Thursday, February 27, 2014

PACERPro: Service Offers a Better Way to Search Federal Court Records Than PACER

Please see a link to Robert Ambrogi's "Ambrogi on Tech" column from the ABA Journal:

http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/article/service_offers_a_better_way_to_search_federal_court_records_than_pacer


I've been using PACERPro recently. I like the ability to move from court to court easily.



Wednesday, February 26, 2014

Comparative Constitutions Project


I read about this web site on BeSpacific, one of my favorite librarian-written current awareness services (http://www.bespacific.com/).


http://comparativeconstitutionsproject.org/

Description copied and pasted from BeSpacific.com:



The World's Constitutions to Read, Search and Compare
“New constitutions are written every year. The people who write these important documents need to read and analyze texts from other places. Constitute offers access to the world’s constitutions that users can systematically compare them across a broad set of topics — using a modern, clean interface.]
HOW TO USE CONSTITUTE? Constitute allows you to interact with the world’s constitutions in a few different ways.
  • Quickly find relevant passages. The Comparative Constitutions Project has tagged passages of each constitution with a topic — e.g., “right to privacy” or “equality regardless of gender” — so you can quickly find relevant excerpts on a particular subject, no matter how they are worded. You can browse the 300+ topics in the expandable drawer on the left of the page, or see suggested topics while typing in the search bar (which also lets you perform free-text queries).
  • Filter searches. Want to view results for a specific region or time period? You can limit your search by country or by date using the buttons under the search bar.
  • Save for further analysis. To download or print excerpts from multiple constitutions, click the “pin” button next to each expanded passage you want to save. You can then view and download your pinned excerpts in the drawer on the right.”

Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Social Security Death Index Restrictions Now Law



http://pibuzz.com/social-security-death-index-restrictions-now-law/

Law Student Guide to Free Legal Research on the Internet

The Law Student Guide to Legal Research, a helpful flowchart, is worth a look.


http://freelaw.classcaster.net/about/

About this guide

This guide is meant to help law students navigate the confusing world of Internet legal resources.  All resources listed here can be considered reliable and accurate.

About the author

Sarah Glassmeyer, JD MLS is the Faculty Services and Outreach Librarian and Assistant Professor of Law at the Valparaiso University School of Law.  In addition to providing reference services, she also teaches in the First Year Legal Research curriculum.   Professor Glassmeyer speaks frequently on the intersection of web technologies and legal research and blogs at SarahGlassmeyer(dot)com.

About the sponsors

This guide is sponsored by the Free Law Coalition, comprised of The Legal Information Institute and Justia.com.  Get your pens and mugs from the other guys. The only thing they give away is legal information.
The Legal Information Institute is a non-profit organization housed at the Cornell Law School.  Their website hosts a collection of federal case, statutory and regulatory law as well as provides links to government sources of state laws.  Additionally, it provides Wex, a community edited legal dictionary and encyclopedia.
Justia is a company that assists law firms with Internet marketing. They also have a strong public service and pro bono mission and provide an extensive collection of federal law, as well as links to state law.  Justia also has links to useful materials such as forms and subject specific guides.
This electronic guide is graciously hosted by the Center for Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction.  CALI hosts electronic lessons that support the law school curriculum as well as course supplements on its Classcaster blogs.