The Goodson Blogson

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...