Black's Law Dictionary: New 10th Edition

On May 9, Thomson Reuters released the new 10th edition of Black's Law Dictionary.  This is the fourth edition produced by editor-in-chief Bryan Garner, a legal lexicographer and Distinguished Research Professor of Law at Southern Methodist University Dedman School of Law.  The new edition has over 7,500 new terms, including "affluenza defense" and "intrapreneur," many new terms from technology, and more than twice as many sources and illustrative quotations for terms than the previous edition.  It continues to include the U.S. Constitution, the Federal Circuit map, and other key reference sources for law students and attorneys.

Print copies can be purchased from the publisher, and will soon be available in libraries. It will take a little longer for digital versions to arrive. An app for the 10th edition and availability on WestlawNext are planned for early 2015.  To learn more about the evolution of the famous dictionary and the claim that the first edition, published in 1891, was initially written as a joke by attorney Henry Campbell Black, check out this recent post on Thomson Reuters' Legal Solutions Blog.

Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

ATL -- The Nine Lives of Blawg Posts and Legal Articles

Today Above The Law has a great post with tips for how attorneys can get the most out of any legal writing that they do. Basically this involves using different social media to share articles and republishing the same article in multiple formats.

This advice could be useful for both clerks and new associates at law firms, and solo and small firm practitioners who are trying to build a practice. As ATL notes, the work of writing legal articles often falls to clerks and new associates (even though firm partners often share or take the by-lines), so getting more readers for an article can give clerks and new associates more professional exposure. And solo and small firm practitioners can make themselves appear big and important (and thus attract more clients) by writing articles that seem to have been written by seasoned experts.


Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Blawg Reviews

Many law reviews are now offering their articles for free on their websites. This move to 'open access' publishing is changing the look of legal scholarship. Some law reviews are becoming more interactive--with responses to articles now sometimes coming in comments pages and short online responses, rather than only in lengthy printed articles. A New York Law Journal article reviews this phenomenon, saying that this more interactive format is making some law review websites look similar to law blogs.

A few places to get started looking for open access law review articles are:

www.lawreview.org -- You can search open access law review articles here
www.doaj.org -- the Directory of Open Access Journals
and
Library of Congress list of law reviews online



Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Opinions in Westlaw and Lexis

According to this Law.com article, a settlement provision in an Amtrak case called for the judge to "vacate eight of his published opinions and to "direct" Lexis and Westlaw to remove them from their databases." Can a judge really "direct" Lexis and Westlaw to remove published opinions from their databases? Take a look at the article to find out more.
More commentary can be found here at the Volokh Conspiracy.



Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Lawsuit Over 'Sham' Supplement

Law Students, you know those supplements you purchase for $15 or $20 to go along with your $100 casebooks? Apparently casebook authors do, in fact, take these supplements seriously. The authors of a casebook are seeking an injunction against West for publishing a supplement that its purported authors are calling a "sham." West allegedly did not include key reversals by the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania its most recent supplement to a casebook on Pennsylvania criminal procedure, angering the law professors who wrote the casebook.



Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat