Monday, January 29, 2018

Legally Delicious

The Supreme Court Historical Society has recently published Table for 9: Supreme Court Food Traditions & Recipes. Compiled by the Society's publications director, Clare Cushman (who has authored several other works on Supreme Court history), this book also includes a foreword by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Table for 9 features eye-catching illustrations and recipes from the archives of the U.S. Supreme Court, along with trivia about food traditions among the Court and its justices.

In the Court's early days, the justices resided together at a boarding house, where meals were shared. In the late 1800s, afternoon oral argument schedules did not allow for a lunch break. Justices stepped behind the bench one at a time and ate lunch during arguments, to the dismay of counsel. Following repeated complaints from attorneys about the rotating bench, Chief Justice Fuller added a 30-minute lunch break to the schedule in 1898. Today's justices enjoy an hour-long lunch recess and often enjoy meals together in the Justices' Dining Room (where legal talk is strictly off-limits); individual justices may also opt to dine with their clerks in chambers.

Table for 9 details the varied lunch habits of justices throughout history: John Marshall was a oenophile who particularly enjoyed Madeira. Benjamin Cardozo was teased by his colleagues for bringing a slice of cake every day in his packed lunches. William Rehnquist's preferred lunch was a cheeseburger (no fries) and a Miller Lite beer. David Souter's lunch was almost always plain, nonfat yogurt.

Justices also frequently gifted each other food and drink: the book includes a recipe for beef jerky from Sandra Day O'Connor's family cattle ranch, which she frequently gave to colleagues and clerks. Antonin Scalia, an avid hunter, provided game to his colleagues on the bench. Birthday cakes were also a common sight at the Court, whenever justices and clerks celebrated the occasion; Table for 9 includes several cake recipes.

Believe it or not, Table for 9 is just the latest addition to the Goodson Law Library's growing legal cookbook collection. Other titles in our collection with a culinary focus include:
  • Chef Supreme: Martin Ginsburg (2011) was the Supreme Court Historical Society’s first foray into cookbooks. It was compiled as a memorial to Justice Ginsburg’s late husband Marty, a renowned tax professor and accomplished chef. Chef Supreme compiles Martin Ginsburg's personal recipes along with tributes and photos from his life with "the Notorious RBG." (Speaking of Justice Ginsburg's popular nickname, her favorite recipe of Marty's from Chef Supreme – pork loin roasted in milk – is also reprinted in the 2015 biography Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Several Martin Ginsburg recipes are also featured in Table for 9.)
  • The Vespers' Trial Cookbook: Italiano Cucina Rustica with Trial Tips for Lawyers (2014) is a trial practice handbook/cookbook by "the Cookin’ Cousins" Thomas and Dominic Vesper. Tom (a trial attorney) and Dom (a retired accountant with a passion for home cooking) share tried-and-true "recipes for success" in both the kitchen and the courtroom.
  • Several titles of the American Bar Association's "Little Book of...Law" pocket-sized casebook series include recipes along with their summaries of interesting court opinions on a particular topic. The Little Book of BBQ Law (2013) features barbecue-focused cases from various practice areas, interspersed with recipes for sauces, mains, and sides. As its title suggests, The Little Book of Foodie Law (2012) explores case law related to the food service and production industries, and includes a related recipe at the end of each chapter. The Little Book of College Football Law (2014) also features 18 recipes, perfect for a tailgate or a game-day viewing party.
  • You’ll have to ask a staff member to show you the print copy of Hein Appétit! (2013), as this community cookbook from the makers of the research database HeinOnline is housed in the library's Professional Collection, a staff-only area. However, a free download of this compilation of law librarian recipes can also be found online. Sadly, no Duke Law librarians contributed their culinary expertise, but we'll be sure to correct that error if a second edition is ever compiled.

Finally, although you won’t find them in the stacks of the Goodson Law Library, a Duke Law organization once published a few cookbooks of its own. The Rubenstein Library's archival materials about the Law School includes two "Culinary Casebooks" compiled by the Duke Law Dames, a social group for law student and faculty spouses, in the early 1970s. As a fund-raising project, the group collected recipes from its membership, which were published in these spiral-bound cookbooks. (A few recipes submitted directly from Law School professors and deans also made the cut, including former Dean Elvin R. Latty's huevos en Malaga.) These fascinating pieces of Duke Law archival history can be viewed at the Rubenstein Library in the Law Dames Records, 1951-1973.

Cover of Duke Law Dames Culinary Casebook Volume II (circa 1972).
Available in the Rubenstein Library "Law Dames Records" collection.
For help with locating these legal cookbooks, or for other legal research questions, be sure to Ask a Librarian.

Tuesday, January 16, 2018

Law.com and Legal News Sources

Law.com, the online home of American Lawyer Media (ALM) publications like The National Law Journal and American Lawyer, is now available to the Law School community. In addition to Law.com online-only content, electronic versions of the following publications are included:
  • American Lawyer 
  • AmLaw Litigation Daily 
  • Connecticut Law Tribune 
  • Corporate Counsel 
  • Daily Business Review 
  • Daily Report 
  • Delaware Business Court Insider 
  • Delaware Law Weekly 
  • Inside Counsel 
  • Legal Intelligencer 
  • Legal Tech News 
  • National Law Journal 
  • New Jersey Law Journal 
  • New York Law Journal 
  • Supreme Court Brief 
  • Texas Lawyer 
  • The Recorder

Full text access is available within the Law School's IP range at Law.com, and current Law School community members may also create a personal account (allowing mobile and off-campus access) at this site. (ALM publications are also available to the Law School community within Lexis Advance, under the "Legal News" section.)

Law.com is just one source for keeping up with the latest legal news and analysis. The Law School community also has access to Law360 (within the Law School network or online in Lexis Advance), BNA Law Reports (with NetID or online in Bloomberg Law), and specialized topics such as Kluwer Arbitration, the Deal Pipeline (transactional law), and IP Watch (intellectual property). Visit Legal Databases & Links to view specialized legal resources and their access polices.

For more general (i.e., non-legal) news sources, the Duke University Libraries offer multiple options for American and world newspapers. For example, America's News includes full text of large and small-town papers, generally back to the early 1990s. The DUL research guide to Newspapers in the Duke University Libraries include tabs for U.S., U.K., and world newspapers, both current and historical. For help with finding or using a news source, be sure to Ask a Librarian.

Tuesday, January 9, 2018

Achieve Your Resolutions at the Library

Did your New Year's resolution list include "learn a new language" or "read more books"? While these two goals don't top the survey results of New Year's resolutions for 2018, they're certainly a few smaller ways to help you keep the most popular resolution in America this year: "Enjoy life to the fullest."

Thanks to the NC Live consortium, the Duke University community has new tools to help you achieve your 2018 goals. NC Live offers access to more than a hundred subscription databases through a user's "home" public or academic library (meaning that North Carolina residents without a current Duke NetID may also be able to access the site through their public or academic library at https://www.nclive.org/). NC Live has long included helpful resources for searching articles, consumer information, and other resources, and more than a dozen new sources have been added for 2018-2020. Two particularly notable new additions are:
  • Mango Languages includes courses for 70 world languages and more than a dozen English as a Second Language/English Language Learner courses. (This database replaces "Pronunciator," which was previously available through NC Live.) To set up an account, visit Mango Languages while on the Duke network in order to authenticate as a valid subscriber. After your username and password has been created, you can access the site or mobile app without authenticating through Duke first.
    Note: The Duke community also has access to a similar language database, Transparent Language Learning, which includes more than 50 world languages as well as English language learning modules designed specifically for native speakers of more than two dozen languages. Like Mango, it requires setup of a unique username and password while connected to the Duke network, and then seamless access via the web or a mobile app.
  • If you're hoping to read more books in 2018, NoveList Plus is designed to help you find the perfect titles. The site offers read-alike and listen-alike recommendations for fiction, nonfiction, and audiobooks. So if you just finished a title that you enjoyed, or have already burned through everything by your favorite author, a NoveList search for the title or author can help you find recommendations by expert reviewers for something along the same lines. You can also browse by subject/theme.

Explore other NC Live resources through the Duke Libraries or via your North Carolina public library. For help with finding library resources to help you achieve your 2018 resolutions, be sure to Ask a Librarian.

Tuesday, January 2, 2018

New Laws for the New Year

Happy New Year! The beginning of a new year usually brings some new laws, as previously enacted legislation often takes effect on January 1, unless otherwise specified in the act itself or in the jurisdiction's laws on effective dates. Some of the highest-profile state law changes around the country include California's legalization of recreational marijuana sales and New York's sweeping family leave plan for businesses. Additional highlights of state law changes can be found on CNN and NPR.

In North Carolina, the legislature provides a PDF of 2017 legislation, sorted by effective date, with links to the enacted laws. Twenty state session laws enacted in 2017 took effect as of January 1. Most notably, the North Carolina driver's education curriculum has been revised to include instruction on handling vehicle stops by law enforcement. The full text of this new law can be found on the legislature website at S.L. 2017-95.

Another law change which has caused confusion is the REAL ID, minimum federal security standards for identification documents enacted by Congress in 2005. Most states, including North Carolina, have already begun to issue REAL ID-compliant drivers licenses, which require additional documentary proof of identity. As seen in airports around the country during the busy holiday travel season, January 22, 2018 marks the end of a planned "grace period" for federal agencies to accept identification documents from states which are not yet compliant with federal standards. Last week, the Department of Homeland Security announced that it was granting an additional extension to nine non-compliant states until October 2018. As noted in the TSA's fact sheet, this means that passengers may continue to use their current state-issued ID for domestic air travel; by October 1, 2020, all travelers must use a REAL ID-compliant form of identification.

For help with locating recently-effective legislation, be sure to Ask a Librarian.