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...

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...

On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court will open its annual October Term, with its first oral argument scheduled for 10 am. The "First Monday in October" has marked the start of the Supreme Court’s year since 1916. The first case of the new Term, Williams v. Washington , concerns state court claims under section 1983; a live-stream of oral argument audio will be provided on the Court’s website. To learn more about individual cases on the Court's docket this year, SCOTUSblog offers quick access to case information and filings on its October Term 2024 page , organized by argument date. Oyez provides a similar overview of OT2024 cases, and will link to oral argument audio and opinions when they become available for each case. The ABA also publishes a regular Preview of United States Supreme Court Cases ( available in HeinOnline ; Duke NetID required) that provides an overview as well as legal analysis of each featured case. ( Williams is featured in the latest Preview issue...

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...

Last month marked a milestone for the Caselaw Access Project (CAP) , an ambitious project from the Harvard Law Library Innovation Lab to digitize centuries of U.S. federal and state case law for free public access. Launched in 2016 with the financial backing of online legal research company Ravel Law (now owned by LexisNexis ), the Caselaw Access Project involved the digitization of more than 36 million pages of printed case reporters. The original agreement contained a commercial use restriction for eight years, which has now expired. The Innovation Lab commemorated the occasion with a conference on March 8 , highlighting the history of the project and use cases for the future. For more information on the history of the project, see Adam Ziegler's guest post at Bob Ambrogi's Law Sites . The Search feature on the legacy version of the CAP website links to CourtListener's Advanced Case Law Search , which has incorporated the CAP content. The beta version of the  CAP websit...

On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court will open its annual October Term, with its first oral argument scheduled for 10 am. The "First Monday in October" has marked the start of the Supreme Court's year since 1916. The Court recently confirmed plans to continue live-streaming oral arguments on its website; the first case of the new Term, Pulsifer v. United States , concerns the "safety valve" provision in federal criminal sentencing laws. To learn more about individual cases on the Court's docket this year, SCOTUSblog offers quick access to case information and filings on its October Term 2023 page , organized by argument date. The ABA also publishes a regular Preview of United States Supreme Court Cases (available in HeinOnline; Duke NetID required) that provides an overview as well as legal analysis of each featured case. ( Pulsifer is featured in the latest Preview issue, along with other cases from the October sitting.) A looming federal government shut...

Late last week, a former member of the Apex Town Council sued North Carolina House Speaker Tim Moore for "alienation of affection" and "criminal conversation," domestic torts claims that are currently recognized in only a handful of states. Scott Lassiter, now an assistant principal in Wake County, alleges that Moore engaged in a years-long extramarital affair with the plaintiff's wife, Jamie Liles Lassiter, from whom he is now separated. The complaint also includes causes of action for conspiracy, trespass, conversion, and invasion of privacy against an unknown "Defendant John Doe" for allegedly entering Lassiter's property to install a motion-activated surveillance camera. The suit seeks more than $25,000 in damages. House Speaker Moore and Lassiter's wife both criticized the lawsuit to the media this weekend, with Moore calling the claims "baseless" and Liles Lassiter describing the filing as an "outrageous and defamatory su...

As the legal fallout over Elon Musk's bid to purchase social network Twitter continues to unfurl, the Wall Street Journal recently explored the situation from an unusual perspective: what would Charles Dickens think of it all? In a story for the paper's humorous A-Hed section , Ellen Gamerman notes the parallels between Twitter v. Musk and Jarndyce v. Jarndyce , the all-consuming inheritance dispute at the center of Dickens's 1852 novel Bleak House (available to the Duke community in a variety of formats) . Although Gamerman is careful to note that the lumbering Chancery Court of the Dickens tale (described at one point in the tale as "being ground to bits in a slow mill") bears little resemblance to Delaware's Court of Chancery today, she quotes a few fans and even one Dickens descendant who express amusement at the prospect of a modern-day chancery case playing out, should the parties fail to settle the dispute before the November trial date. Gamerman br...

Monday, October 3 marks the start of the United States Supreme Court 's October Term. Congress established the "first Monday in October" as the beginning of a new Court term in 1916, as seen in 28 U.S.C. § 2 . The term will be the first for new Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson , who was sworn in on June 30 following the retirement of Justice Stephen Breyer. (A formal investiture ceremony for Justice Jackson will be held on Friday, September 30.) With less than a week before the opening of oral argument, the Court looks a little more welcoming than it did at the end of the last term, although it has maintained some pandemic-era access protocols. In late August, the Court removed the 8-foot security fence that was erected in advance of the controversial opinion Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization , which overruled Roe v. Wade . However, the building still remains closed to the public, except for official business . The Court began streaming real-ti...

On August 28, a new law took effect in the state of Missouri, which in part added Mo. Rev. Stat. § 1.016 : "A secondary source, including a legal treatise, scholarly publication, textbook, or other explanatory text, does not constitute the law or public policy of this state to the extent its adoption would create, eliminate, expand, or restrict a cause of action, right, or remedy, or to the extent it is inconsistent with, or in conflict with, or otherwise not addressed by, Missouri statutory law or Missouri appellate case law precedent." Most law students learn that secondary sources do not constitute the actual law of a jurisdiction in their first semester of legal research instruction, so this code section's text may seem strangely obvious. However, it's not the only such law on the books enacted or proposed recently: even North Carolina has one specific to insurance law at N.C. Gen. Stat. § 58-1-2 which took effect last year, and a nearly identical version of t...

The Goodson Law Library has recently expanded its access to historical content in the ProQuest Supreme Court Insight database, adding U.S. Supreme Court records, briefs, and case histories back to 1933 (expanded from its previous start date of 1975). The Duke University community can now access this nearly half-century of additional materials via the Duke Libraries Catalog or Legal Databases & Links page. ProQuest Supreme Court Insight provides browse and search capability for U.S. Supreme Court materials. For quick access to a specific case's materials, use Search by Number or select "Supreme Court Case Name" from the Basic or Advanced search menus. A section of Landmark Cases also allows browsing or searching for selected noteworthy cases decided during the coverage period. Results will include petitions for certiorari, briefs, appendices, docket listings, and the Court's final opinion. (Cert petitions are also included in cases where the Court did not gran...

Earlier this week, Associate Justice Stephen Breyer announced his intent to retire from the U.S. Supreme Court at the end of this term. The vacancy will be the first on the high court for President Biden, who has spent much of his first year in office filling vacancies in the U.S. District Courts and Circuit Courts of Appeals. (A running list of confirmed judicial nominations , as well as all judicial nominations, is available at the Senate Judiciary Committee website. Similar data can be found on the Judicial Vacancies page at the U.S. Courts.) President Biden had pledged on the campaign trail to nominate the Court's first Black female justice in the event of a vacancy during his presidency, a promise he reaffirmed at the White House yesterday following Breyer’s announcement . Washington insiders have circulated a shortlist of likely nominees , including current D.C. Circuit Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, California Supreme Court Justice Leondra Kruger, and Judge J. Michelle Chil...

Monday, October 4 marks the annual opening of the U.S. Supreme Court's new argument term, as set forth in 28 U.S.C. § 2 . "First Monday in October" hasn't always been the start of a new Court term, however: as noted in the treatise Supreme Court Practice § 1.2(f) (Reserves KF9057 .S8 2019 & online in Bloomberg Law ), the opening day of the Court's term (and even the total number of regular terms per year) has changed over time…although not since 1916. This year, the Court will return to oral arguments inside the courtroom , after the coronavirus pandemic forced it to schedule remote arguments for the end of the 2019-2020 term, and for the entirety of October Term 2020. However, the Court's building will remain closed to the public, limiting in-person access during arguments to the justices, the attorneys, and to a limited number of media representatives. The Court anticipates live audio streaming of oral arguments to continue through at least December, ...

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...

In law practice (and life), sometimes you'll need to calculate a future date, especially for filing deadlines. While it may seem like a quick and simple task, any miscalculation could result in at least an embarrassing conversation, if not more severe consequences like a barred claim or even formal discipline. Some law practice management systems have this feature built in (like Thomson Reuters Firm Central Deadline Assistant), but others do not (for example, Clio's help page notes that while this feature is not yet available, users can request it). What should you do if your employer doesn't have such a tool built into its practice management system? As it turns out, there are a lot of options. On social media last week, Chicago attorney Brad Romance went viral for his "Next Level Lawyer Pro Tip" video of the future date calculation feature in Microsoft Outlook Calendar , in which users can type "today+45" (or any other number) in the date field of a...

Users of the popular judicial biographical directory Almanac of the Federal Judiciary recently discovered that Westlaw no longer carried the full text of this resource as of March 2021. The Almanac of the Federal Judiciary is now available campus-wide online through Wolters Kluwer. The Almanac (a.k.a. AFJ) is a biographical database for all active federal district and appellate court judges. In addition to the standard biographical data, entries for judges will include information about their noteworthy rulings, media coverage, a list of publications, lawyers' comments on the judge's behavior and demeanor, and links to financial disclosure reports. This online version also preserves former AFJ entries for inactive federal judges, which can be especially helpful in times of judicial transition. For newly appointed federal judges, the profiles can take some time to be developed, especially for the lawyers' evaluation section. (For example, newest U.S. Supreme Court Jus...

As the ABA Journal and other news outlets reported this week, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a new notice on " Preferred Typefaces for Briefs ." The notice indicated that the court was revising its Handbook of Procedures and Internal Practices "to encourage the use of typefaces that are easier to read and to discourage use of Garamond." Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 32(a)(5) doesn't encourage or discourage the use of specific fonts in briefs, but does outline general rules for font spacing and size. The D.C. Circuit's new handbook language fleshes out the FRAP requirements with additional guidance: "Certain typefaces can be easier to read, such as Century and Times New Roman. The Court encourages the use of these typefaces. Briefs that use Garamond as the typeface can be more difficult to read and the use of this typeface is discouraged." The announcement quickly sparked chatter on social media , with some attorneys reading 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...