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.



Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

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.

Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

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.   

Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

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.

Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

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.

Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

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.

Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat