Olympic Justice

While millions of spectators enjoy the 2008 Olympic Games, lawyers are ready in the host city to handle the sports-related disputes that always arise. This is the domain of the Tribunal for the Olympic Games in Beijing, which will operate as an ad hoc division of the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) through August 24. Disputes involving doping, eligibility and other matters brought by athletes and sports organizations are heard by 3-member panels selected from the twelve arbitrators on the Tribunal--all lawyers, judges and professors with expertise in arbitration and sports law. The panels work fast to provide a hearing and an impartial result, usually within 24 hours. David Rivkin, a litigation partner in the firm of Debevoise & Plimpton LLP, is the Tribunal member from the United States. Check out the CAS web site for news and press releases about the disputes, and for answers to "20 Questions about the CAS."



Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Library Hours next week

It has come time for me to step up my prowling duties. With the new students arriving on Tuesday, I will be prowling (and the Library will be open) longer hours for orientation, as listed below. As always, you can check the Library's web site for our hours and for other Library related information.

Monday, August 11 - Thursday August 14
8:00 A.M. - 10:00 P.M.

Friday, August 15
8:00 A.M. - 7:00 P.M.

Sunday, August 17
REGULAR HOURS RESUME



Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Culture

One of my favorite free online newsletters is Culture. As a forum for "exploring the complex of meanings that informs and shapes our social world", Culture offers great articles about contemporary culture. Past subjects include: the history of the work cubicle (Fall 2007); the disappearance of shop class (Spring 2007); and individualism in social networking sites (Spring 2008). Culture is published by the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture and is published in PDF format.



Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

American Lawbreaking

American Lawbreaking by Timothy Wu is a series of articles published on slate.com in 2007. Wu explores what he calls "the black spots in American law: areas in which our laws are routinely and regularly broken and where the law enforcement response is... nothing." The articles are an interesting examination of how law and society interact.



Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Declaration Signed Today in 1776

Yes, that's right. Not many people celebrate August 2 as the anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, but it is. The Continental Congress approved the Declaration on July 4, 1776, by unanimous voice vote, and also voted to have it printed. But only John Hancock, president of the Congress, signed it that day in order to authenticate it for printing and publication. It was not until August 2 that most of the members could gather to examine and sign the Declaration, and some who could not be present signed it even later. Only by August 2 had the Declaration been engrossed (prepared as an official document in a large, clear hand) on parchment, with its title changed from "A Declaration by the Representatives of the United States of America in General Congress assembled" to "The Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America." The National Archives has more on the evolution of the nation's first document.


Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Summer & Law & Movies

So what do summer, law and movies have in common? It is August, classes are finished and the bar exam is done, so what better time then to catch up on some good flicks. For the legal aspect, check out the latest issue of ABA Journal online for The 25 Greatest Legal Movies. For this issue, the ABA Journal asked 12 prominent lawyers who teach film or are connected to the business to choose what they regard as the best movies ever made about lawyers and the law.

Add a comment to this post on your favorite legal movie. We might even add it to our growing Law in the Movies collection.



Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Portmanteau Words

A linguistic oddity that pervades the English language far more than many realize is the portmanteau word. Portmanteau words are “blend” words that are derived by combining sections of two or more separate words. Some famous examples include the “nonsense” words in Lewis Carroll’s poem “Jabberwocky”, such as “slithy” (compounded of slimy and lithe).

A list of more common portmanteau words that you may never have realized are such appears at this portmanteau words site.

Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Constitutional Sources Project

The Constitutional Sources Project is a collection of letters, speeches and journals of our nation's founders. The goal is to create and maintain the first, free, fully- indexed, comprehensive online library of constitutional sources. The collections include:

Constitutional Precedents
The United States Constitution
James Madison's Notes of the Constitutional Convention
The Federalist Papers
Anti-Federalist and Pro-Federalist Papers
State Ratification Debates
Bill of Rights Legislative History
State Constitution and Charters
The Papers of George Washington
Documents by Author

Truly a treasure trove and the project is still adding documents.



Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

The Onion on Convoluted Legal Wranglings

There was a funny article in The Onion last week about Mets third baseman David Wright appealing a check swing call to the Supreme Court. It is funny because umpires and judges have some things in common (as PrawfsBlawg points out, Chief Justice Roberts has analogized his Court to a crew of umpires), because spending years waiting for a ball-strike call exemplifies how out of sync the timing of our courts can be with real life, because a check swing involves the sort of subjective test courts like to examine at length, and because it quotes John Kruk explaining originalist interpretation.

However, although the article says that the fake case had a "convoluted" procedural history, it involved no remands, interlocutory appeals, etc. In fact, it somehow managed to skip multiple levels of the state and federal courts--just look at the chart below. (Of course, National League umpires working at Shea are not actually a court of first instance in the New York State Unified Court System.)


[Courts written in gray were skipped.]








Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

HealthMap

The students around me are absorbed in studying for the bar exam, so it's a good time to prowl the Web for cool sites making news. If you haven't seen HealthMap yet, take a look when you have a chance. HealthMap tracks the latest infectious disease outbreaks throughout the world by gathering and filtering masses of information from news and other web sites, including health organization and government sources. Using Google Maps, it creates a real-time graphical presentation that helps predict and monitor infectious diseases, from the flu to salmonella and plague, sometimes before official agencies have announced a problem. Displaying information by disease, by geographic region, and by level of urgency, with news feeds and alerts, HealthMap is fascinating to explore. For more about HealthMap, I recommend an article in Discovery Channel's Discovery News (Eric Bland, "Web-Crawling Program ID's Disease Outbreaks," July 18, 2008).



Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat