue that performing jury duty is not only necessary to the health of American democracy but also is civically and psychologically rejuvenating for citizens.

A relatively new alternative to Lexis and Westlaw is Practical Law Company (PLC), a legal research resource that provides information and how-to guides on transactional practice. PLC is a UK-based legal publishing company that opened an office in New York in December 2008. The US based services include PLC Finance, PLC Corporate & Securities, and PLC Law Department. Last year, an Am Law Daily article had a good description of what the company does.

Its resources are written by experienced lawyers from top firms and legal departments and include overviews of practice areas, model documents and checklists, and updates on the current transactional landscape. Content description is like Live EDGAR but does not include full text SEC filings, court dockets, or cases. The database includes specific clauses, standard forms, and customized summaries of recent filings and transactions. It has drafting guidance, content by topic, and sources for international transactions.

Brooklyn Law School law students and faculty can sign up for free at this link. Sign up allows summer access and free usage for six months after graduation. PLC also features tools specifically designed for law students, including an Interview Survival Guide and a Summer Associate Survival Guide that provides information about common associate assignments such as running a closing, forming a corporation, drafting agreements, conducting due diligence, and more. A quick virtual tour is available here.

The BLS Library recently licensed the full Law 360 legal news product (http://www.law360.com)   This premiere service is frequently the first place breaking legal news will hit the web – but you can’t use Google to get at it.  This is a subscription product which means you must be at school or using the proxy instructions for access (proxy instructions: http://brkl.brooklaw.edu/screens/proxy.html)

The service covers 26 sections, some of which are based on topic (like Intellectual Property), others are based on jurisdictions (like New York), and others are based on function (like Appellate).  The full slate includes Appellate; Bankruptcy; California; Class Action Section; Competition Section; Contract Section; Corporate Finance; Employment; Energy; Environmental; Financial Services; Government Contracts; Health; Intellectual Property; Insurance; International Trade; Midwest; New York; Product Liability; Securities; Southeast; Technology; Texas; White Collar Section.

Law 360 also has a Tools tab that lets you track law firm and company news.

How can it help you in your job search?

Aspiring lawyers should always be up to date in the area of law they intend to practice, or at least in the area(s) of law that the firms who interview them are working.  Law 360 is one of many ways to stay in touch with developments in the law.  It is also helpful to keep track of new practice sections added to law firms, or spin offs from law firms by successful practice groups, to target your job search.

Law 360 tracks every major litigation development in the U.S. federal district courts and every major lawsuit filed against the world’s 2,000 top companies.  It reports on significant legislative initiatives at the state, federal, and international level.  Transactional work at the country’s top 250 law firms is reviewed, and major hires at the nation’s top 800 firms is reported regularly.

At the very least, you should be subscribing to updates from the Top News section, and, if you plan to stay in New York, the New York section.  And, because this is a premiere service, you may be interviewing or interning at a place that does not have access to  cutting edge information Law 360 provides.  Using Law 360 to stay ahead of your prospective employers can only be a good thing!

How do you subscribe?

There are two ways to get alerts.  On the main page, you can register for an e-mail style alert that will send updates to your e-mail account.  Or, if you prefer collecting your information using an RSS reader, within each section, there is an RSS feed.  You have to be in a specific section to see the RSS option.

Keep yourself educating about your profession and give yourself the best edge possible.  If you don’t like Law 360, you can always unsubscribe – but we think you will LOVE it.

New York State has amended its Vehicle and Traffic (VAT) law effective, February 16, 2011, to impose two driver penalty points in addition to a fine of $100 for violations of using a cell phone while driving as well as using portable electronic devices while driving. Section 1225-c and Section 1225-d are the relevant VAT provisions. The statutes are also available in New York Vehicle and Traffic Law by James M. Rose (Call #KFN5470 .R67 1992) on reserve at Brooklyn Law School Library’s circulation desk.

In 2001, New York became the first state in the nation to ban hand-held phone use while driving. Using a hands-free device remains legal. The statutory change brings the hand-held cell phone law in line with the texting-while-driving law, which since 2009 has imposed a two-point penalty and a fine of $150. According to an article from Reuters, in 2009 there were 342,564 tickets issued in New York for cell phone violations.

Those interested in comparing state laws on the prohibition of using cellular phones while driving can look at West’s 50 State Statutory Surveys (password required). The web page of the Governors Highway Safety Association also has a chart outlining all state cell phone and text messaging laws. An excerpt from West’s 50 state survey showing complete prohibitions, learner’s permit prohibions, school bus and miscellaneous prohibitions for the tri-state region is reproduced here.

Episode 062 – Conversation with Judith Soto, Class of 2011.mp3

In this podcast, Brooklyn Law School Student Bar Association President Judith Soto, Class of 2011, talks about her experience with the SBA, the umbrella organization for all student organizations at the Law School. The SBA plans, supervises, and sponsors educational and social events throughout the academic year. She also discusses her lifelong desire to work as an attorney and her experience as a clinician with the Brooklyn Law Incubator & Policy (BLIP) Clinic for two semesters representing Internet, new media, communications and other tech entrepreneurs and innovators on a variety of legal issues.

Today marks the 202nd anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s birth on February 12, 1809, in Hardin County, Kentucky. March 4 will mark 150 years since Lincoln first took the oath of office as president and delivered his first inaugural address. The speech was directed to the people of the South and the seven states that had declared their secession from the United States before Lincoln took office. The state and dates of secession were:

• South Carolina (December 20, 1860)
• Mississippi (January 9, 1861)
• Florida (January 10, 1861)
• Alabama (January 11, 1861)
• Georgia (January 19, 1861)
• Louisiana (January 26, 1861)
• Texas (February 1, 1861)

Denouncing secession as anarchy and hoping to avoid the coming conflict, Lincoln closed the address with this famous plea: “I am loathe to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”

As a lawyer, Lincoln knew how to craft successful closing arguments. In the Gettysburg Address, perhaps the greatest closing argument in history, Lincoln showed that he knew how to persuade a bitterly divided country into ultimately doing what was right for all. The short 200 page book, Lincoln’s Counsel: Lessons from America’s Most Persuasive Speaker by Arthur L. Rizer, III (Call #KF368.L52 R59 2010) in the Brooklyn Law Library collection, has examples from Lincoln’s great speeches and closing arguments. The book instructs in the art of persuasion by providing lessons from Lincoln’s career as a lawyer and politician, and by analyzing those lessons and discussing how to apply them. The appendix has Lincoln’s First and Second Inaugural Speeches, the Gettysburg Address, the Emancipation Proclamation and the Cooper Union Speech.

In Chapter 7, The Greatest Closing Argument Ever Made: The Gettysburg Address, the author states “Even today, brevity in closing arguments isn’t universally appreciated. If an attorney gave a three-minute closing argument, he may be sued for malpractice. Despite this, with the Gettysburg Address, Lincoln used his skills as a persuasive litigator to breathe life into a cause that was costing so much human life. The speech was more than simple dedicatory remarks for a memorial site. He set out a position that advocated why his position was correct, much as a lawyer does in making a closing argument, and he did it quickly and beautifully.”

US District Court Judge Shira A. Scheindlin of the Southern District of New York ruled that federal government agencies, when responding to Freedom of Information Act requests, must release documents in a searchable format and provide the document’s metadata when making releases in electronic format. The ruling in National Day Laborer Organizing Network et al v. United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency et al. is a groundbreaking case going beyond FOIA and e-discovery issues which she addressed Zubulake v. UBS Warburg LLC, 217 F.R.D. 309 (click on the case name to view it in LexisNexis).

The Center for Constitutional Rights and the Immigration Justice Clinic of the Cardozo School of Law filed the complaint in February 2010 demanding records related to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE) “Secure Communities” program that involves local and state police in federal immigration enforcement. The program requires local and state police to run individuals’ fingerprints through multiple databases upon arrest even if no charges are brought and regardless of how minor the charges are. Besides the potential of erroneous information in those databases, critics of the program charge that it uses racial profiling to funnel people into the ICE detention and removal system. The FOIA action by the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NLDON) sought materials necessary to provide comprehensive information on the program, including policies, procedures and objectives; fiscal impact; statistical information; individual records; communications; and assessment records.

In response to the FOIA requests, the government delivered documents grouped together in large files that were not searchable and in which individual documents could not be identified without reading through the entire file and e-mails were separated from their attachments. In the conclusion of her 27 page opinion in NLDON v. ICE, Judge Scheindlin remarked:

Once again, this Court is required to rule on an e-discovery issue that could have been avoided had the parties had the good sense to “meet and confer,” “cooperate” and generally make every effort to “communicate” as to the form in which ESI would be produced. The quoted words are found in opinion after opinion and yet lawyers fail to take the necessary steps to fulfill their obligations to each other and to the court. While certainly not rising to the level of a breach of an ethical obligation, such conduct certainly shows that all lawyers -even highly respected private lawyers, Government lawyers, and professors of law -need to make greater efforts to comply with the expectations that courts now demand of counsel with respect to expensive and time-consuming document production. Lawyers are all too ready to point the finger at the courts and the Rules for increasing the expense of litigation, but that expense could be greatly diminished if lawyers met their own obligations to ensure that document production is handled as expeditiously and inexpensively as possible. This can only be achieved through cooperation and communication.

The Brooklyn Law School Library has in its collection The Federal Information Manual: How the Government Collects, Manages, and Discloses Information under FOIA and Other Statutes by P. Stephen Gidiere (Call # KF5753 .G53 2006) with these chapters: An overview of federal information disputes — Agency collection of information — Management of agency records — Classified information — Access to federal records — Electronic records and federal public websites — Elements of a successful FOIA request — Reasons for the withholding of agency records — Litigation involving federal records — Homeland security information.

Brooklyn Law School Library’s second session of its Spring Lunch and Learn covered CCH IntelliConnect.  View the presentation by Harold O’Grady, Reference Librarian and Adjunct Assistant Professor of Law here.

What is IntelliConnect? It is a an integrated library subscription service that provided access to CCH’s world-class content on tax, securities and other business related law sources  that includes both primary law material such as current and pending statutes, regulations and cases as well as secondary sources such as explanations, news and current awareness and treatises.

How can you access IntelliConnect? On the BLS Library home page, click on “library.” In the “Quick Links” pull down menu, click on CCH Services to begin research. You can also use the link for CCH IntelliConnect. While on campus, create your user ID (preferably using your Brooklaw email address or another one) which will be your IntelliConnect ID. Please complete all fields. Your password must be between 6 and 32 characters. Any combination of letters, numbers or symbols may be used but spaces are not allowed. Your user ID and password are not case sensitive.

Is CCH IntelliConnect available off campus? After registering on campus, you can log in to CCH IntelliConnect, but you must consult the proxy instructions for off-campus access. Proxy instructions are available on the BLS Library web page under E-Resources. To access CCH IntelliConnect off campus, enter your email address and password.

Which Operating systems and browsers for CCH IntelliConnect? CCH IntelliConnect is optimized for Microsoft’s Internet Explorer web browser. Using a PC and Internet Explorer is the preferred operating system. CCH IntelliConnect can be used on a MAC ONLY on Firefox. It does not support Safari and using Google Chrome is not recommended.

What is the Content of CCH IntelliConnect? The product covers a number of legal specialties including antitrust, banking, corporate governance, health care law, intellectual property, employment, securities, and tax law, and other topics. It is designed for specialized legal researchers and practitioners in highly regulated areas of law. Features include a Topic Navigator, a great way to find multiple sources in IntelliConnect on your topic; Practice Tools, which allows users to build Smart Charts for comparisons of laws and regulations across multiple jurisdictions;  a Citator function; a Client Letter Toolkit, a useful resource for practitioners.

Are there links to video tutorials about IntelliConnect?

• WK tutorials are available at this link which includes the Tracker News Tutorial and the instructions for Viewing Trackers.
• The Smart Charts video is at this link. 
• A video on the December 2010 enhancements is available here.
• The IntelliConnect Participant Training Guide is here.