The Goodson Blogson

On December 31, 2016, Law School access to the original Lexis.com interface will be phased out. Beginning on January 1, all Law School research will be through Lexis Advance , the interface which debuted in 2011. (Recently, Lexis.com was only accessible via a pull-down menu within Lexis Advance, but soon that option will be removed.) 100% of Lexis.com content has migrated into Advance, making the long-term upkeep of parallel research systems unnecessary. ( Law firm and other commercial users of Lexis.com will have an additional 12 months to get up to speed on Lexis Advance while retaining access to Lexis.com.) Lexis has created a "Lexis.com Migration Center" (login required) with handouts and training videos to help Lexis.com users learn more about the Advance interface and content. In particular, the PDF handout "The Research Tasks You Do Most: Here's How at Lexis Advance" is a handy primer to the most popular research needs. Additionally, the LexisNexis L...

The end of the calendar year often sees an increase in solicitations from non-profit organizations. Whether you feel compelled to give back or are just calculating charitable deductions for next year's tax return, it's helpful to research tax-exempt organizations to learn more about where your dollars are being spent, and to avoid sending money to fraudulent organizations. The Internal Revenue Service's Exempt Organization Select Check provides quick information about particular non-profit organizations, and the general deductibility level of contributions. For more detailed financial data regarding tax-exempt organizations, the best source is the annual Form 990 filed with the IRS. Form 990 archives are available through a number of sources: Duke University community members have access to GuideStar , a leading source of reliable nonprofit information and backfiles of Form 990. Charity Navigator is another option to review ratings of charitable organizations, incl...

Last night, the Times of London's Twitter account noted the passing of its longtime "Weird Cases" columnist, Gary Slapper : All @thetimes very sad to learn of the untimely death of our columnist @garyslapper . A huge loss - a lover of law's curiosities & people. — Times Law (@TimesLaw) December 5, 2016 Slapper's name should be familiar to many legal researchers, as the author of several leading textbooks on the law of England: The English Legal System and How the Law Works . As the legal news website Legal Cheek noted today , he was also a prolific humorist, in his Times column and on social media. In addition to several editions of Slapper's seminal textbooks, the Goodson Law Library collection also contains Slapper's collection of Weird Cases: Comic and Bizarre Cases from Courtrooms Around the World . To see which of his works are available in the Goodson Law Library collection, try a search of the Duke University Libraries catalog for the...

On December 1, changes to the federal rules of general application become effective, if they are adopted by the U.S. Supreme Court and submitted to Congress before May 1. This year, the U.S. Supreme Court has adopted amendments to selected Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Appellate Procedure, and Bankruptcy. One of the highest-profile changes this year involved Rule 41 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, which expanded the scope of warrants to search computers. As the December 1 effective date drew closer, civil liberties groups and members of Congress expressed concerns about extending government "hacking" powers, but last-minute efforts to delay Rule 41 from taking effect were unsuccessful. The U.S. Courts website Current Rules of Practice & Procedure outlines all of the changes adopted in late April, and includes the amended rule text in various formats. Online sources for the federal rule text (such as subscription research services...