Thursday, December 7, 2023

Winter Break Reading Recommendations

The end of the semester is almost here! Amid the flurry of final exams and the holiday rush, it might be hard to find time for your perfect winter break book. But a good read can help pass the time on long flights or airport delays, as well as give you a great way to wind down for the night at the end of busy holiday festivities. To help you find something appealing to read before you go, here are seven recommended titles that the Goodson Law Library staff have enjoyed recently.

Book cover of Number Go Up by Zeke Faux
Number Go Up: Inside Crypto's Wild Rise and Staggering Fall, by Zeke Faux (Request a print copy  or put a hold on the e-book!) "In this up-close-and-personal account, Faux reveals the highly entertaining and, frankly, horrifying (for human beings and the environment) worlds behind the current crypto scandals. An investigative reporter for Bloomberg, Faux also manages to make abstruse cryptocurrency concepts digestible here. For my fellow legal news junkies looking for a deep dive beyond the FTX/Binance headlines, this book is a nice complement to the better-known Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon by Michael Lewis (also available in print or e-book).” – Laura Scott, Assistant Director for Reference, Clinics, and Outreach and Senior Lecturing Fellow

Blue and white book cover with a photograph in middle of statue of mother hugging child
Gravesend, by Cole Swensen (Request a print copy or read the e-book!) "In this poetry collection, Swensen uses her mastery of the paced prose poem form to explore ghosts, the ghostly, and liminal grief. I adore Swensen's lyrical descriptions, but what made me unable to put this book down is the way in which she uses white space to weave the descriptions together, to allow the descriptions to work through juxtaposition and gesture: precise language but then, too, precise absence." – Emilie Menzel, Collections Management & Strategies Librarian

Book cover featuring title Annihilation in large text with green vines or leaves growing around it
Annihilation, by Jeff Vandermeer (Request a print copy!) "This book is a cannot-put-it-down level of good. It is a dystopian novel about a team that enters Area X on a scientific mission. Area X is an environment threatening both physically and psychologically. The characters and environment shift as you read, and the plot twists and additions seem natural as they continue to enthrall the reader. This book is the first of the Area X trilogy, and it was made into a movie starring Natalie Portman in 2018 (available for streaming at Duke, although the book is better and quite different from the movie adaptation). I especially liked the complexity of the characters within the novel and the authenticity of the interwoven story of the narrator's relationship with her husband that adds to the development of the characters." – Chelsey McKimmy, Research Services Librarian and Lecturing Fellow

Green and yellow book cover labeled The Fraud: A Novel by Zadie Smith
The Fraud, by Zadie Smith (Request a print copy or access the e-book!) "A tale spanning decades of 19th-century British history, it's not hard to see why this sprawling novel appears on almost every best-of-2023 book list. The Fraud follows a fictionalized version of Eliza Touchet, the widowed housekeeper to her cousin William Harrison Ainsworth, a now-obscure novelist who in his day hobnobbed with the likes of Dickens and Thackeray. Mrs. Touchet and the second Mrs. Ainsworth both develop a fascination with the Tichborne Affair, a sensational legal case in which an Australian butcher claimed to be an English nobleman who had been presumed lost at sea a decade prior. Smith pays meticulous attention to detail, using these real-life historical figures and events to create a vivid novel about justice, freedom, and legacies." – Jennifer Behrens, Associate Director for Administration & Scholarship and Senior Lecturing Fellow

Book cover of chalk-style drawings of despairing people on a black background
Song for the Unraveling of the World: Stories, by Brian Evenson (Request an interlibrary loan!) "Currently reading this book of short stories by Brian Evenson. While this book has been on my list to read for some time, it felt particularly relevant considering its title. Evenson masterfully weaves disturbing narratives that delve deep into the darker aspects of human nature. Each story is beautifully crafted, with haunting imagery that lingers long after you've finished." – Julie Wooldridge, Research Services Librarian and Senior Lecturing Fellow

Cover of book Generation Kill depicting US Marine soldier holding a gun
Generation Kill: Devil Dogs, Iceman, Captain America, and the New Face of American War, by Evan Wright (Request an interlibrary loan!) "The author, then a reporter with Rolling Stone, wrote about his time embedded with First Recon Battalion during the invasion of Iraq. I enjoy the fly-on-the-wall perspective that Wright brings to his writing. He does a remarkable job of placing the reader in the near-death situations that the Marines, and occasionally he himself, were often in. He does an equally great job at capturing the boredom, frustration, and nagging sense of aimlessness felt by many of the young men he was embedded with. I was not expecting this book to be as funny as it is, but it makes sense, as humor was often the only weapon that the Marines had to fight against everything they were coping with." – Elisa Pfau, Acquisitions Assistant Senior

Book cover of antique book
Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management, by Isabella Mary Beeton (Request a 2000 print copy or read an e-book of the 1880 edition!) "Initially published as a serial, Beeton started working on this book at the age of 21. In 1861, it was consolidated and published as a complete volume. Shortly after her death in 1865, an expanded version of over 2,000 pages was released, and has been further expanded on since. Because of the time of its publication, many of the 'household' and even some of the 'cookery' (the term used for cooking at that point) suggestions will read as, to be kind, outdated. However, the cultural significance of the book cannot be ignored. The food supervisor on Downton Abbey referred to it as a most important guide, and the later volume of the book was featured on Good Omens held by none other than Jon Hamm playing the angel Gabriel. Isabella Beeton has been described as 'the grandmother of modern domestic goddesses' by some of the most famous women chefs of our time. Personally, I look forward to testing some of the recipes soon." – Wickliffe Shreve, Head of Scholarly Services and Senior Lecturing Fellow

Don’t see your next read on this list? For even more recommendations, check out NPR's 2023 Books We Love and the New York Times' 100 Notable Books of 2023. The library database NoveList Plus includes "Recommended Reads Lists" such as "Best of 2023," "Book Club Best Bets," or options to curate your own recommendations based on keywords and filters. For more help with identifying and locating your perfect winter break read, be sure to Ask a Librarian.

Monday, November 6, 2023

Holiday Gift Guide for Lawyers and Law Students

Regular Goodson Blogson readers know that we have been recommending holiday gift ideas for the law students and lawyers in your life since 2009 (see past entries here). We thought that was a pretty long history, until Assistant Director for Reference, Clinics, and Outreach Laura Scott uncovered an even earlier holiday gift guide from Duke Law in the December 2, 1964 issue of The Devil's Advocate newspaper. In the "Observed Around the Law School" column, student Alex Denson (LL.B.'66) shared a humorous "shopping guide for the law student who has everything" that would have been familiar to law students of the era, including "Delamirie Diamonds, Tubantia life rafts," and "Palsgraf's Fireworks." (OK, modern law students will surely know that last one too.)

Are your friends and relatives wondering what to give you for Christmas? I've decided to compile a shopping guide for the law student who has everything. (He's a second year man at U.Va.) Sample: Delamirie Diamonds, Tubantia Life Rafts, Cherry Sisters' LP Albums, Palsgraf's Fireworks, Prosser's Toilet Tissue, and Winner Lose Oil Stock (Win or Lose Oil? Winner Lose All?) Any suggested additions? If so, scribble them down and put them in the "D" mailbox with my name on it."

In the following week's column, Denson reprinted additional humorous legal gift ideas from fellow student Don Gardiner (LL.B.'65), including "oil for the springing use" and "a blunt instrument for docking entails." 

Don Gardiner came through with some additions to my Christmas List: oil for the springing use; a gun for protection when feeding the estoppel; a new wousin bag (brief case); glue for mounting a use on a use; and a blunt instrument for docking entails. (re the last item, how about a docket?) Don concludes with modestly noting that "second year students are more ingenious than the stodgy, hardened third year variety." Should anyone else have any additions to the list, put them in my box before Monday.
Sadly, no one else took Denson up on his request to share additional suggestions, and Duke Law gift guides apparently went dormant until our 2009 blog post. These days, the Goodson Blogson's recommendations may focus less on the law and more on the gifts, but we hope you'll still find some useful ideas here for the law students and lawyers in your life.

First, though, we should acknowledge the state of current affairs. From the ongoing war in Ukraine, to the horrifying October terrorist attack in Israel and subsequent violence and devastation in Gaza, to recent natural disasters like the Maui wildfire, Hurricane Otis in Acapulco, and this weekend's earthquake in Nepal, holiday gift shopping might feel somewhat frivolous while there is so much suffering in the world. If you and/or your recipients feel the same, many relief organizations will accept charitable donations in honor of another person and will provide the honoree with notification of your gift. Some organizations that are on site helping people affected by military conflict and natural disasters include Doctors without Borders/Médicins sans Frontières, Project HOPE, and Jose Andres's World Central Kitchen. You can research additional charities and learn more about how their donations are allocated at Charity Navigator.

Other holiday gift choices can help do some good for the world, too. Sustainable chocolate has been in the news a lot recently, from CBS News to Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. As explained on these programs, the harsh realities of cocoa production include exploitative and illegal practices, such as child labor and forced servitude, which governments and non-governmental organizations struggle to combat. This holiday season, indulge your loved one's sweet tooth more ethically with the 9-bar "Ultimate Bundle" from Tony's Chocolonely, or one of the gorgeous gift boxes from Ghana's women-owned 57 Chocolate. Both of these companies were recently featured on CBS Sunday Morning as examples of chocolate producers who provide their workers and suppliers with a living income and strive for "exploitation free" products.

Other gift ideas for foodies on your list could include a set of attractive and eco-friendly reusable food storage bags from Stasher, rated best overall by Food & Wine earlier this year. Gift cards to DoorDash, GrubHub, and Instacart may help your recipient stock the fridge and find quick meals during long work days. We've previously written about meal prep delivery kits like HelloFresh and Blue Apron, but you might also consider The Purple Carrot for a plant-based/vegan alternative. If your loved one is far away and missing a hometown delicacy, many local favorites ship cross-country via their Goldbelly shops.

For caffeine fiends, consider a nice coffee set, like those at Blue Bottle, Red Bay's Holiday Gift Set (one of Oprah's "Favorite Things" this year), or Durham's own Little Waves. If your loved ones prefer tea, consider some attractive gift sets from Tea Forte (we especially like the striking Frank Lloyd Wright box), or the beautifully packaged sets from South Korea's OSULLOC (via Daebak or their Amazon shop, which features some items that are currently out of stock on Daebak).

Both coffee and tea drinkers might also like a little help keeping their beverages warm, too. If the trendy self-warming Ember Mug is out of price range, perhaps a plug-in mug warmer would be a good alternative: Don't Waste Your Money reviewed 11 varieties.

If their beverage tastes run a bit harder, check out Houston attorney Michael J. McCormick's 2022 bartending book Lawyerly Libations: Concoctions for the Counselor, Apéritifs for the Attorney, Elixirs for the Esquire, and Additional Alcoholic Anecdotes: A Cocktail Compilation for the Burgeoning Barrister's Bar (available in hardcover or paperback via Amazon). You could even bundle it with a set of Declaration of Independence rocks glasses or pint glasses from the National Archives, currently available with a 20% discount using the code GIFTGUIDE23 (through 12/20).

The National Archives Store's 20% sale makes it a good place to peruse for others on your holiday shopping list, as the code GIFTGUIDE23 works for anything featured in their own Gift Guide. We’ve previously featured the NARA gift shop's patent prints and authentic government "red tape" offerings, but the Emancipation Proclamation canvas print is new to the Blogson recommendations. If you haven't quite reached the free shipping threshold via the sale items, the rest of the Archives store should help you get there quickly.

Last year, we highlighted various Lego Botanical sets as a potentially fun way to decorate an office. While sets such as the new Tiny Plants may still appeal to many readers, if you'd like to send the real thing to your loved one's home or office instead, a monthly bouquet subscription may keep the holiday cheer going well past the New Year. Taste of Home highlighted several options in September, rating Bouqs the best overall and highlighting BloomsyBox as the most eco-friendly. (Sending just one bouquet? Consider patronizing a local shop at Find a Florist.)

You might also consider helping your loved one with an office upgrade via artwork. Architectural Digest recently featured "Where to Buy Cool Artwork Online," including options for locating affordable but stylish prints and original art. Some sites that provide access to original art by up-and-coming as well as established artists include Artfinder, Minted, and Artsy.

Help with professional wardrobe building or maintenance is a practical idea, especially for recent graduates. A gift subscription or gift card to online styling services like Stitch Fix, Armoire, or Menlo Club can help your recent graduate or newer lawyer fill their closet with stylish pieces. If that idea is not your style, or your recipient already has a well-stocked closet, maybe a handheld clothes steamer to keep their wardrobe wrinkle-free on the go? Real Simple rates the five best clothes steamers, with the Conair Turbo ExtremeSteam coming out on top.

Need practical and affordable ideas for stocking stuffers or office gift exchanges that almost everyone should love? The versatile Geekey multi-tool should appeal to outdoorsy types, fix-it types, and anybody who can never find a bottle opener when they need one. An Apple Air Tag should similarly be appreciated by those who always have trouble finding things – while sets of 4 run close to $100, a single tag is also available for $29, and free engraving service is also available to personalize the gift. Glocuscent neck reading lights come in a variety of colors, and add a convenient boost of light while traveling.

This holiday season will be undeniably difficult for many people who have lost loved ones, are living in unstable conditions, or are experiencing economic hardships. (If you or someone you know in the United States are struggling with mental health or thoughts of self-harm, please call or text 988 or visit https://988lifeline.org/ for live chat support.) But this time of year is also an opportunity to contribute to charitable relief efforts, support local businesses and artisans, and share precious moments together with friends and family. If you have read this far, we hope that our annual holiday gift guide has given you a few inspiring ideas to spread hope, share happiness, and create memories with your own loved ones. We wish our readers a safe, peaceful, and happy holiday season.

Friday, September 29, 2023

First Monday in October

On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court will open its annual October Term, with its first oral argument scheduled for 10 am. The "First Monday in October" has marked the start of the Supreme Court's year since 1916. The Court recently confirmed plans to continue live-streaming oral arguments on its website; the first case of the new Term, Pulsifer v. United States, concerns the "safety valve" provision in federal criminal sentencing laws.

To learn more about individual cases on the Court's docket this year, SCOTUSblog offers quick access to case information and filings on its October Term 2023 page, organized by argument date. The ABA also publishes a regular Preview of United States Supreme Court Cases (available in HeinOnline; Duke NetID required) that provides an overview as well as legal analysis of each featured case. (Pulsifer is featured in the latest Preview issue, along with other cases from the October sitting.)

A looming federal government shutdown puts the October operations of many federal agencies and offices in jeopardy. Reuters has reported that the lower federal courts likely can remain operational for two weeks should Congress fail to agree on either the annual appropriations or a short-term deal to avert shutdown. However, the Supreme Court expects to continue operations beyond that time if a shutdown continues beyond that point, with an official spokesperson adding that the Court "will rely on permanent funds not subject to annual approval, as it has in the past, to maintain operations through the duration of short-term lapses of annual appropriations."

For more information on the history and practices of the U.S. Supreme Court, check out the resources linked in the library's research guide or Ask a Librarian. Visitors to the Goodson Law Library should also plan to stop by the service desk during the month of October to view a display of items in the collection related to the Supreme Court in history, pop culture and society, featuring a mix of nonfiction and fiction titles related to the highest Court in the land.

Tuesday, August 29, 2023

BNA Law Reports Archives Now Available Online

If you’ve ever ventured to the Superseded Looseleaf collection on Level 1 on a cite-checking quest, you know that locating archived issues of BNA Law Reports and similar titles can be challenging. Bloomberg Law, which acquired BNA more than a decade ago, has long offered access to the full text of various Law Reports back to the 1990s, but many titles have had a much longer history in print than that. Thanks to an inquiry from Indiana University Maurer School of Law Library Director Susan deMaine this summer, Bloomberg Law has now activated a fuller archive of Law Reports publications for its users. 

Cover page of BNA Patent, Trademark, and Copyright Weekly Reports from 1958, with visible looseleaf holes on left side of scan

The BNA Current Reports Archive is accessible from the Practice Centers & Tools home page. To reach it, click on "Practice Centers & Tools" under "Popular Links" on the Bloomberg home page, then scroll down to News & Analysis > "Bloomberg BNA Law Reports (Archive)" to view available titles.

Once you've selected a title, you can search or browse for particular topics or issues. Note that historical archive titles don’t currently seem to be included in search results from either the main Bloomberg < GO > bar or from the relevant Practice Centers and Law Reports pages, so you’ll need to be sure to access the Bloomberg BNA Law Reports (Archive) section in order to locate and select this historical content for searching. (Archives for each title are also accessible under the "All Legal Content" search menu.)

The extra effort to locate is well worth it, as these archives provide a fascinating contemporary account of major cases and legal news of the day. United States Law Week, with issues back to 1934, includes news and opinions from nearly a century of the U.S. Supreme Court's history. Specialized titles offer similar glimpses into history: The Criminal Law Reporter, available here back to 1967, followed the Court's invalidation and later reinstatement of capital punishment in America. The Daily Labor Report issues of the mid-1970s described investigative efforts to unravel the mysterious disappearance of former Teamsters union president Jimmy Hoffa. Environmental law titles tracked the growth of the EPA and federal efforts to contain ecological disasters like Love Canal.

The archived Law Reports also sometimes printed unreported case law from various courts, or administrative agency memoranda and other executive branch materials. Searching key words and then limiting results by date is generally an effective way to locate results in the Law Reports Archives, although note that some of the OCR text can be garbled. For help with locating historical Law Reports, either in Bloomberg Law or in the print Superseded Looseleaf collection on Level 1, be sure to Ask a Librarian.

Tuesday, August 15, 2023

Good News

Sooner or later, we all hit a paywall while trying to read the news online. Sometimes a cleared cache or incognito browser window might provide limited access to one story, but many news outlets restrict even that practice. Understandably, newsrooms need to pay their bills in the face of declining subscriptions and increasing online competition. Some outlets face outright hostility for their work, such as the small-town Kansas newspaper whose editors' offices and homes were raided by law enforcement last week after the paper received a tip about a local restaurateur's criminal record.

How can you ethically access so many different news sources without breaking the bank? Good news: current members of the Duke Law and Duke University community have many options for accessing the full text of popular news sources. Some require the setup of an individual account, while others need only a NetID login from a link on a Duke website. The Goodson Law Library offers current members of the Law School community access to group subscriptions for several outlets, including The New York Times, Financial Times, and the Washington Post. Details are available at the Legal Databases & Links page and highlights are below.

  • The Law community can also set up an individual account with The New York Times by visiting https://nytimesineducation.com/access-nyt/ while on a networked Law School computer (such as the library workstations on level 3) or connected to the VPN (be sure to choose "Library Resources" option rather than the "Default" when logging in). Once connected, type "Duke" under "Find School" and select "Duke University School of Law." Student accounts last until December of the graduation year; faculty and staff accounts require annual renewals. These accounts provide for use on the website as well as mobile apps. Note that they do not include the premium subscription features, such as Games or Cooking.
  • The Law community may also join a Financial Times group subscription by registering at https://ft.com/dukelaw with their Duke email address. FT.com accounts under this subscription include unlimited access to stories on the website and mobile.
  • The entire campus community enjoys access to the Wall Street Journal Online thanks to a partnership between the Law Library and the Ford Library at the Fuqua School of Business. To view details and set up an account with your Duke email address, visit the registration page. Student accounts last for the duration of your enrollment at Duke, including 90 days after graduation.

Legal news sources are also available, such as American Lawyer Media's Law.com and Law360. The web versions are accessible when connected to Law School networked computers, but the full text of these sources are also available to the Duke Law community via Lexis, in its Legal News section.

The Duke University Libraries maintain access to thousands of other news sources, both current and historical. To locate options for accessing the full text of a particular title, try a search of the E-journals list. (Note that Law School-only resources like Lexis and Westlaw will not appear on this campus-wide list, although inclusion in Nexis Uni is a good sign that a source will also be available in the Law School's version of Lexis.)

For example, although local papers like the Raleigh News & Observer and the Durham Herald-Sun do not provide a group subscription, Duke community members can read the full text of both papers via the America's News database. Each is available in an HTML text view back to the early 1990s and a PDF page-image view back to 2018:

For help with options to access a specific news source, be sure to Ask a Librarian.

Wednesday, July 5, 2023

The Other Amendments

Since the founding of America, the United States has ratified 27 amendments to the Constitution. The first ten, of course, form the Bill of Rights; subsequent amendments expanded rights for Black citizens and women, prohibited (and later repealed the prohibition on) the sale of alcohol, added presidential term limits and clarified presidential succession, abolished poll taxes and lowered the voting age, among other modifications. Background on each amendment can be found in the online treatise Constitution Annotated: Analysis and Interpretation of the United States Constitution.

For every amendment in the Constitution, though, there are thousands more that failed to complete the arduous ratification requirements outlined in Article V. (For details, see the 2016 Congressional Research Service report The Article V Convention to Propose Constitutional Amendments: Contemporary Issues for Congress.) The Amendments Project at Harvard University, launched on July 4, has compiled over 20,000 proposed amendments into a searchable database. Amendments Project director Jill Lepore, a professor of American History and law at Harvard, announced the archive in the New York Times, observing that "No one has ever taken stock of this history of failed amendments, an America that never was but was wanted by some, and sometimes by very many, or even most."

The Amendments Project also includes a Stories section, which contextualizes the amendment activity related to topics like abortion, the environment, the budget, religion, and marriage, among others. Stories are written by members of The Amendments Project research team. Explore the new Amendments Project database at its Search tab. Tips for searching the database are linked under Resources.

For more information about successful and proposed amendments, try a search of the Duke Libraries Catalog for "Constitutional Amendments – United States." You'll find e-books like Constitutional Amendments: Encyclopedia of the People, Procedures, Politics, Primary Documents relating to the 27 Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, John R. Vile's Conventional Wisdom: The Alternate Article V Mechanism for Proposing Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, and the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens's Six Amendments: How and Why We Should Change the Constitution. Print editions of these titles are also listed in the catalog.

For help with locating library materials about the Constitution and its amendments (successful or otherwise), be sure to Ask a Librarian.

Tuesday, June 20, 2023

Heart Balm's Day in Court

Late last week, a former member of the Apex Town Council sued North Carolina House Speaker Tim Moore for "alienation of affection" and "criminal conversation," domestic torts claims that are currently recognized in only a handful of states. Scott Lassiter, now an assistant principal in Wake County, alleges that Moore engaged in a years-long extramarital affair with the plaintiff's wife, Jamie Liles Lassiter, from whom he is now separated. The complaint also includes causes of action for conspiracy, trespass, conversion, and invasion of privacy against an unknown "Defendant John Doe" for allegedly entering Lassiter's property to install a motion-activated surveillance camera. The suit seeks more than $25,000 in damages.

House Speaker Moore and Lassiter's wife both criticized the lawsuit to the media this weekend, with Moore calling the claims "baseless" and Liles Lassiter describing the filing as an "outrageous and defamatory suit" from her "soon to be ex-husband. Our marriage was a nightmare, and since I left him it has gotten worse."

The salacious complaint, which includes photograph exhibits as well as intimate details of conversations between the parties, illustrates why so-called "heart balm" causes of action have fallen into disfavor in most jurisdictions. Alienation of affection involves a spouse suing a third party for interfering with the marriage’s companionship and affections, while criminal conversation is related to adultery (or in the words of the North Carolina Court of Appeals, "based on the violation of the fundamental right to exclusive sexual intercourse between spouses," Scott v. Kiker, 297 S.E.2d 142 (1982)). Over the years, scholars and practitioners criticized the torts as increasingly antiquated and sexist, and many legislatures and courts have prohibited their use. (North Carolina, too, amended section 52-13 of the General Statutes in 2009 to restrict the causes of action only to cases against natural persons, and only in situations where the spouses had not physically separated with intent to permanently remain apart.) For a brief history of these torts up to 2009, see Jamie Heard, Comment, The National Trend of Abolishing Actions for the Alienation of a Spouse's Affection and Mississippi's Refusal to Follow Suit, 28 Miss. Col. L. Rev. 313 (2009), available online.

More information about these causes of actions in North Carolina is available in the Goodson Law Library, as well as electronically to the Duke Law community. The treatise Domestic Torts: Civil Lawsuits Arising From Criminal Conduct Within Family Relationships, 2d (KF1269 .D65 2023 & online in Westlaw) shows in Appendix D that as of January 2023, the vast majority of U.S. states have abolished causes of action for alienation of affection, criminal conversation, and/or the related torts of breach of promise to marry and seduction. The appendix indicates that all four causes of action are recognized only in Hawaii, Missouri, New Mexico, and North Carolina; notes show that other states recognize some selection of these claims, but may have placed significant legislative restrictions on their use.

For information specific to North Carolina, a number of treatises and other secondary sources provide detailed information. Chapter 11 of the North Carolina Law of Torts (NC Alcove KFN7595 .D39 2012 & online in Lexis) details Injury to Marital Relation, detailing elements of these claims and citing case law. The North Carolina Prima Facie Tort Manual (NC Alcove KFN7595 .N66 2017 & online in Lexis) similarly includes chapters for alienation of affections (chapter 3) and criminal conversation (chapter 10). North Carolina Family Law Practice (NC Alcove KFN7494 .K44 2008 & online in Westlaw) covers both torts in chapter 5's sections on Rights of Spouses Against Third Parties.

For additional resources on North Carolina state law, check out the Law Library's research guide to North Carolina Practice. For help locating items in the guide or other resources on domestic tort claims, be sure to Ask a Librarian.

Wednesday, June 7, 2023

Bar Exam Boosts

Getting ready for the July bar exam? You're not alone: next month, thousands of aspiring attorneys will sit for a bar examination, just like more than 45,000 applicants did in July 2022. (The National Conference of Bar Examiners publishes annual statistics on bar exam administration in its Bar Examiner magazine and website.)

The majority of jurisdictions now administer the Uniform Bar Examination (UBE), a two-day exam that allows test-takers to more easily transfer their score from one UBE jurisdiction in order to seek admission to another. UBE components include the Multistate Essay Examination (MEE), a set of brief essays; the Multistate Performance Test (MPT), an analytical writing simulation; and the Multistate Bar Examination (MBE), a 200-question multiple-choice portion. UBE jurisdictions may also separately require a state-specific essay component. In addition, nearly every US jurisdiction (excepting Wisconsin and Puerto Rico) requires bar-takers to pass the separate Multistate Professional Responsibility Examination (MPRE), a multiple-choice legal ethics exam that is administered by NCBE three times a year.

The NCBE's website includes a limited set of free study aids for each test component, under the link labeled "Preparing." These resources include recent essay questions for the MEE along with sample answers; model questions for the MBE multiple-choice portion, and past MPT packets with point sheets. (NCBE also sells additional study aids on its eLearning platform.) Many test-takers use a commercial study program such as BARBRI or Themis, which provide their own prep materials. However, additional bar exam study aids are available to the Duke Law and Duke University community in print and online formats.

The West Academic Library Study Aids database includes a section of "Bar Exam Success" titles. These include titles in the Nutshell and Short & Happy Guide series on bar exam preparation, as well as an audio "Office Hours" session of advice on bar study from Professor and Assistant Dean Sara Berman of Touro Law. Some titles are specific to individual components of the exam, such as the Short & Happy Guide to Conquering the MBE, The Weekend MPRE, or a Short & Happy Guide to the Bar Exam’s Multistate Essay Examination (MEE). Others are more general overviews, such as Bar Exam Success: A Comprehensive Guide, which is also available in the library’s print collection at KF303 .B452 2019.

Additional books in our print collection include Strategies & Tactics for the MBE: Multistate Bar Exam and Strategies & Tactics for the MPRE: Multistate Professional Responsibility Exam. To locate these or other print and electronic titles in our collection, try a subject search of the Duke Libraries catalog for “Bar examinations – United States”.

Note that incoming law students will be preparing for a different bar exam altogether: the NCBE's NextGen Bar Exam is set to debut in July 2026 after years of planning. Updates on the development of the new bar exam, including subjects and skills to be tested and various reports, can be found at the NextGen Bar Exam site.

For help locating materials listed in this guide or other information about bar examinations, be sure to Ask a Librarian.

Tuesday, May 16, 2023

This Citation Does Not Exist

In 2019, engineer Phillip Wang launched a website called "This Person Does Not Exist," which harnessed the StyleGAN AI system to generate realistic-looking photographs of nonexistent people. Although Wang's original website is now defunct, scores of similar sites do exist, including a variation of This Person Does Not Exist and a variety of generators designed for such diverse uses as helping programmers look busy at work, creating a geography guessing game out of Google Street View, and introducing made-up dictionary definitions into the lexicon.

Just a few years later, large language model (LLM) chatbots are the hottest trend in generative AI technology, with OpenAI's ChatGPT, Microsoft's Bing Chat (powered by ChatGPT), and Google's Bard the best-known of their kind. It's easy to see their appeal – type a quick prompt and almost instantly generate a wall of convincing-sounding text, complete with citations.

Sound too good to be true? Alas, it certainly can be. Since the public unveiling of ChatGPT and similar systems, many users have noticed that some of the supporting citations…well, just don't exist. In most cases, these will appear to be a perfectly plausible book, article, and even court opinion or statute citation, until a researcher attempts to actually retrieve the cited material. These dead-ends are called "hallucinations" by programmers (or "hallu-citations," as coined by USC professor Kate Crawford) and have become a growing problem for researchers as these systems explode in popularity.

The New York Times reported earlier this month on the perils of "When A.I. Chatbots Hallucinate." Commentators have highlighted damaging falsehoods from hallucinated biographies, including for a law professor falsely implicated for sexual harassment and an Australian mayor implicated in the bribery scandal for which he had actually been the whistleblower.

Google's Bard, which just removed its waitlist last week, contains a clear warning of the potential for inaccurate information and encourages its users to double-check results: Bard will not always get it right: Bard may give inaccurate or inappropriate responses. When in doubt, use the "Google it" button to check Bard's responses. (Bard results will also include links to sources from which the response is drawn, at least in the case of a direct quotation.) OpenAI similarly acknowledges the concerns about inaccuracies: ChatGPT sometimes writes plausible-sounding but incorrect or nonsensical answers. Fixing this issue is challenging...

These tools will continue to improve over time, and the potential applications for quick search, summary, and drafting assistance are truly exciting. For legal research, Lexis has recently announced the planned launch of Lexis+ AI, which will roll out to law school faculty later this summer. Other tools to watch in this space include Casetext’s CoCounsel, powered by GPT-4 and unveiled in March. As these tools continue to develop, though, researchers need to remain aware of the potential inaccuracies that may appear in results, especially in these early days.

Of course, researchers have always had to be on the lookout for erroneous citations (whether due to sloppy notetaking by authors, poor cite-checking by editors, or transcription errors by typists and publishers). But now, it's more important than ever to double-check cited sources for accuracy, in order to prevent spreading any nonexistent citations.

So where can a researcher confirm the existence of a cited source? There is no one-size-fits-all answer, but a few bookmarks to keep handy for verification purposes include:

  • The existence of a particular book title can usually be verified via a search of WorldCat.org and/or Google Books. To obtain a copy for substantiation purposes, consult the Duke Libraries Catalog.
  • Journal article citations can likely be verified quickly via the library's Articles search, E-Journals title search, and/or Google Scholar. (Tip: When using Google Scholar, visit Settings > Library Links to ensure "Duke University Libraries – Get it at Duke" is enabled to allow you to log in to many paywalled full-text resources with your NetID.)
  • Court opinions from US jurisdictions can usually be retrieved in your preferred legal research service (e.g., Westlaw, Lexis, Fastcase). Two free resources to try accessing the full text of case law include Google Scholar and the Harvard Caselaw Access Project. Note that some time periods and jurisdictions may not be available, depending on which source you choose.
  • For statutes, try to retrieve by citation in your preferred legal research service. Many jurisdictions provide free access to current codes and historical session laws on their websites, linked at Cornell's Legal Information Institute. If searching by citation fails, search selected keywords from the quoted text.
  • To locate content from cited websites that now appear to be defunct, try entering the URL into the Internet Archive Wayback Machine.

For help with locating other specific types of materials that you discover in your research, be sure to Ask a Librarian.

Thursday, March 30, 2023

Summer Access to Research Resources

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.

Continuing Students
  • Westlaw allows continuing students to use Thomson Reuters products, including Westlaw® and Practical Law, over the summer for non-commercial research (i.e., "to gain understanding and build confidence in your research skills, but you cannot use them in situations where you are billing a client"). Examples of permissible uses for your academic Westlaw password include summer coursework, Research Assistant assignments, research for journal/law review or moot court, non-profit/clinic work, or an externship sponsored by the school. Your Westlaw summer access will continue automatically - no action is needed on your part.
  • Lexis: All returning students have automatic, unlimited access to their Lexis law school IDs for the entire summer. Law School Lexis IDs may be used for non-commercial purposes, as well as commercial purposes if your employer permits such use.
  • Bloomberg Law: Your Bloomberg Law access continues over the summer automatically. IDs may be used for non-commercial purposes, as well as commercial purposes if your employer permits such use.
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 (through November 30, 2023). This "Grad Elite" access allows 60 hours of usage per month to gain understanding of legal topics, build your research skills, and prepare for your bar exam.
    In order to activate Grad Elite access, follow the instructions on the email received directly from West, or register online by logging into https://lawschool.tr.com and clicking on your name to access Grad Elite. Please note that if you reach your 60-hour Grad Elite limit before the end of a calendar month, you will not be able to access Westlaw again until the start of the following calendar month. You may wish to use folders within Westlaw and email the contents to yourself before logging off if you are close to your 60-hour limit for a particular month.
  • Lexis: Spring 2023 graduates will have automatic access to Lexis+ via their Lexis law school IDs until December 31, 2023. Spring graduates have access to most of the same content and features available during law school, excluding public records, Law360, Practical Guidance and Lexis for Microsoft Office. Graduates working in the non-profit sector may also apply for a LexisNexis ASPIRE ID which lasts 12 months beyond graduation. Learn more about the LexisNexis Graduate programs and/or apply for an ASPIRE ID.
  • Bloomberg Law: Access to Bloomberg Law continues automatically for six months after graduation (through November 30, 2023). Graduated students may be limited in their ability to retrieve docket filings marked "Request," update dockets, or set up docket tracking. Graduates may download docket items already uploaded in the Bloomberg system (labeled "View").

Access to most other Duke University research databases will expire upon graduation, when your status in Duke's directory changes to "Alumni." Recent graduates who register with the Duke Alumni Association for a OneLink account receive remote access to selected databases (including ProQuest ABI Inform, JSTOR, RefWorks citation management, and several video databases).

For questions about using legal research services or other Law Library/University electronic resources this summer, be sure to Ask a Librarian.

Monday, March 20, 2023

A Century of the American Law Institute

2023 marks the 100th anniversary of The American Law Institute (ALI), whose mission is "to clarify, modernize, and improve the law" through its highly respected publications and projects. While the Restatements of the Law are likely the ALI's best-known publications (due to their frequent citation and endorsement by courts, which can "adopt the Restatement view" of a particular topic), the ALI has also developed important codifications like the Model Penal Code and the Uniform Commercial Code, among other publications, studies, and projects.

The Goodson Law Library is joining the celebration of the ALI Centennial with an exhibit on Level 3 of the Library. From Monday, March 20 through the end of spring semester classes, visit the main floor of the library and the Riddick Rare Books and Special Collections Room (accessible on weekdays from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm) to learn more about the history of the ALI and of Duke Law faculty contributions to their seminal publications.

The Library is also co-presenting an ALI Centennial panel discussion with the Office of the Dean on Thursday, April 6 in room 3037 at 12:30 pm. Our distinguished panel of experts includes:

  • David F. Levi (Dean Emeritus, Duke Law): ALI President
  • Andrew Gold (Professor, Brooklyn Law; Duke JD’98): co-editor of The American Law Institute: A Centennial History (forthcoming from Oxford University Press)
  • Deborah A. DeMott (Professor, Duke Law): Reporter, Restatement (Third) of Agency
  • Brandon L. Garrett (Professor, Duke Law): Associate Reporter, Principles of the Law, Policing

For additional information about the history and work of the American Law Institute, check out the timeline website for The ALI’s First Century. A pre-publication draft of Prof. DeMott's chapter in the forthcoming Centennial History volume is also available for download on SSRN. The Duke University community can view current and past drafts of ALI publications, codifications, and other projects in HeinOnline's American Law Institute library. To locate particular ALI publications, or for help accessing materials mentioned here, be sure to Ask a Librarian.

Monday, January 30, 2023

In Memoriam: Public Papers of the Presidents (1957-2022)

The end of 2022 also marked the end of a long-running government publication series, when the Administrative Committee of the Federal Register published a rule announcing the discontinuation of the Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States.

The Public Papers book series began in 1957, after the National Historical Publications Commission recommended the creation of an official government publication that brought together the various speeches, remarks, and writings for a particular presidential administration. Prior to the Public Papers, access to presidential materials was less consistent and less timely, with some materials published decades later at the direction of Congress (such as Richardson's 20-volume set A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, 1789 – 1897), and other materials privately published (such as the Public Papers and Addresses of Franklin Delano Roosevelt). The Public Papers has covered the administration of every U.S. president from Herbert Hoover to Barack Obama (minus FDR, due to the private publication of his papers before the launch of the series). Effective with the rule on December 29, 2022, the Government Publishing Office noted that the final volume of the Obama series would be the publication's last.

It is somewhat fitting to cease the Public Papers with President Obama, as his administration also oversaw a shift in the Compilation of Presidential Documents publication whose contents form the corpus of the Public Papers. Formerly printed as the Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, the Obama administration changed to an online-only Daily Compilation of Presidential Documents in 2009. In its final rule, the agency noted that the Daily Compilation access is timelier and enjoys wider reach than the printed Public Papers, which have been distributed for free to participating libraries (including Duke Law) through the Federal Depository Library Program for half a century.

What does this change mean for researchers? The current Bluebook prefers citation to Public Papers of the Presidents where available; going forward, it appears that the online Daily Compilation of Presidential Documents will become the preferred citation for most post-Obama presidential documents, and the Code of Federal Regulations will likely remain the preferred source for executive orders and presidential proclamations.

  • Historical editions of the Public Papers can be found in GovInfo, HeinOnline's U.S. Presidential Library, and in the Law Library's Documents collection Doc. AE 2.114.
  • Historical Compilations of Presidential Documents can be found on GovInfo (back to 1993) HeinOnline’s U.S. Presidential Library (back to 1965), and in the Law Library's Documents collection Doc. AE 2.109 (1965-2000).
  • Historical editions of the C.F.R. can be found in GovInfo (back to 1996); HeinOnline's Code of Federal Regulations Library (back to 1938), and in the Law Library's Documents collection Doc. AE 2.106/3. (Note that historical volumes of CFR Title 3, which contain the presidential materials, are shelved with the current CFR edition on Level 3, in the Stevens Federal Area.)

For more information about presidential materials and the administrative rulemaking process that ended the Public Papers, check out the library's research guide to Federal Administrative Law or Ask a Librarian.

Wednesday, January 18, 2023

News You Can Use

"This content is available only to subscribers." "You have used your allotment of free articles this month." "Buy a day pass or subscribe to access this content." If you usually give up after you receive pop-ups like these on a news website, you might be missing out on alternative paths to accessing the full text of the stories you want through Duke's many subscription databases. While some sources do require pre-registration or a few additional steps to reach the same article, the access to the stories you want to read is often worth the extra effort.

First, be aware of the complimentary direct access that the Duke Law and Duke University community enjoys to several major news outlets: 

  • New York Times: Current members of the Duke Law community may join the Law School group account to receive complimentary access to NYTimes.com content on the web and selected smartphone apps. Student accounts will last until December of their graduation year; faculty and staff accounts require renewals annually. Register or renew an account while connected to a networked computer in the Law School building (such as the library workstations) or remotely while connected to the Law School's VPN (be sure to select the Library Resources option at sign-in, rather than Default). Then type "Duke" under "Find School" and select "Duke University School of Law." 
  • Financial Times: Current members of the Duke Law community may join the Duke Law Library "group subscription" by registering an account at the Duke Law site for FT.com using their Duke email address. 
  • Wall Street Journal: Through a partnership between the Fuqua School of Business's Ford Library and the Goodson Law Library, individual account access to WSJ.com is available to all current Duke University students, faculty, and staff who register with a duke.edu email address. Student accounts last for 90 days past graduation. To register, visit the Ford Library info page  and follow the instructions.

Third-party databases also offer alternative full-text access to the content of many of your favorite news sites. To locate options for reading a particular newspaper or magazine, try a search of the Duke University Libraries E-Journals list or Duke University Libraries Catalog. For example, Raleigh's News & Observer and the Durham Herald-Sun both offer their current contents in the America's News database, making those locked website stories just a few extra clicks away. (Note that the options in America's News may include both HTML text versions of stories as well as images of the actual newspaper in PDF; for these examples, the E-journal search results dating from 2018-present provide the image-based access. You can view the options for a particular title in the database by clicking "See Related sources.")

Other popular sources that you can access via this E-journals search method include The New Yorker and The Chronicle of Higher Education.

For the Law School community, also keep in mind that Lexis and Westlaw offer additional access to various newspapers and websites. For example, Westlaw offers the recent stories from Business Insider, while Lexis features the full text of Inc.com. Because these databases are only available to the Law School community, results from these services do not appear on the campus-wide E-journals list search, but it can be worth searching separately to see if a desired source appears in the legal research services. (Note that an E-journals search result in Nexis Uni, the campus-wide version of Lexis, is a good indicator that it will be available in the Law School version of Lexis as well.) 

For help with accessing the full text of other news resources when you hit a paywall, be sure to Ask a Librarian!