The Goodson Blogson

The Goodson Law Library has recently subscribed to Jus Mundi , a research platform containing the full text of treaties, case law, rules, and publications related to international law and arbitration. This database is available to current Duke University students, faculty and staff with NetID and password, and links are available through the Duke Libraries Catalog and Legal Databases & Links page. Jus Mundi includes thousands of documents on the topics of investment arbitration, commercial arbitration, public international law, law of the sea, and international trade. Decisions from more than 100 commissions and organizations are included. Duke's subscription also includes access to the ICC Dispute Resolution Library and Juris Arbitration Library. Additional international arbitration databases include Kluwer Arbitration and the Oxford Legal Research Library 's International Commercial Arbitration module. For more information about researching international arbitrat...

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. 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/...

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.) 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...

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 shut...