Goal: the Regulation of International Sports

nicubunu_Soccer_ballAs the eyes of the world turn to Brazil on Thursday, each nation will cheer on its team in pursuit of the FIFA World Cup. If you are curious about the law and rules governing FIFA or international sports and sporting events, the library has several resources to help satisfy your curiosity. Listed below are a few recent sources.

Writing Competion for Securities Law Students

Brooklyn Law School students interested in competing for cash prizes in connection with Securities Arbitration and Securities Law can enter the James E. Beckley Securities Arbitration and Law Writing Competition being sponsored by the PIABA Foundation. The mission of the PIABA Foundation is to promote investor education and to provide the public with information about abuses in the financial services industry and the securities dispute resolution process. The Beckley competition is open to all law students. Eligible topics include any aspect of securities law, securities arbitration, the Federal Arbitration Act, or the FINRA Code of Arbitration. Winners get their submissions published in the PIABA Bar Journal and receive cash prizes for first place ($1,000), second place ($750), and third place ($500). The deadline for entries is September 19, 2014.

Episode 090: Conversation with Gideon Martin

Episode 090: Conversation with Gideon Martin.mp3

This podcast interview of Gideon Martin, Brooklyn Law School Class of 2014, focuses on his article Allergic to Equality: The Legislative Path to Safer Restaurants, 13 Appalachian Journal of Law 79 (2013). Gideon received his J.D. degree this year graduating with honors. While attending BLS, Gideon was selected for the law school’s competitive Edward V. Sparer Public Interest Fellowship and was the recipient of a Peggy Browning Fund Fellowship for work on labor and employment issues. Most recently, he spent the summer of 2013 working at the Major League Baseball Players Association. While at BLS, he interned for United State Magistrate Judge Cheryl Pollak of the Eastern District of New York. He was also a member of the Moot Court Honor Society and served as Notes and Comments Editor on the Journal of Law and Policy.

BLS Commencement 2014

Brooklyn Law School held its 113th Commencement Ceremony on May 28, 2014 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Howard Gilman Opera House. The featured student speakers were Class of 2014 Valedictorian John David Moore and Class of 2014 Student Graduation Speaker Sabrina Margaret Bierer. Brooklyn-born and raised Barry Salzberg, Class of 1977, delivered the 2014 Commencement address and received an honorary doctor of laws degree. Salzburg, Chief Executive Officer of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited (DTTL), the largest professional services organization in the world, is an outstanding BLS alumnus, philanthropist, and highly respected business leader. All three speakers stressed that law students and lawyers do not work in isolation but are most effective when working together.

The Class of 2014 totaled approximately 400 students awarded either LL.M. of J.D. degrees. The Class of 2014 had 97 students graduating with honors: five Summa Cum Laude awards to Rebecca Jane Gannon, Douglas R. Keeton, John David Moore, John H. Runne, and Stephen A. Savoca; there were 36 students graduating Magna Cum Laude and 56 students graduating Cum Laude. For the complete list of students graduating with honors, see this link.

In his Remarks to the Graduating Class, Dean Nicholas Allard noted that this year marked a return of the BLS Commencement Ceremony to Brooklyn after 50 years saying that the last time Brooklyn Law School had its Commencement in Brooklyn was in 1964 when Judge Henry J. Friendly of the Second Circuit of the United States Court of Appeals spoke at the exercises held at the Hotel St. George in Brooklyn. Dean Allard also spoke of famous people who appeared at the Brooklyn Academy of Music including Mary Todd Lincoln who attended an opera in 1863, Mark Twain who gave a reading in 1884, Booker T. Washington delivering a speech in 1891 calling for full emancipation, a 1940 appearance by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the 1962 debut of Rudolf Nureyev, and this year’s appearance by Justice Antonin Scalia. A timeline of appearances by notable persons at the Brooklyn Academy of Music is available here.

CRS Turns 100

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The Congressional Research Service (CRS) is celebrating 100 years of service this year.

In 1914, the Library of Congress established the Legislative Reference Service (LRS).  As its name implies, the purpose of the LRS was to provide  reference information to assist Members of Congress in their legislative work.  Over 100 years, LRS evolved into today’s Congressional Research Service (CRS), with a staff of 600 that exclusively provides Congress with authoritative, confidential, objective and nonpartisan policy analysis.

CRS is known for its reports, but what makes CRS is its people—analysts, attorneys, information professionals, and management and infrastructure support staff. These staff members carry out services in support of the modern mission: to provide objective, authoritative and confidential legislative research and analysis, thereby contributing to an informed national legislature.

In recent years there has been a push to make these CRS reports freely available to the American public. Thanks to several organizations , departments and libraries many of these detailed reports are now available electronically.

Below are some recent reports on topical issues.

Nigeria’s Boko Haram: Frequently Asked Questions

Ukraine: Current Issues and U.S. Policy

Marijuana: Medical and Retail—Selected Legal Issues

Abortion: Judicial History and Legislative Response

 

 

 

 

Westlaw Classic to WestlawNext

Thomson Reuters has embedded nine short videos into Westlaw Classic to aid in the transition from Westlaw Classic to WestlawNext. The videos show how to conduct in WestlawNext those tasks currently conducted on Westlaw Classic. The videos, each about 3 minutes in length, are available until June 30, 2014. The videos cover how to do the following tasks on WestlawNext:

  • Search with Terms and Connectors
  • Find and Print a Document
  • Find and Print Multiple Citations
  • Find a Statute
  • Browse a Table of Contents
  • Search with Descriptive Terms
  • Customize Your Delivery Preferences
  • Use Folders
  • Choose a Database

To access the videos on Westlaw Classic, hover over the orange “W” and click Learn More Now.

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From Classic to Next Webinars

There is also a series of webinars for law students and faculty to ease the transition from Westlaw Classic to WestlawNext. Each week, two webinars – From Classic to Next Basic and From Classic to Next Advanced – are being held, at varying times from week-to-week. These webinars cover topics such as Boolean searching, KeyCite®, Custom Pages, and Folders. Also, at the end of each webinar users have the opportunity to ask any questions about transitioning research to WestlawNext.

The next two webinars in the series are:

From Classic to Next Basic – May 19 at 1 p.m. (Noon) ET – Register today.

From Classic to Next Advance – May 20 at 4 p.m. ET – Register today.

If these days do not work, the sessions will be repeated. Visit the webinars page for future offerings.

2014 Writing Competition: Library Sources & Hours

BLS Library offers these sources that discuss scholarly writing for law journal competitions:

Elizabeth Fajans and Mary R. Falk (BLS professors), Scholarly Writing for Law Students: Seminar Papers, Law Review Notes, and Law Review Competition Papers.  BLS Library has copies of the latest edition (4th ed., 2011) in the first-floor Reserve collection and copies of older editions (that students can check out) in the Main collection (cellar level).

Also, the Reserve collection contains the current editions of: Eugene Volokh, Academic Legal Writing: Law Review Articles, Student Notes, Seminar Papers, and Getting on Law Review and Wes Henricksen, Making Law Review: The Expert’s Guide to Mastering the Write-on Competition.

BLS Library’s 2014 Writing Competition weekend hours are:

Friday, May 16: 8 AM-10 PM

Saturday, May 17: 9 AM-2 AM

Sunday, May 18: 8 AM-2 AM

Good luck to all BLS students who will be participating in this writing competition!

 

Capers on Justice Sotomayor

Brooklyn Law School Law Professor I. Bennett Capers has posted  Reading Michigan v. Bryant, “Reading” Justice Sotomayor on SSRN. The full text of the article is available in the March 2014 edition of the Yale Law Journal Forum at this link. The abstract reads:

What are we to make of Justice Sotomayor’s criminal procedure jurisprudence? This Essay attempts to answer that question by offering three readings of her Confrontation Clause decision in Michigan v. Bryant. All three close readings, coupled with details from her memoir, serve as the basis for a “reading” of Justice Sotomayor. In toto, these readings reveal Justice Sotomayor to be precedent-bound, except when she’s not, and to be progressive, but not above using conservative methodologies to get her way. And while there is much to applaud in her jurisprudence, there are dangers too. And hope.

Summer (& Beyond) Access to Bloomberg Law, LexisNexis & Westlaw

Bloomberg Law—Summer Access Policy:
All law students may continue to use their Bloomberg Law accounts during the summer without restriction for any type of research (for work, for class, etc.). Student accounts automatically stay active all summer.
Bloomberg Law— Access Policy for Graduating Law Students:
All law students’ Bloomberg Law accounts automatically remain active for six months after graduation.
Bloomberg Contact for Questions:
Erica Horton, Esq., Law School Relationship Manager, Bloomberg BNA, ehorton@bna.com, 1-800-542-1113 ext. 1884

LexisNexis—Summer Access Policy for 1Ls & 2Ls:
Law students may continue to use their Lexis Advance IDs for any purpose (including work performed at a law firm, corporation or government agency). This includes unlimited access to all legal content and news available through current law student IDs.
LexisNexis—Access Policy for Graduating Law Students:
Graduating law students can register for Graduate Program IDs that will extend their access beyond graduation. The access for graduates ends at the end of December (12/31/2014). To learn more, visit http://www.lexisnexis.com/grad-access.
LexisNexis Contact for Questions:
Mary Beth Drain, Esq., Account Executive, LexisNexis, marybeth.drain@lexisnexis.com, Cell 845-598-3203

Westlaw—Summer Access Policy for 1Ls & 2Ls:
Westlaw will extend 1L & 2L passwords for:
• Summer law school classes
• Law review and journal work
• Moot court work
• A project for a professor
• An unpaid intern/externship or pro bono work required for graduation.
If a student is being paid for summer work or an internship, then the student is not eligible for Westlaw’s summer extension. To extend passwords, students can click on the banner on the http://lawschool.westlaw.com site that says “Need Your Westlaw Password this summer” and indicate the reason for the extension.  If students do not complete the online summer extension form, they will receive a set number of hours of Westlaw usage for June and July. If they exceed those hours, then they will see a warning screen indicating that their summer access is limited unless they complete the summer extension form.
Westlaw—Access Policy for Graduating Law Students:
Graduating law students can extend their passwords to have the same level of access to WestlawNext as they did as students for up to six months after graduation. The access for graduates ends at the end of November (11/30/2014).
Instructions for graduating students to extend passwords:
1. Log on to http://lawschool.westlaw.com
2. Click “Rewards”
3. Click “My Messages”
4. Look for the extension email with link in the inbox
a. If not in the inbox, click “Deleted/Archived Items” and the email should be there.
Westlaw Contact for Questions:
Stefanie Efrati, Esq., Academic Account Manager, Thomson Reuters, stefanie.efrati@thomsonreuters.com, 212-548-7432