The Goodson Blogson

New Year's Day is a time for many to take stock of personal goals for the future. But January 1 also merits a look back to the past, as this year thousands of copyrighted works from 1926 will enter the public domain, along with hundreds of thousands of pre-1923 sound recordings. Duke's Center for the Study of the Public Domain outlines these exciting new additions at Public Domain Day 2022 . Books entering the U.S. public domain this year include early works by Ernest Hemingway, Dorothy Parker, Langston Hughes, and Agatha Christie. Films starring the likes of Buster Keaton, Greta Garbo, and Rudolph Valentino will join them, along with compositions by George Gershwin, Jelly Roll Morton, and Irving Berlin. As noted at the Public Domain Day site, this year features the first major entry of sound recordings into the public domain, under the schedule created by Congress in the 2018 Music Modernization Act . (These older compositions were already in the public domain, but the indi...

Rebranding has been a hot trend over the last year or two. Facebook? Recently rechristened its parent corporation to Meta . Washington's football team? Officially now the…Washington Football Team. Legal research databases are no exception -- particularly at Wolters Kluwer, which has renamed several of its research products in late 2021. First was VitalLaw (formerly known as Cheetah), which at Duke provides access to a number of Wolters Kluwer treatises on various topics, particularly in intellectual property, securities law, and tax law. Some key resources include: Hazard et al, The Law of Lawyering : a core treatise on law practice and professional responsibility topics Federal Securities Law Reporter : reproduces the key securities acts and collects cases, regulations, releases, no-action letters, and editorial commentary, all arranged by the act to which they relate Epstein on Intellectual Property : treatise covering various aspects of IP law, including patent, trademark,...

First, the not-so-nice news: with continued disruptions to both the global supply chain and the postal service, holiday shopping will present additional challenges this year. Experts recommend advance planning, especially for expected shipping delays. However, there's still time to find a great holiday gift! Since 2009 , the Goodson Blogson has scoured the internet to find gift ideas that are suitable for the law students and lawyers in your life. Judging by the consistent demand for the library’s sit-stand desks, many law students (and, presumably, lawyers) might also enjoy a similar setup in their home office spaces. If you'd like a copycat model, our sit-stands are the UPLIFT Standing Desk (48" x 30" desktop) with ash gray laminate. However, these desktops can also be customized in about 20 different styles, including a whiteboard laminate. Book stands are another thoughtful gift, although law students will need a larger version to accommodate their heavy cas...

Sunday, November 7 marks the thirteenth anniversary of a fateful meeting at the Goodson Law Library. During the Law School's Dedication Week festivities in 2008, marking the end of a fifteen-month building renovation project, a group of academic law library directors gathered in the library's conference room. That meeting was the genesis of the Durham Statement on Open Access to Legal Scholarship , formally released in February 2009 after several months of drafting. The Durham Statement aimed to improve the dissemination of legal scholarly information through formal commitments to open access and electronic publication. In February 2021, the current directors of the signatory law libraries formed a Durham Statement Review Task Force, comprised of representatives from four drafting schools, in order to explore the current status of the Statement's adoption, examine barriers to adoption, and recommend best practices going forward, including potential revisions to the statem...

This weekend, the British legal research database ICLR Online upgraded to ICLR.4. As noted in ICLR's overview of changes , this version of the resource includes new features and functionality, including improved legislation searching and a new option to browse case law by topic. (An add-on feature called Case Genie, incorporating AI into natural language search processing, is not currently available in Duke's campus-wide subscription to this resource.) Now in its tenth year of operation, ICLR Online is the digital research platform for Incorporated Council of Law Reporting for England and Wales, which has published law reports for England and Wales in print since 1865. ICLR Online contains the full text of case law from ICLR reporters in both HTML and PDF format, as well as a number of search options and browsing tool. The new upgrade to ICLR.4 adds integrated access to legislation through the UK's Legislation.gov.uk website. For additional resources related to search...

On Monday, the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees expects more than 60,000 of its members to begin a labor strike. The move would shut down film and television production across the country, unless and until an agreement is reached with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. They'll join several other labor union strikes that have made headlines in recent weeks, inspiring the hashtag #Striketober on social media. Currently, more than 10,000 workers at John Deere plants are on strike , following an overwhelming rejection of a new contract proposal. Another 1,400 employees of Kellogg cereal plants are also in their second week of a strike over labor negotiations. With unemployment rates continuing to trend toward pre-pandemic levels , and a record number of employees quitting jobs in what is now termed " The Great Resignation ", labor conditions and labor markets will likely be hot topics of conversation for the indefinite future. If ...

Monday, October 4 marks the annual opening of the U.S. Supreme Court's new argument term, as set forth in 28 U.S.C. § 2 . "First Monday in October" hasn't always been the start of a new Court term, however: as noted in the treatise Supreme Court Practice § 1.2(f) (Reserves KF9057 .S8 2019 & online in Bloomberg Law ), the opening day of the Court's term (and even the total number of regular terms per year) has changed over time…although not since 1916. This year, the Court will return to oral arguments inside the courtroom , after the coronavirus pandemic forced it to schedule remote arguments for the end of the 2019-2020 term, and for the entirety of October Term 2020. However, the Court's building will remain closed to the public, limiting in-person access during arguments to the justices, the attorneys, and to a limited number of media representatives. The Court anticipates live audio streaming of oral arguments to continue through at least December, ...

Legal matters seem to generate an avalanche of headlines every day, in both mainstream and specialized publications. How can a reader possibly keep up with the latest news? A few well-chosen RSS feeds and/or browser bookmarks may help, such as from the recommended legal news resources below. The ABA Journal website provides recent news stories from the American Bar Association, as well as articles and issues of its monthly print and digital magazine. (Back issues and articles can also be found in a number of third-party databases .) State and local bar association journals are another good source to keep up with legal developments in a particular jurisdiction. Many titles are available online, though often only to association members; the Duke community can access many titles through HeinOnline's Bar Journal Library . Law.com and Law360.com are two popular legal news sources. The full text of articles on their websites can be accessed directly from within the Law School...

This week, we welcome our new JD and LLM students to the Law School! As mentioned in the library orientation sessions, the Goodson Law Library provides access to a number of print and electronic resources that are designed to help you succeed. Some key highlights for our newest students: CALI Lessons : The Center for Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction partners with law schools to provide access to high-quality online tutorials (called CALI Lessons ) and other tools to support legal education and access to justice (including open-access textbooks and classroom tools for law school instructors). Access to CALI lessons and other portions of the site require individual registration; students may access the Duke Law registration code by logging in to the link at the Academic Technologies software page or asking at the service desk. West Academic Library Study Aids includes electronic versions of many popular study aid series, including Concepts and Insights, Hornbooks, Nutshells, and ...

Last week, a federal magistrate judge in Colorado sanctioned two attorneys for their filing in an election dispute lawsuit, citing "a woeful lack of investigation into the law" and "patently frivolous arguments." The judge's order directed the attorneys to pay opposing counsels' fees for filing motions in the suit. Other attorneys who filed challenges to the 2020 election results have experienced similar professional consequences: Rudolph Giuliani currently faces a D.C. bar ethics investigation , following the June suspension of his law license in New York, and earlier this summer former Trump attorneys Sidney Powell and Lin Wood weathered a high-profile hearing over potential sanctions in Michigan. These cases have been a very public reminder of the importance of attorneys keeping up to date with their ethical duties and obligations. Every day, lawyers across the country face sanctions or other disciplinary action for failures to uphold the rules of thei...

Earlier this week, University of Missouri at Kansas City Law professors Allen Rostron and Nancy Levit updated their long-running guide, Information for Submitting Articles to Law Reviews & Journals , available as a free download on SSRN. The popular document provides links and guidance on submitting articles to the 196 flagship law journals in the U.S. One recent development for this fall's law review submission cycle is the closure of the former online submission portal ExpressO, announced last year and finalized on June 30. That leaves Scholastica's Law Review Author Submissions Center and email as the main points of contact for manuscript submission and tracking, although some individual journals have developed their own submission portals. Law review submissions are highly competitive, and if using Scholastica there is also a cost per submission involved. (Law faculty at Duke may join the Law School's group account with Scholastica by registering with their law...

The end of June usually marks the conclusion of the U.S. Supreme Court's October Term, when the Court issues the last of its opinions in cases argued since the start of the term in the previous fall. Last term, with disruptions to Court operations and argument sittings in the spring of 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic, the Court's final ten opinions of OT19 were issued in July. This week, the Court has five opinions left to issue from the 2020 October Term. Will they successfully conclude the term before the end of the month, or push into July for the second year in a row? Court-watchers will be following the activities at One First Street closely this week. To join them, you can visit SCOTUSblog , which live-blogs order and opinion release days at the Court beginning at 9:30 am Eastern time. SCOTUSblog's FAQ page on Announcements of Orders and Opinions provides some additional detail about the process. Although the Court highlights opinion release days on its publi...

Congratulations to the class of 2021! As new Duke Law alumni, you are eligible for continuing access to a number of library resources. As we shared in our post from March 26 , recent Law School graduates can access Bloomberg Law , Lexis , and Westlaw following graduation, with different restrictions set by each research service. There are many other campus library resources available to all alumni, not just recent graduates. An important first step is to register for a Duke OneLink Account . Any campus resource available to alumni will have a Duke OneLink login in addition to a NetID login.   Alumni with OneLink accounts can access research databases like ProQuest, JSTOR, and several e-book platforms via the Duke Alumni Library Online Access page. While alumni are welcome to use the online catalog to determine whether Duke has access to a resource, online databases are only available to alumni via the special alumni access portal. Alumni can also create a RefWorks account to...

The Law School community now has institutional access to PowerNotes , a research organization and outlining tool that uses a browser extension to capture, organize, and track sources from other databases and websites. Current Law School community members may sign up under an institutional account allowing unlimited projects with their Duke.edu email address. (Anyone may sign up for a free individual account that includes the creation of one project.) PowerNotes provides a helpful "Quick Start" guide to using its system. Users must install a browser extension for Chrome (also works with Microsoft Edge) or Firefox , and create an account with the system. The browser extension allows researchers to capture highlighted text on a website and add it to a project outline with notes. Outlines can be easily organized and also exported into various formats, including Microsoft Word and Excel or Google Docs and Sheets. PowerNotes can be used with free websites as well as subscrip...

With the 2021 Law School Convocation now behind us, it's time to put summer plans in action. Whether that involves bar exam preparation, a summer associate job, or a fun post-vaccination trip or two, you may want to unwind with a good book occasionally. But with free time at a premium, how can you find a title that you’ll be sure to enjoy? E-book enthusiasts can filter the Duke Libraries Catalog to items "Available Online," or use the separate E-Books Search to locate titles available via Duke. This page also links to the Duke Libraries' eBook FAQ , which provides guidance on using the various electronic publishers' platforms, such as OverDrive, ProQuest, and EBSCO. If you're looking for specific suggestions on what to read next, try NoveList Plus . This database provides reading recommendations and reviews, and is available to current Duke University students, faculty and staff members. (Recent alumni who have a public library card in North Carolina may a...

In law practice (and life), sometimes you'll need to calculate a future date, especially for filing deadlines. While it may seem like a quick and simple task, any miscalculation could result in at least an embarrassing conversation, if not more severe consequences like a barred claim or even formal discipline. Some law practice management systems have this feature built in (like Thomson Reuters Firm Central Deadline Assistant), but others do not (for example, Clio's help page notes that while this feature is not yet available, users can request it). What should you do if your employer doesn't have such a tool built into its practice management system? As it turns out, there are a lot of options. On social media last week, Chicago attorney Brad Romance went viral for his "Next Level Lawyer Pro Tip" video of the future date calculation feature in Microsoft Outlook Calendar , in which users can type "today+45" (or any other number) in the date field of a...

Users of the popular judicial biographical directory Almanac of the Federal Judiciary recently discovered that Westlaw no longer carried the full text of this resource as of March 2021. The Almanac of the Federal Judiciary is now available campus-wide online through Wolters Kluwer. The Almanac (a.k.a. AFJ) is a biographical database for all active federal district and appellate court judges. In addition to the standard biographical data, entries for judges will include information about their noteworthy rulings, media coverage, a list of publications, lawyers' comments on the judge's behavior and demeanor, and links to financial disclosure reports. This online version also preserves former AFJ entries for inactive federal judges, which can be especially helpful in times of judicial transition. For newly appointed federal judges, the profiles can take some time to be developed, especially for the lawyers' evaluation section. (For example, newest U.S. Supreme Court Jus...

Whether you are graduating from Duke Law this May or continuing your legal studies next year, your access to legal research services and other campus databases may change this summer. Below is a summary of policies for the major legal research databases that you might wish to access over the summer. Graduating Students Westlaw: You may opt in to Thomson Reuters products, including Westlaw and Practical Law, for six months after graduation for non-commercial use . This "Grad Elite" access allows 60 hours of usage on these products per month to gain understanding and build confidence in your research skills. While you cannot use it in situations where you are billing a client, Thomson Reuters encourages you to use these tools to build your knowledge of the law and prepare for your bar exam. In order to activate Grad Elite access: log in at http://lawschool.tr.com and use the drop-down menu by your name to access Grad Elite Status, or click on this link . In addition to the ...

As the ABA Journal and other news outlets reported this week, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a new notice on " Preferred Typefaces for Briefs ." The notice indicated that the court was revising its Handbook of Procedures and Internal Practices "to encourage the use of typefaces that are easier to read and to discourage use of Garamond." Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 32(a)(5) doesn't encourage or discourage the use of specific fonts in briefs, but does outline general rules for font spacing and size. The D.C. Circuit's new handbook language fleshes out the FRAP requirements with additional guidance: "Certain typefaces can be easier to read, such as Century and Times New Roman. The Court encourages the use of these typefaces. Briefs that use Garamond as the typeface can be more difficult to read and the use of this typeface is discouraged." The announcement quickly sparked chatter on social media , with some attorneys reading the ...

Last year, as the coronavirus pandemic ramped up in mid-March, the Internal Revenue Service announced an unprecedented across-the-board extension to federal tax filings. This year, alas, the IRS has already announced that they expect to retain the traditional April 15 deadline . [ Update 3/19 : The IRS announced a one-month federal deadline extension to May 17 earlier this week; states may or may not grant similar extensions.]  Between the narrower filing window and the delivery delays that continue to plague the U.S. Postal Service, taxpayers will want to get their filings in order as quickly as possible, and consider electronic filing in order to expedite the processing of returns and refunds. (It's possible to request an Extension of Time to File Your Tax Return , but note that this does not grant an extension for time to pay estimated taxes owed.) Taxpayers whose income was at or below $72,000 in 2020 may qualify for the IRS Free File service , which offers online tax prepar...

This afternoon marks the start of the second Senate impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump, a first in U.S. history. Trump was previously impeached last year by the House but acquitted in the Senate for abuse of power and obstruction charges, in connection with the Robert Mueller investigation of Russian election interference. The 2021 articles of impeachment are focused on Trump's role in inciting the deadly events of January 6, in which supporters of the 45th President stormed the U.S. Capitol as Congress formalized the 2020 election results. If convicted by a two-thirds vote of the Senate, he could then be barred from holding federal office in the future (by a simple majority). The House of Representatives voted to impeach on January 13, and delivered the article of impeachment to the Senate for trial on January 25. As NPR outlines , the first day of the trial will contain arguments on the constitutionality of holding an impeachment trial for a former president. (F...

Today marked the inauguration of 46th President of the United States Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. and Vice President Kamala Harris. The new administration is already taking action on several campaign promises, including the signing of seventeen Executive Orders on a diverse array of topics. Some, such as the United States rejoining the Paris Agreement on climate change and reversing course on the Keystone XL pipeline project, are direct reversals of executive actions from the previous administration. Others are aimed at tackling the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. The first 100 days of a new administration are considered to be a critical benchmark in measuring a new president’s productivity. How can you keep up with the latest developments from the executive branch? We’re glad you asked! The White House Briefing Room will link to key speeches and statements, as well as presidential actions. Executive orders are published in the daily Federal Register , which has a page just for orders ...