The Goodson Blogson

This week, the Goodson Law Library added the new looseleaf Social Media and the Law (2013) to its collection. This Practising Law Institute treatise, edited by information technology lawyer Kathryn L. Ossian, can also be accessed electronically with current Duke University NetID via PLI Discover Plus (campus-wide trial until February 2014) and to current Law School students, faculty and staff on Bloomberg Law . The Ossian treatise is part of a developing literature outlining how these emerging technologies have affected the legal system. Information from social networks like Facebook and Twitter has created new opportunities (and challenges) for electronic discovery , as well as new ethical headaches for attorneys and judges. Jury instructions have been redrafted to specifically prohibit jurors from discussing pending cases on social networks on Twitter. Attorneys have faced discipline for deceptively "friending" potential witnesses on Facebook. Some recent criminal tri...

The Goodson Law Library now has campus-wide access to Trade Law Guide , a source for legal materials from the World Trade Organization. The database contains WTO agreements and instruments, negotiating history, precursor agreements, all related WTO and pre-WTO case law, dispute documents and other related content. The database is accessible from the Legal Databases & Links page under Foreign & International Resources. An encyclopedic Subject Navigator organizes topics alphabetically, allowing quick access to specific agreements. Trade Law Guide also features a citator service for both articles and case law, linking users to a list of documents which have each cited back to a particular article or case. Several key agreements are also available in annotated format, linking to citing articles and cases. Trade Law Guide will soon be added to the library’s research guide for GATT/WTO resources, alongside the competing service WorldTradeLaw.net . For help finding other in...

[In this guest post, Reference Librarian and Senior Lecturing Fellow Marguerite Most explores the history of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, just as a new collection of previously-unreleased opinions has been published.] "Criminal Liability for Newspaper Publication of Naval Secrets"…"Use of Marshals, Troops, and Other Federal Personnel for Law Enforcement in Mississippi"…"The President and the War Power: South Vietnam and the Cambodian Sanctuaries". The Table of Contents reads like above-the-fold headlines in our nation's most respected newspapers. These are actually titles in the new series of supplemental opinions from the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel , most of which address the legality of executive orders. These are opinions which "with the passage of time have become publishable." Last week, the Office of Legal Counsel released volume one of its new series: Supplemental Opinions of t...

The database LLMC Digital contains a treasure trove of digitized primary and secondary legal sources, drawn from the collection of the Law Library Microform Consortium. Of particular interest to users of the Goodson Law Library are LLMC's collections of official state court case reporters , since the library's print copies are in off-site storage. LLMC also includes session laws; historical legal treatises; agency opinions and reports; court records and briefs from New York and California; and a growing collection of foreign and international legal materials, which is particularly strong for Canada and the United Kingdom. However, LLMC Digital was sometimes overlooked by researchers due to its previously difficult-to-navigate web interface and limited search functions. Today, though, LLMC Digital unveiled a brand-new design which simplifies searching, browsing and accessing its rich collection. The new site provides a streamlined catalog search, the familiar jurisdictional ...