Famous Trials in American Law

One of the best ways to capture the real impact of the law is through the human stories and the primary documents of the landmark cases that changed it forever. The Famous Trials web site, developed and continually maintained by Professor Douglas Linder (University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law), covers proceedings from the  Trial of Socrates through the 2006 terrorism trial of Zacarias Moussaoui. The vast majority are American trials, for which this site provides a wide range of case documents, transcripts, images, timelines, links and bibliographic sources. Famous Trials is a wonderful supplement to courses is constitutional and criminal law, and a unique resource for research papers in legal history.  Be sure to check out the "Other Famous Trials" section for bibliographies and links on trials under development for addition to the site. 
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Research Resources: Foreign Law Guide

If you are interested in international law and researching primary and secondary sources of law of a particular country, take a look at Foreign Law Guide. This comprehensive database contains codes, cases, legislation, treaties, as well as other legal documents for more than 170 jurisdictions in the world.

To access the Foreign Law Guide:

• Go to the Library's home page, click "Online Resources"
• Click the "Foreign/Comparative Law" link
• Scroll down to "Foreign Law Guide"

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Encyclopedia of Associations

Need background information on fingerprints, balloons, scents or just about anything under the sun?  There is a good chance that there is an association/organization/society on the subject.  People who join such groups for professional or personal reasons are interested and usually knowledgeable about their subjects.  They are a good source for both basic and advanced information in their areas of interest.

So how to find them?  Use the Encyclopedia of Associations to locate local, state, regional, national or international associations.  This is a subscription database available through the Law Library website under "Online Resources" - "Directories / Reference". 

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HeinOnline Canada Supreme Court Reports

HeinOnline recently added the Canada Supreme Court Reports Library to its collection.  HeinOnline’s Canada Supreme Court Reports is a primary source for Canadian high court decisions.  This collection contains more than 9,400 cases which include background information, statutes and regulations, authors cited, analysis and the decision. Cases can be searched by citation or browse by year and case name.  Click here to learn more about this new collection or click here to search it.

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Dickens and the Law

A belated birthday celebration for Charles Dickens, who included lawyers and the legal process extensively in his novels.  Some  web sites to explore:

Dickens Concordance - Looking for a phrase or a quote?  Use this Concordance to search in particular novels.

Dickens page - detailed information about Dickens and search for phrases across all of Dickens' works.

Dickens v. Lawyers - an entertaining and informative NY Times op-ed about Charles Dickens' experience and writing on the law.

Download Dickens' works - from Project Gutenberg

And, of course, there are lots of free apps out there for phone and tablets.



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Public Papers of the U.S. Presidents on FDsys

From the FDsys site:

“The Public Papers of the Presidents, which is [sic] compiled and published by the Office of the Federal Register, National Archives and Records Administration, began in 1957 in response to a recommendation of the National Historical Publications Commission. Noting the lack of uniform compilations of messages and papers of the Presidents before this time, the Commission recommended the establishment of an official series in which Presidential writings, addresses, and remarks of a public nature could be made available.”

At present, the papers of Presidents Clinton, Bush père et fils, and Obama are freely available here.

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CALI's "Topics in Digital Law Practice" Begins Friday

Looking forward to job interviews or your first job or internship in a "real practice" setting? Here's a great opportunity to learn--online, for free, and with no stress--about "the changes that are occurring in the practice of law today, especially with respect to technology."  CALI (Center for Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction), the same folks who provide all those lessons and electronic texts, is offering a free online course, "Topics in Digital Law Practice," to be given as nine one-hour sessions on Friday afternoons beginning February 10.  It's fine if you have to miss one or two of the live webcasts, but you must register here to participate.  Check out this great opportunity to find out what's happening with digital technology in today's law offices and courtrooms before you set out into the brave new world.

A hat tip to Law Librarian Blog.   

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ABA House of Delegates Vote in Favor of Supporting the Uniform Electronic Legal Material Act

The ABA House of Delegates has approved a resolution supporting the Uniform Electronic Legal Material Act (UELMA) governing the authentication and preservation of laws, court decisions and other legal materials published online.  Click here to read more about Resolution 102B.


UELMA establishes a framework for providing online legal material with the same level of trustworthiness traditionally provided by publication in a law book.

The Act requires that official electronic legal material be: 

• Authenticated, by providing a method to determine that it is unaltered;
• Preserved, either in electronic or print form; and
• Accessible, for use by the public on a permanent basis.

Click here to read more about the UELMA.

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HeinOnline: U.S. Presidential Library

The HeinOnline U.S. Presidential Library includes such titles as Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Public Papers of the Presidents, CFR Title 3 (Presidents), Daily and Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, and other documents related to U.S. Presidents.

The collection of the above primary sources alone makes this a good source for presidential documents;  however, it is the additional presidential documents, speeches, selected hearings & reports, links to outside sources and more that make this a very good starting point for research on U.S. Presidents.

The link to HeinOnline is on the front page of the Law Library's website.

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NYSBA Mobile Ethics App

The NYSBA recently launched a free Mobile Ethics app.  This new app features the full database of NYSBA’s 900 ethics opinions from 1964 to today. Users can search for opinions by keyword, by category or by opinion number.  Results provide users with a brief digest of the opinion to check for relevancy before clicking the full opinion.  The NYSBA Mobile Ethics App is available for iPhones through the App Store, for Android devices through the Android Marketplace and for Blackberry through the Blackberry App Market.  Click here for more information on the app.

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