The Goodson Blogson

The Duke Law community now has access to Lex Machina , a litigation analytics tool containing data on courts, judges, law firms, attorneys, and parties. Access Lex Machina by logging into Lexis+ and choosing it from the product switcher grid in the top left corner of any research screen.   Duke's Lex Machina pilot access from Lexis is expected to last for the 2025-2026 academic year. It includes federal court and specialty venue modules, with limited read-only access to state court materials. Sections beyond the pilot program's access are clearly labeled as out of scope, and may include a brief preview or overview of the data contained within that section. The "Quick Tools" section includes the ability to compare and explore litigation history for parties, courts and judges, and law firms as well as expert witnesses; Analyzers for the case history of attorney teams and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on courts’ workload; and a case assessment tool. Lex Machina a...

Whether you are graduating from Duke Law this month or continuing your legal studies next year, your access to legal research services and other campus databases may change this summer. Below is a summary of policies for the major legal research databases that you might wish to access over the summer. Continuing Students Westlaw allows continuing students to use Thomson Reuters products, including Westlaw® and Practical Law, over the summer for non-commercial research (i.e., "to gain understanding and build confidence in your research skills, but you cannot use them in situations where you are billing a client"). Examples of permissible uses for your academic Westlaw password include the following: Summer coursework Research assistant assignments Law review or journal research Moot Court research Non-Profit work Clinical work Externship sponsored by the school Your Westlaw summer access will continue automatically - no action is needed on your part. Lexis : A...

Since the presidential inauguration on January 20, a flurry of executive orders from the Office of the President has generated dozens of legal challenges. The President is on track to break the previous record for executive orders issued in the first 100 days, currently held by Franklin Delano Roosevelt. On February 25, Law360 launched Trump's Legal Battles , a free public database tracking the status of current challenges to executive activity, as part of its dedicated coverage of Trump's First 100 Days . While links to news and analysis about each case will require additional access to  Law360 (including some docket features that are beyond even Duke Law's subscription), the dashboard itself is free to review, sort, and browse. Convenient links to specific executive orders are also provided to the White House website, and docket numbers provide sufficient information to locate additional case information on the free CourtListener Advanced RECAP Search or in Bloomberg...

The Goodson Law Library research guide to Court Records & Briefs has recently been updated. In addition to corrected web links and updated guidance to free and premium resources like PACER and Bloomberg Law dockets searching, the guide includes a number of new records and briefs compilations that were added since the last update. Some highlights include: The Making of Modern Law: Landmark Records and Briefs of the U.S. Courts of Appeals, 1891-1980 features selected records and briefs from the U.S. Courts of Appeals dating from the 1890s to 1980. Drawn from a number of source libraries (including the National Archives, the New York City Bar Library, and the University of Iowa), featured cases cover a wide range of subject matter. The database is searchable by case name, citation, and keyword, and a "Topic Finder" feature is also available. LLMC Digital has expanded its records and briefs offerings since the last guide update. Its Records and Briefs search tab (avai...

The United States Supreme Court has designated two opinion release days this week: Thursday and Friday. With more than two dozen still-pending decisions from October Term 2023 to release before the traditional end of the term (including five from the November and December oral arguments), the next few weeks promise to be busy at One First Street! You can keep up with the activities of the Court at its website, including new opinions as they are released. Seasoned Court-watchers gather at the SCOTUSblog homepage on opinion days at 10:00 am Eastern for expert commentary and live updates on opinion releases. The blog's Cases section includes helpful overviews of the issues under review, with links to relevant case documents. The Statistics section also includes handy information about decided and pending decisions. The Newsfeed provides daily updates on pending petitions, opinion analysis, and other Court activities (such as the justices’ financial disclosures , released earli...

Hard to believe that summer is almost here! Whether you are graduating from Duke Law this month or continuing your legal studies next year, your access to legal research services and other campus databases may change this summer. Below is a summary of policies for the major legal research databases that you might wish to access in the next few months. Continuing Students Westlaw allows continuing students to use Thomson Reuters products, including Westlaw Precision and Practical Law, over the summer for non-commercial research ( i.e ., "to gain understanding and build confidence in your research skills, but you cannot use them in situations where you are billing a client"). Examples of permissible uses for your academic Westlaw password include the following: Summer coursework Research assistant assignments Law review or journal research Moot Court research Non-profit work Clinical work Externship sponsored by the school Your Westlaw summe...

If you’ve ever ventured to the Superseded Looseleaf collection on Level 1 on a cite-checking quest, you know that locating archived issues of BNA Law Reports and similar titles can be challenging. Bloomberg Law , which acquired BNA more than a decade ago , has long offered access to the full text of various Law Reports back to the 1990s, but many titles have had a much longer history in print than that. Thanks to an inquiry from Indiana University Maurer School of Law Library Director Susan deMaine this summer, Bloomberg Law has now activated a fuller archive of Law Reports publications for its users.  The BNA Current Reports Archive is accessible from the Practice Centers & Tools home page. To reach it, click on " Practice Centers & Tools " under "Popular Links" on the Bloomberg home page, then scroll down to News & Analysis > " Bloomberg BNA Law Reports (Archive) " to view available titles. Once you've selected a title, you can sea...

Whether you are graduating from Duke Law this May or continuing your legal studies next year, your access to legal research services and other campus databases may change this summer. Below is a summary of policies for the major legal research databases that you might wish to access over the summer. Continuing Students Westlaw allows continuing students to use Thomson Reuters products, including Westlaw® and Practical Law, over the summer for non-commercial research (i.e., "to gain understanding and build confidence in your research skills, but you cannot use them in situations where you are billing a client"). Examples of permissible uses for your academic Westlaw password include summer coursework, Research Assistant assignments, research for journal/law review or moot court, non-profit/clinic work, or an externship sponsored by the school. Your Westlaw summer access will continue automatically - no action is needed on your part. Lexis : All returning students have auto...

Last week, Bloomberg Law announced a change to its academic subscription docket usage caps. Effective July 2022, the system will reset educational account users' docket "billing" for the year on July 1, rather than January 1, to more closely track the academic calendar. As many Law School community members already know, Bloomberg Law provides subscribers with robust access to federal and state court dockets and filings. Individual users can request the full text of documents that are available for electronic retrieval, and track/update pending case dockets as well. Although this service comes at a cost to commercial subscribers, Bloomberg subsidizes these costs for academic users: up to $1,500 per person each year or up to an institutional cap (equivalent to 30% of the annual subscription cost paid by the institution, which varies depending on size). ( Note: Academic subscribers are not eligible to request items that require courier service to retrieve.) More informa...

Whether you are graduating from Duke Law this May or continuing your legal studies next year, your access to legal research services and other campus databases may change this summer. Below is a summary of policies for the major legal research databases that you might wish to access over the summer. Graduating Students Westlaw : You may opt in to Thomson Reuters products, including Westlaw and Practical Law, for six months after graduation for non-commercial use . This "Grad Elite" access allows 60 hours of usage on these products per month to gain understanding and build confidence in your research skills. While you cannot use it in situations where you are billing a client, Thomson Reuters encourages you to use these tools to build your knowledge of the law and prepare for your bar exam. In order to activate Grad Elite access: 1) Log in at lawschool.tr.com ; use the drop-down menu by your name to access Grad Elite Status 2) Or click on this link: https://lawschool.westl...

On Monday, the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees expects more than 60,000 of its members to begin a labor strike. The move would shut down film and television production across the country, unless and until an agreement is reached with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. They'll join several other labor union strikes that have made headlines in recent weeks, inspiring the hashtag #Striketober on social media. Currently, more than 10,000 workers at John Deere plants are on strike , following an overwhelming rejection of a new contract proposal. Another 1,400 employees of Kellogg cereal plants are also in their second week of a strike over labor negotiations. With unemployment rates continuing to trend toward pre-pandemic levels , and a record number of employees quitting jobs in what is now termed " The Great Resignation ", labor conditions and labor markets will likely be hot topics of conversation for the indefinite future. If ...

Legal matters seem to generate an avalanche of headlines every day, in both mainstream and specialized publications. How can a reader possibly keep up with the latest news? A few well-chosen RSS feeds and/or browser bookmarks may help, such as from the recommended legal news resources below. The ABA Journal website provides recent news stories from the American Bar Association, as well as articles and issues of its monthly print and digital magazine. (Back issues and articles can also be found in a number of third-party databases .) State and local bar association journals are another good source to keep up with legal developments in a particular jurisdiction. Many titles are available online, though often only to association members; the Duke community can access many titles through HeinOnline's Bar Journal Library . Law.com and Law360.com are two popular legal news sources. The full text of articles on their websites can be accessed directly from within the Law School...

Last week, a federal magistrate judge in Colorado sanctioned two attorneys for their filing in an election dispute lawsuit, citing "a woeful lack of investigation into the law" and "patently frivolous arguments." The judge's order directed the attorneys to pay opposing counsels' fees for filing motions in the suit. Other attorneys who filed challenges to the 2020 election results have experienced similar professional consequences: Rudolph Giuliani currently faces a D.C. bar ethics investigation , following the June suspension of his law license in New York, and earlier this summer former Trump attorneys Sidney Powell and Lin Wood weathered a high-profile hearing over potential sanctions in Michigan. These cases have been a very public reminder of the importance of attorneys keeping up to date with their ethical duties and obligations. Every day, lawyers across the country face sanctions or other disciplinary action for failures to uphold the rules of thei...

The end of June usually marks the conclusion of the U.S. Supreme Court's October Term, when the Court issues the last of its opinions in cases argued since the start of the term in the previous fall. Last term, with disruptions to Court operations and argument sittings in the spring of 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic, the Court's final ten opinions of OT19 were issued in July. This week, the Court has five opinions left to issue from the 2020 October Term. Will they successfully conclude the term before the end of the month, or push into July for the second year in a row? Court-watchers will be following the activities at One First Street closely this week. To join them, you can visit SCOTUSblog , which live-blogs order and opinion release days at the Court beginning at 9:30 am Eastern time. SCOTUSblog's FAQ page on Announcements of Orders and Opinions provides some additional detail about the process. Although the Court highlights opinion release days on its publi...

Whether you are graduating from Duke Law this May or continuing your legal studies next year, your access to legal research services and other campus databases may change this summer. Below is a summary of policies for the major legal research databases that you might wish to access over the summer. Graduating Students Westlaw: You may opt in to Thomson Reuters products, including Westlaw and Practical Law, for six months after graduation for non-commercial use . This "Grad Elite" access allows 60 hours of usage on these products per month to gain understanding and build confidence in your research skills. While you cannot use it in situations where you are billing a client, Thomson Reuters encourages you to use these tools to build your knowledge of the law and prepare for your bar exam. In order to activate Grad Elite access: log in at http://lawschool.tr.com and use the drop-down menu by your name to access Grad Elite Status, or click on this link . In addition to the ...

The Friday night announcement of Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's death prompted national mourning. Over the weekend, hundreds gathered on the steps of the United States Supreme Court, and at courthouses around the country, to celebrate the life of this trailblazing jurist. This week, the Justice will lie in repose at first the Court steps, and then at the U.S. Capitol. To learn more about Justice Ginsburg's remarkable life and career, the Duke University community can access the 2018 documentary film RBG online. Additional biographical resources can be found in the Duke Libraries catalog with a subject search for "Ginsburg, Ruth Bader" . The "Available Online" filter will limit your results to e-books and video links; the Duke community may also request circulating print materials via Takeout service. Justice Ginsburg's death has prompted not only an important national conversation about filling a vacant Court seat during a presidential elect...

This week's Legal Research Bootcamp session on dockets came at just the right time! Whether you’re a law student enrolled in the online bootcamp or not, you may be interested in several important changes to major resources for researching court filings. Last week, the federal court site PACER (Public Access to Court Electronic Records) unveiled a redesign to its home page and informational sections, the first such cosmetic change in more than ten years. (The PACER database in which users search for and retrieve case filings was not part of this redesign.) Legal blogger Bob Ambrogi outlines the changes , which include improved navigation, new accessibility tools, and a mobile-friendly design. The site also provides easy access to PACER's fees and billing information . PACER requires account-holders to have a payment method on file, although users are not charged unless they accrue $30.00 of charges (at a cost of $0.10 per page) during a billing quarter. Members of the Law S...

Do you suffer from page fright ? When you're drafting a legal document for the first time, having an example (or "form") to go by can alleviate writer's block. Of course, you will have to edit any forms to reflect the specifics of your client's case or transaction, but starting with a form can save you time and help you avoid mistakes and omissions. Last week , we highlighted the SEC's EDGAR (Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis, and Retrieval) system as a notable source of information about publicly traded companies. Did you know that EDGAR is also a goldmine of forms for transactional drafting? Issuers are required to file "material contracts" as exhibits to their EDGAR filings, and you can repurpose those agreements as sample documents when you are drafting. (When agreements from completed transactions as used as forms, they are often called "precedents." ) If you have a specific precedent in mind, the SEC's Company Filings sear...

The COVID-19 pandemic has had implications across multiple fields: health, education, politics, and law. It has also affected all of us, in some way, personally. As it touches on nearly every aspect of our lives, the amount of information related to the outbreak can be overwhelming. We are inundated with claims from news, social media, friends, colleagues, and more. Most concerning for many is finding resources on the outbreak and the virus that are reliable. In response, the Goodson Law Library's Faculty and Scholarly Services Librarian Wickliffe Shreve has created a new research guide on COVID-19 Resources , now available on the library website. The new guide covers sites dedicated to health, government, international, and legal resources on reactions to and studies of the pandemic. It also focuses on work on COVID-19 produced by the Duke community, in particular the Duke Law community. For law students, faculty, and members of the legal profession familiar with the major leg...

Whether you're continuing at Duke Law next year or graduating this May, your access to legal research services like Westlaw , Lexis Advance , and Bloomberg Law will change. All Students Many of the temporary resources for textbooks and eBooks listed on the Library's Working Remotely site will expire at different times this summer. Lexis Digital Library (textbooks, treatises, study aids): May 24 Wolters Kluwer textbooks via VitalSource : May 25 West Academic textbooks: June 1 Wolters Kluwer online study aids : June 30 Online Bluebook codes: 60 days from registration Continuing Students For rising 2Ls and 3Ls, your Law School research access generally continues uninterrupted over the summer. Lexis Advance and Bloomberg Law both allow student usage over the summer for educational as well as for commercial purposes. (However, check with your employer before using your Law School accounts for paid work – many employers prefer that summer associates avoid using th...