The Goodson Blogson

Sure, grades are a good enough reason to put in the hours of research and writing on a seminar class paper. But what if all that hard work could earn you even more than a top grade? You might consider reworking past or current research projects for a law student writing competition . Many organizations sponsor writing contests for current law students, and most offer cash prizes as well as potential publication opportunities. How can you identify potential writing competitions for your project? The T.C. Williams Legal Essay Contest Catalog , maintained by the University of Richmond Law School, is the most comprehensive listing of law student writing competitions. The website features several useful searching and sorting options, including the ability to sort by subject matter, deadline, and even prize amount. The American Bar Association also maintains a list of Writing Competitions , which includes some contests not currently featured on the Richmond list. (This is likely because ...

Over the next week or so, you may notice library staff members taking notes about where our users are sitting (or standing, in the case of our sit/stand desks). It's no cause for alarm – we're conducting an assessment of library space usage, in order to identify patterns (such as the most popular places, times of day, and furniture types), and to help inform future space planning projects. No individually-identifying information is being recorded or reported, just tallies of where and when library visitors are using our space at certain times of day. Consider our space assessment a warm-up, of sorts, to another important counting project taking place this spring: the 2020 Census . A decennial requirement from Article I, section 2 of the U.S. Constitution , Census data helps to determine such critical matters as congressional seats in the House of Representatives and federal funding distribution for public services. Everyone living in the United States and its territories is...

Today, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit will hear arguments in the ongoing litigation about the cost of PACER, the U.S. government's repository of federal court filings. PACER , or Public Access to Court Electronic Records, operates behind a paywall of $0.10 per page for searches and document retrieval. Charges are capped at $3.00 per document, and individual users are not billed unless they incur more than $15.00 in charges during a billing quarter. While the costs of PACER were designed to support the system’s infrastructure, critics have noted that PACER's annual income (more than $145 million) far exceeds the actual operating costs. As The New York Times reported over the weekend , several consumer groups have filed suit over PACER costs. The complaint highlighted practices of overcharging or double-charging individual users, and also challenged the judiciary's practice of using excess PACER income for costs unrelated to the maintenance of the court...