First Monday in October

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, along with other cases scheduled for the October sitting.)

Petitions already granted for the Term address a number of hot-button topics, such as state prohibitions on gender-affirming medical care for minors, federal regulation of "ghost guns" and e-cigarettes, and a First Amendment challenge related to adult websites that could have far-reaching effects on other content publishers.

The last Term ended with Supreme Court approval ratings at historic lows, with both Pew and Gallup showing public opinion of the Court dipping below 50%. This summer, President Biden introduced a reform proposal, including mandatory 18-year term limits for Justices that would ensure each future President has the opportunity to appoint two new members of the Court during a four-year term in office. A recent Annenberg poll indicated that more than two-thirds of respondents approved of both term limits as well as a mandatory retirement age for Justices (not included in the Biden proposal).

The Biden proposal also suggests the enactment of a binding code of ethics on the Court, to replace the "codification of principles" released by the Court in November 2023 following several high-profile news stories about lavish undisclosed gifts. More than 80% of the Annenberg poll respondents approved of a binding code of ethics for the U.S. Supreme Court. Last week, the Judicial Conference announced a revision to the disclosure rules followed by the federal judiciary – exempting disclosures for judges who dine or stay overnight at a personal residence, even if the residence is corporate-owned.

For more information on the upcoming Term and practices of the U.S. Supreme Court, check out the resources linked in the library's research guide or Ask a Librarian.

Disaster Relief Resources

Over the weekend, Hurricane Helene devastated more than 600 miles of the southeastern United States, from the Gulf Coast of Florida through Tennessee (NYTimes: Mapping the Destruction). Western North Carolina was hit especially hard with flooding, landslides, and collapsing highways and bridges, leaving the mountain region inaccessible and impassable from all directions. DriveNC.gov maintains a map of current road closures, warning that "All roads in Western North Carolina should be considered closed and non-emergency travel is prohibited."

Widespread power outages and shortages of food and water have followed in the wake of the storm. While aid has begun to reach the region, recovery and repairs will be a slow and difficult process, and the full impact of the destruction is not yet known. The Asheville Citizen-Times and The Assembly NC have temporarily suspended their paywalls for hurricane-related coverage. If you are able to help, agencies are seeking monetary contributions as well as needed supplies. Blue Ridge Public Radio (BPR) has compiled a helpful list of Ways to Donate and Help Flood Victims in North Carolina, featuring regional and local aid organizations.

If you know someone in the area who needs assistance, The Assembly has a guide to How to Get Help After Hurricane Helene. FEMA's Hurricane Helene information page also contains guidance for navigating the aftermath of the storm and requesting help. North Carolina's Department of Public Safety also maintains a page of Information and Resources on Hurricane Helene, connecting visitors to information about emergency shelters, missing persons, power outages, and options to report price gouging or repair scams.

The hurricane's path is a sobering reminder that natural disasters can strike anywhere, even in places that may generally be considered "safe" from such weather events. To learn more about best practices for preparing your own household for various emergencies, visit Ready.gov for resources to Make a Plan, Build an Emergency Kit, and plan for the safety of family pets as well as people. While an unprecedented disaster can upend even the most detailed emergency plans, advance preparation may be a life-saving measure.

Constitution Day Roundup

September 17 is Constitution Day, commemorating the 1787 signing of the United States Constitution in Philadelphia. The National Archives and Records Administration, which houses the original document, maintains a page for America's Founding Documents: The Constitution of the United States with a transcription and historical background about the document and its signing. (Constitution Day shares the September 17 holiday with Citizenship Day, an occasion often marked by naturalization ceremonies across the country. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service offers a sample citizenship test on its website: can you achieve a passing score?)

As always, you can pick up a pocket copy of the U.S. Constitution at the library service desk, while supplies last. You might also want to take a look at the thousands of resources in the Duke Libraries Catalog on constitutional law and interpretation. Some recent highlights from the print and electronic collections:

• Elie Mystal, Allow Me to Retort: A Black Guy’s Guide to the Constitution (2022). A bitingly humorous look at constitutional interpretation from the former Above the Law editor and current cable news commentator, with chapter titles like "You know this thing can be amended, right?"
• H. Jefferson Powell, The Practice of American Constitutional Law (KF4550 .P67 2022 & online). Explores how constitutional arguments have been constructed throughout American history. Prof. Powell is also the author of The Foundations of American Law: A Companion to the 1L Year (Reserves KF380 .P685 2024), an introduction to legal history and legal thought.
• Neil S. Siegel, The Collective-Action Constitution (KF4550 .S49 2024 & online). An examination of the principles animating the structure of the Constitution. Prof. Siegel is also the co-author of United States Constitutional Law: Concepts and Insights (2d ed 2024, Reserve KF4550 .F368 2024 & online).
• Cass R. Sunstein, How to Interpret the Constitution (KF4550 .S834 2023 & online). An argument for rethinking approaches to constitutional interpretation.

For more titles, try a keyword or subject search in the Duke Libraries Catalog for constitutional law united states or Ask a Librarian.

The Assembly NC Now Available Campus-Wide

The Goodson Law Library, in partnership with the Duke University Libraries, now offers campus-wide access to The Assembly, an award-winning news source focused on North Carolina politics, government, and other issues affecting the state. Full-text access is currently automatic from the Duke University IP range or through the “Library Resources” group of the Duke VPN. A link with access instructions is available at the Legal Databases & Links page.

The Assembly launched in 2021 and maintains bureaus in the Triangle, Fayetteville, Wilmington, and Greensboro. In the local area, a partnership with Indyweek brings selected stories to the biweekly free paper. The site offers newsletters for statewide and regional coverage as well as The Docket, a weekly email on state court activity.

For help with accessing The Assembly, or for questions about the other news resources you can access at Duke University and Duke Law, be sure to Ask a Librarian.

Spreading the News

Tired of newspaper website paywalls? At Duke, you have access to more popular news sources than you may think! The Goodson Law Library offers current members of the Law School community access to group subscriptions for several outlets, including The New York Times, Financial Times, and the Washington Post; additional titles are available through your NetID or other credentials, such as the Law School Lexis login. Details for major titles are available at the Legal Databases & Links page and highlights are below.

The Law community can set up an individual account with The New York Times by visiting https://nytimesineducation.com/access-nyt/ while connected to the VPN (be sure to choose "Library Resources" option rather than the "Default" when logging in). Once connected, type "Duke" under "Find School" and select "Duke University School of Law." Student accounts last until December of the graduation year; faculty and staff accounts require annual renewals. These accounts provide for use on the website as well as mobile apps. Note that they do not include the premium subscription features, such as Games or Cooking.

The Law community may also join a Financial Times group subscription by registering at http://ft.com/dukelaw with their Duke email address. FT.com accounts under this subscription include unlimited access to stories on the website and mobile.

Law School access to the Washington Post website is unlimited when accessed from a Law School networked computer, the VPN, or by the proxy link here and at Legal Databases & Links. No account is needed to access stories through this link, and individual accounts for students are not covered by this group subscription.

The entire campus community enjoys access to the Wall Street Journal Online thanks to a partnership between the Law Library and the Ford Library at the Fuqua School of Business. To view details and set up an account with your Duke email address, visit https://library.fuqua.duke.edu/dukeonly/wsj-info.htm. Student accounts last for the duration of your enrollment at Duke, including 90 days after graduation.

Legal news sources are also available, such as American Lawyer Media's Law.com and Law360. The web versions are accessible on Law School networked computers, but the full text of these sources are also available to the Duke Law community by entering the email address associated with your Lexis ID into the sign-in prompt on Law360 or Law.com. These sources and stories are also accessible directly in Lexis+’s Legal News section.

The libraries at Duke University maintain access to thousands of other news sources, both current and historical. To locate options for accessing the full text of a particular title, try a search of the E-journals list. (Note that Law School-only resources like Lexis and Westlaw will not appear on this campus-wide list, although inclusion in Nexis Uni is a good sign that a source will also be available in the Law School's version of Lexis.)

For example, although local papers like the Raleigh News & Observer and the Durham Herald-Sun do not provide a group subscription, Duke community members can read the full text of both papers via the America’s News database. Each is available in an HTML text view back to the early 1990s and a PDF page-image view back to 2018:

• Raleigh News & Observer: text view and PDF view
• Durham Herald-Sun: text view and PDF view

Other campus-wide newspapers of interest include the Chronicle of Higher Education and The Economist. Additional titles can be browsed in BrowZine, accessible from the  E-journals search page. For help with options to access a specific news source, be sure to Ask a Librarian.

Court Records & Briefs Research Guide Updated

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 (available from the Search Collections link on the Home page) now features historical state records and briefs from California, Illinois, Michigan, New York, and Pennsylvania, as well as federal records from the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals and the Appellate Case Files of the Supreme Court set of U.S. Supreme Court materials from 1792-1831. Note that party names and/or reporter citations must be entered carefully in this search feature: to view materials for M’Culloch v. Maryland (1818), a party name search for Mculloch or McCulloch would not work, and a citation search omitting the periods in 17 u.s. 316 would also fail.
• Additional state court digitization projects have been linked, including for the Florida Supreme Court and Kentucky Appellate Courts.

Visit the updated Court Records & Briefs research guide to learn more about the available resources for finding filings from various courts, time periods, and formats. For help with locating needed items, be sure to Ask a Librarian. 

College Sports in the Courts

It's been three years since the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously held in National Collegiate Athletic Association v. Alston that the NCAA's rules on player compensation violated federal antitrust law. Since then, Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) deals have proliferated for college athletes, and universities and fans alike are grappling with the changes and their impact on the recruitment and retention of top prospects.

You can read more about the history and future of these developments in College Sports Law in a Nutshell, a newly published title now available in the West Academic Study Aids Library. Attorney Dan Lust and Ole Miss sports law professor William W. Berry III cover such topics as NIL, the transfer portal, and the impact of conference realignment.

West Academic Study Aids Library also includes Walter T. Champion, Jr.'s Sports Law in a Nutshell, 5th ed. 2017, which includes some content about collegiate athletics. Other general sports law treatises can be found in the major legal research services, often grouped with entertainment law in subject area browsing. On Westlaw, select the practice area Arts & Entertainment & Sports Law to view available titles, such as Champion's Fundamentals of Sports Law 2d. On Lexis, the Entertainment & Sports practice area includes the treatise Sports Law Practice as well as sports contracts in the Forms and Analysis section. PLI Plus includes the treatise Sports Law: A Practical Guide to Protecting the Interests of Athletes.

Keep up with the latest developments in the world of sports law with additional titles like the Hackney Publications in HeinOnline, a collection of two dozen sports law journals that include Legal Issues in Collegiate Athletics and Title IX Alert. The Athletic’s coverage of college and pro sports is available to current members of the Law School community through our group NYTimes.com subscription. To sign up, follow the instructions listed at Legal Databases & Links.

For help with accessing these or other sports law resources, be sure to Ask a Librarian.