Wednesday, July 20, 2005

Graphical KeyCite

One of Westlaw's latest innovations, Graphical KeyCite literally illustrates the direct history of a case. This feature helps researchers understand the history and impact of a court case faster than before. To read more about Graphical KeyCite, see this news release from West. You can also view a short interactive tutorial.

Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Sunday, July 17, 2005

How Appealing

Howard Bashman, an appellate lawyer with Philadelphia's Buchanan Ingersoll, presides over How Appealing an EXTREMELY authoritative blog devoted to appellate litigation. Tony Mauro, a writer for American Lawyer Media states in a law.com article that How Appealing is "the primus inter pares of all legal blogs, the undeniable Marbury v. Madison of the genre".

A well told example of the reach of this blog is mentioned in Mauro's article "When Bashman noticed that a ruling last month by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals incorrectly cited the 3rd Circuit in a footnote, he noted it in his blog. Within hours, the mistake was corrected -- and Bashman got an e-mail from the judge, Jerry Smith. "You were the first to spot the error in footnote 17. Thanks. I have fixed it," Smith wrote Bashman".

This blog is high on the Ernster's list. It is very timely, quite authoritative, and often times hard to find supplementary material will be posted here first. Feeds are available via RSS, for a quick and easy way to stay current to the minute with all things appellate.

Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat