The Goodson Blogson

One of the newest titles in the Goodson Law Library is Invented by Law: Alexander Graham Bell and the Patent That Changed America (KF3116 .B43 2015), by Brooklyn Law School professor Christopher Beauchamp. This engaging, accessible work details the legal battles surrounding the invention of the telephone, giving a fascinating history of American patent law in the process. On March 7, 1876, Alexander Graham Bell's patent for Improvement of Telegraphy (No. 174,465) was approved by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office (PTO). It was an unusually fast approval process, with three applications hand-delivered by Bell's lawyer on February 14, mere hours before a competing application was submitted by engineer Elisha Gray. Bell's legal maneuvering strongly suggested that an unknown informant within the PTO was assisting efforts to beat Gray to the telephone patent. Subsequent litigation reached the U.S. Supreme Court twice in 1888, first with The Telephone Cases (126 U.S. 1...

The Goodson Law Library has just added the new World Treaty Library to its HeinOnline subscription. Members of the Duke University community can access the new library from the HeinOnline Welcome screen . This library includes digital versions of many important treaty indexes and compilations, including the League of Nations Treaty Series (L.N.T.S.), the United Nations Treaty Series (U.N.T.S.), and the Kavass (KAV) treaty collection. Of particular interest to historical treaty researchers is Wiktor's Multilateral Treaty Calendar, 1648-1995 , which extends the library's historical reach to the mid-17th century. In all, Hein estimates that more than 180,000 treaty records are available through this library. Long-time treaty researchers will likely appreciate the convenience of a single source for searching and accessing the text of historical treaties. (For example, one foreign & international law librarian described the collection as "a truly monumental library...

'Tis the season for holiday shopping! If you are still in search of the perfect gift for the legal eagles in your life, check out the Goodson Blogson's suggestions. Blogger Reid Trautz's 10th edition of his annual gift guide at Reid My Blog has higher-end gifts for lawyers covered, so our gift guide focuses on affordable items which should appeal to law students. If your law student is also a Supreme Court geek, the Supreme Court Historical Society Gift Shop is always worth a browse. It's made our shopping list every year for good reason – there is a wide variety of Court-themed books, ornaments, office accessories, and even glassware. SCOTUS-lovers might also enjoy National Public Radio’s Warhol-esque tribute to its Legal Affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg – the Nina Totin' Bag . The "Notorious R.B.G." meme hit the mainstream this fall, with cheerful approval from Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg herself . There are a few variations on the Notorious R...

This week's New Yorker features "The Great Paper Caper," a fascinating account of the 1970s theft of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter's personal papers from the Library of Congress. The missing documents -- some of which have never resurfaced -- included a 1952 letter from future Chief Justice William Rehnquist, then a law clerk for Justice Robert Jackson, allegedly expressing disappointment with the Court's decision to overturn Plessy v. Ferguson 's "separate but equal" doctrine. (Rehnquist's views on segregation, exposed in a separate memorandum released to Newsweek , had become a focal point during his 1971 confirmation hearing. The missing letter from the Frankfurter collection was explored in more detail in a 2012 Boston College Law Review article .) Author Jill Lepore reconstructs the F.B.I. investigation of the Frankfurter thefts, speaking with researchers who had consulted the papers prior to the theft and recounting the ...

From modern warfare to planned Amazon Prime delivery , drones (also known as Unmanned Aircraft Systems, or UAS) have become more commonplace in the last few years. As drone technology continues to grow more accessible to consumers (see Gizmodo's recent review of household drones , just in time for the holidays), lawmakers have scrambled to react to the potential implications for aerial surveillance and airspace crowding. The Federal Aviation Administration already maintains an information page on Unmanned Aircraft Systems , with frequently-asked questions, links to regulations, and news releases concerning the use of unmanned aircraft for recreational or other purposes. Most recently, the FAA prohibited the use of drones over sports stadiums which seat 30,000 or more people, through a special security notice posted to its website . The National Conference of State Legislatures maintains a 50-state survey, Current Unmanned Aircraft State Law Landscape . This page maps the 20 stat...

The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York celebrated its 225th anniversary earlier this month, with the festivities documented in a just-released video from the U.S. Courts . Featuring historical artifacts as well as interviews with federal judges and even courtroom artists, the video provides a quick overview of the S.D.N.Y.'s important place in judicial history. The Southern District of New York was the first new federal district court to be established following the passage of the Judiciary Act of 1789 . Its historic first session, on Nov. 3 of that year, earned the S.D.N.Y. the nickname "the Mother Court." The name has endured, as the S.D.N.Y. continues to enjoy a position of influence among federal courts. It has served as the setting for many major trials throughout our nation's history, and has most recently emerged as a pioneer in electronic discovery practice, thanks to Judge Shira Scheindlin in the Zubulake cases. To learn more abo...

Today, the Library of Congress opened its long-awaited exhibition Magna Carta: Muse and Mentor , a 10-week celebration of the foundational charter of liberties which has informed the democratic rule of law in both England and the United States. At the heart of the exhibit is one of only four surviving copies of the 1215 document, on loan from England's Lincoln Cathedral . (As noted in a historical document from the Goodson Law Library's collection , also digitized on HathiTrust , the Lincoln Cathedral previously loaned their copy to the Library of Congress for an exhibition in the late 1930s.) Today's Washington Post succinctly summarizes the history of this "Great Charter" . In an attempt to subdue a rebellion among his feudal barons, King John agreed to the terms of the document, which ensured the rights of land-owning subjects and limited the power of the Crown. Forty-one copies were made and distributed to each baron; the document on display at the Library o...

In honor of Open Access Week , the Goodson Blogson is highlighting another free research resource. Last week, we brought you the news that HeinOnline and the Law Library of Congress had teamed up to provide free public access to historical federal legal materials like the U.S. Code and U.S. Supreme Court cases. Today, we're featuring a new free resource for historical doctoral dissertations . Earlier this month, EBSCO announced the release of American Doctoral Dissertations 1933-1955 , a free digitized index of nearly 100,000 doctoral dissertations which were accepted by American universities during those three decades. The database, available at http://opendissertations.com/ , includes scans of a print index set, Doctoral Dissertations Accepted by American Universities , which is also available in the Duke University Libraries' off-site storage facility . Searching this free database does not include the same features as other EBSCO-produced subscription databases, but...

The Law Library of Congress has just announced an agreement with legal publisher William S. Hein which provides free public access to historical federal publications, including the United States Code , U.S. Reports , Code of Federal Regulations , and the Federal Register . While neither as complete nor searchable as the HeinOnline subscription libraries which are available to current Duke University community members, these collections linked within the Law Library of Congress's Guide to Law Online help fill in the historical gaps for these important legislative, judicial, and executive branch publications, which have long been available back to the mid-1990s on the federal government website FDsys . Generally, the free Hein libraries begin with the first edition of the publication in question, and end when free access via FDsys begins. The free collections have been added to the Goodson Law Library's handy list of Federal Law Links , and will be added to subject-specific...

Effective on October 6, North Carolina Bar Association members can no longer access the state's Pattern Jury Instructions (PJI) online through the Fastcase research service . Private vendor CX Corp is now the exclusive online source for North Carolina Pattern Jury Instructions , and is offering direct individual subscriptions after 11 years of providing access through the state bar association's member research service. Goodson Law Library users can continue to find print copies of the North Carolina Pattern Jury Instructions , compiled and updated by the state's Conference of Superior Court Judges and published by the UNC School of Government, in the Walker North Carolina Alcove on Level 2 . There are separate volumes for civil, criminal, and motor vehicle instructions. The library's research guide to North Carolina Practice includes information about these PJI publications as well as other state legal research tools. What's all the fuss about Pattern Jury In...

The Goodson Law Library recently received the 2014 edition of the Guide to International Legal Research , available for consultation in the Reference Collection on level 3. The George Washington International Law Review first published the guide in 1986 as a special double issue ( available to Duke users in HeinOnline , under the journal's former name, the George Washington Journal of International Law and Economics ), but began an annual book publication of the popular guide in 1990, in partnership with LexisNexis. The updated Guide is also available online in Lexis Advance . To browse or search, type Guide to International Legal Research into the Lexis Advance search bar, and click "Table of Contents" to reach the full text. The text of the Guide is divided into two general parts. First, a regional section describes the legal systems and major legal resources for countries and multinational organizations within Africa, Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, Russia and...

Yesterday, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder announced plans to resign his position once a successor is confirmed. Holder has helmed the Justice Department since February 2009; his service already marks the fourth-longest Attorney General term in U.S. history. Speculation – and political sniping – has already begun over the upcoming Senate confirmation process for Holder's still-unnamed successor. The U.S. Senate website contains details about the Senate power to confirm or reject presidential nominations. Holder's announcement came one day after the 225th anniversary of the Judiciary Act of 1789 , which created the position of Attorney General (in addition to its more famous impact on the federal court structure). The Judiciary Act called for the appointment of a "person […] learned in the law, to act as Attorney General for the United States." Oversight of the Justice Department was added to the Attorney General's duties in 1870, with Congress's passage...

The Duke Libraries Catalog includes thousands of e-books, which are available to readers with a current University NetID and password. Law School researchers might be particularly interested in the collection of Oxford Handbooks Online: Law . This collection includes full access to twelve law-themed handbooks , dating from 2004 to 2014. Most of the handbooks focus on international or comparative law topics, and several feature contributions from current Duke Law faculty members (links below are to print copies; online versions can be accessed above): The Oxford Handbook of International Adjudication (2014), Prof. Laurence Helfer. The Oxford Handbook of Empirical Legal Research (2010), Prof. Neil Vidmar. The Oxford Handbook of International Environmental Law (2007), Prof. Jonathan Wiener. The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Law (2006), Prof. Ralf Michaels. These handbooks are a subset of hundreds of Oxford University Press e-books which are available to the Duke University ...

The Office of the Law Revision Counsel recently announced the addition of Title 52 (Voting and Elections) to the official United States Code (U.S.C.) . This "editorial reclassification" takes effect on September 1 for the electronic version of U.S.C. , and will relocate voting and election-related laws from existing titles 2 and 42 into the new Title 52. (A chart of the planned changes is already available.) Title 52 will appear in the printed U.S. Code beginning with Supplement II of the 2012 edition. Five years ago, the Office of the Law Revision Counsel recommended that Congress enact a proposed new title 52 into positive law , but federal lawmakers took no action. An "editorial reclassification" is considered a routine transfer of existing Code sections, and may be undertaken by the Code editors unilaterally. The last new addition to the Code was Title 51, National and Commercial Space Programs, which was enacted into positive law in 2010 (see our blog...

Law has a language all its own. Newer researchers are often mystified by the Latin phrases, legal jargon, and unfamiliar uses of common English words which litter our case law and statutes. Legal dictionaries are an essential tool for lawyers who need to decode the secret language of law. Black's Law Dictionary and Ballentine's Law Dictionary remain the standard references for legal terms, and both are available for consultation in the Goodson Law Library's Reference Collection ( see Level 3 map ). However, even more dictionaries are just a click away in electronic format. The online version of Black's Law Dictionary can be found on WestlawNext , while LexisNexis provides the electronic version of Ballentine's Law Dictionary . But since 1Ls won't receive their passwords to these popular research services until early September, additional legal dictionary options may be worth an online bookmark. Basic free legal dictionaries include those on consumer websit...

As the Goodson Blogson reported back in January , LexisNexis began to include news and commentary from legal current-awareness service Law360 in its Legal News search results. However, this did not include all content from Law360, and also did not provide any access to the separate Law360.com website. Effective today, however, the Duke Law community may now access the full text of Law360 stories , courtesy of LexisNexis, at both Law360.com and via the carousel of Law360 headlines within Lexis Advance . Access to Law360.com is restricted to Duke Law School IP ranges, but includes the full text of stories within more than 35 practice areas. Stories frequently include links to helpful content like case dockets and court opinions, such as the recent article covering Duke University's trademark lawsuit with the estate of actor John Wayne over use of the actor's "Duke" nickname on alcoholic beverages. The "Related" sidebar includes PDF copies of case docume...

To the dismay of schoolteachers everywhere, the Internet has made copying simpler than ever. With a single click, entire passages of a research paper can be lifted from Wikipedia; someone else's photo can be saved as your own; and all of this can happen countless times per day. The growing ease of copying digital content has led to increased confusion about fair use and obtaining permission , particularly when using images. Fortunately, blogger Curtis Newbold (a.k.a. The Visual Communication Guy ) is here to help. Lifehacker recently highlighted his detailed July 2014 flowchart, Can I Use That Picture? The Terms, Laws, and Ethics for Using Copyrighted Images . The flowchart walks novice would-be image users through the minefield of fair use considerations, Creative Commons attribution, and stock photo licensing. "My rule above all else?" he concludes: "Ask permission to use all images. If in doubt, don't use the image!" Want to use a particular image, b...

The Library of Congress recently unveiled a new Indigenous Law Portal to help researchers locate tribal law materials. As outlined in the LOC's blog post , the resource includes digitized tribal constitutions from the Library of Congress's collection as well as links to electronic legal resources on tribal websites. The new portal brings together many difficult-to-locate materials into one convenient site, which can be searched by tribe name, state, or geographic region. To learn more about tribal law in America, search the Duke Libraries catalog for "Indians of North America – Legal status, laws, etc." to find recent titles like Fletcher's American Indian Tribal Law (2011) or EagleWoman's Mastering American Indian Law (2013). In addition to print titles in the library's collection, Duke University community members may search or browse the 2012 edition of the treatise Cohen's Handbook on Federal Indian Law within LexisNexis Academic . (Members...

By all accounts, Ohio native Lillian Mountweazel (1942-1973) lived an interesting life. The former fountain designer turned to photography at the tender age of 21, exhibiting and publishing her critically-acclaimed photographs of such far-ranging subjects as Parisian cemeteries and American mailboxes. Mountweazel died at just 31 years old in an explosion, while on an assignment for Combustibles magazine. Had she lived a bit longer, she might have eventually settled down in Agloe, New York or Argleton, England -- places which, like Lillian Mountweazel, never really existed. Those are just a few examples of copyright traps : fabrications deliberately tucked into otherwise factual publications in order to detect third-party copying. Copyright traps can be found in a variety of sources like: Encyclopedias : Lillian Mountweazel was an invention of The New Columbia Encyclopedia (1975). "If someone copied Lillian," editor Richard Steins told The New Yorker in 2005 , "the...

The Goodson Law Library's research guide to North Carolina Practice has just been updated. This guide outlines primary and secondary legal research resources for the state of North Carolina, in both print and electronic formats. So what's changed in the latest version of this guide, besides updates to links and book editions? A new section with guidance on researching North Carolina legislative history , including links to General Assembly study reports and digitized versions of House and Senate journals. Updates to the list of A-Z Subject Treatises to include North Carolina Continuing Legal Education (CLE) publications, which are now available to the Duke Law School community via Bloomberg Law 's secondary sources menu. Improved instructions for accessing online versions of other treatises on LexisNexis and WestlawNext , as well as N.C. pattern jury instructions through Fastcase (which is provided free to members of the N.C. Bar Association, and is the only elect...

It's no secret that web links can be unreliable. The Chesapeake Digital Preservation Group , which has been reporting on website "link rot" since 2008, said in its 2013 annual report that nearly half of the links from its original website sample list no longer work; this includes a number of government and educational websites. A similar study of websites cited by the U.S. Supreme Court from 1996-2010 showed that nearly one-third of the cited links were no longer functional. As the A.B.A. Journal reported in December , groups including Chesapeake as well as Perma.cc (of which Duke Law is a member) are working to combat the problem going forward, but in many cases the damage has already been done. So what can researchers do when they encounter a dead website URL? A blueprint can be found in chapter 6 of the latest edition of Levitt & Rosch's new reference work The Cybersleuth's Guide to the Internet: Conducting Effective Free Investigative & Legal Re...

Last October, Goodson Law Library Head of Reference Services Jennifer L. Behrens compiled an online map detailing which low-cost legal research services were provided for free to members of various state bar associations . This was an update of a 2010 map created by Greg Lambert of 3 Geeks and a Law Blog . Since the October 2013 map was compiled, several state bars have either changed or announced upcoming changes to their free legal research services to members. The Goodson Law Library map has now been updated for June 2014 to reflect those changes, and can be found at TargetMap.com or downloaded below. Although the overall market share of leading services Fastcase and Casemaker remains steady, several states have made changes to their designated free research service. Most notably, the State Bar of Texas will offer both Fastcase and Casemaker to its members, after previously providing only Casemaker . Several states will also switch their longstanding services later ...

What is a year of your life worth? If you spent it behind bars for a crime you didn't commit, the answer may be lower than you think. As NPR reported yesterday , slightly more than half the states have procedures in place for restitution when a wrongfully-convicted person is exonerated. An interactive map , with links to the relevant code sections, is available courtesy of the Innocence Project. North Carolina fixes the amount at $50,000 per year in prison – an amount equal to the federal government and several other states, though experts note that this amount was selected by the federal government ten years ago simply to match the top-paying state at the time. Texas tops the list at $80,000, while Wisconsin offers only $5,000 per year of wrongful imprisonment. Although Wisconsin may look comparatively stingy, the states which offer higher amounts are not necessarily being generous. In many states, acceptance of the fixed payout waives a former inmate's right to sue – whic...

The Goodson Law Library has added HeinOnline's United Nations Law Collection to its subscription of Hein content libraries. Researchers at Duke University now have additional options to access key UN legal publications, including the United Nations Treaty Series, the League of Nations Treaty Series, UNCITRAL and UNIDIR publications, UN Yearbooks and journals. A collection of current and historical treatises on international law, human rights, and the history of the UN is also included. Although many of these items are available in the Goodson Law Library's book collection as well as on the United Nations' own website , the Hein library makes it easy to quickly retrieve a UN Treaty by UNTS or LNTS citation, locate a UN Treaty by topic, and link to the full text of law review articles that cite a specific UN Treaty. The enhanced searching and retrieval features will undoubtedly aid international law researchers at Duke Law and Duke University, who can access the Hein libra...

This week marks the 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre , during which the Chinese government declared martial law in order to brutally end several weeks of peaceful pro-democracy student protests in central Beijing. The exact death toll remains uncertain, but hundreds of citizens were fatally beaten, shot or crushed by tanks; thousands more were wounded in the daylong military reaction. The world media has commemorated the somber anniversary with fascinating histories of the events. TIME magazine 's cover story provides a detailed view of the events on the ground, while the New York Times reviewed internal Chinese military documents which showed discord among military leaders regarding the use of force on student protestors. London's Independent paper examined the uncertain fate of the iconic "Tank Man," who defiantly blocked the path of a line of tanks in the street ( CNN video footage ). The powerful sight of a lone dissident bravely standing ...

Legal researchers often have good reason to locate and compare legislation or regulations from multiple jurisdictions. For example, over the last three years, about a dozen states have enacted laws to prevent employers from demanding access to employees' personal social media accounts. The most recent example, Louisiana's Personal Online Account Privacy Protection Act , was signed into law by Governor Bobby Jindal last week. Researchers in a state which has not yet passed a law on the same issue may wish to compile these various state laws in order to present a comparative perspective in a legal filing, or to aid in the drafting of model legislation for their own jurisdiction. Unfortunately for legal researchers, the process of searching for similar statutes from a variety of jurisdictions can be time-consuming. Thankfully, publications known as 50-state surveys provide quick access to various jurisdictions' statutes and/or regulations on a particular subject. Although t...