Moritz Legal Information Blog

Some new Congressional Research Service ("CRS") Reports have been made available. The Reports cover a wide-range of topics, including: Border Security and Military Support: Legal Authorizations and Restrictions Retirement Savings and Household Wealth: Trends from 2001 to 2004 Data on Enrollment, Premiums, and Cost-Sharing in HSA-Qualified Health Plans U.S. Immigration Policy on Permanent Admissions Immigration Legislation and Issues in the 109th Congress For a more complete list of recent CRS Reports, check out Open CRS .

U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts recently gave the commencement address at the Georgetown University Law Center. The Chief Justice discussed the importance of deciding Supreme Court cases on narrow grounds and seeking greater consensus among the Justices. The commencement address can be heard or viewed at the Georgetown Law Center Web site or at Princeton's University Channel . From BarclayBlog .

Now that the verdicts have been announced in the Lay and Skilling Enron trials, legal researchers may want to review the legal proceedings leading up to the verdict. The Houston Chronicle has collected a wealth of information on the various legal proceedings, including videos, newspaper stories, profiles of the key players, and commentary by lawyers and other legal experts. Findlaw has posted several documents, including indictments and plea agreements.

Some new Congressional Research Service ("CRS") Reports have been made available. The Reports cover a wide-range of topics, including: Russia Social Unrest in China Nuclear Command and Control: Current Programs and Issues For a more complete list of recent CRS Reports, check out Open CRS .

InSite brings the American Prosecutors Research Institute website to our attention. It looks like a nice resource. From InSite : The American Prosecutors Research Institute (APRI) is a non-profit national clearinghouse for information on the prosecutorial function, as well as a research and program-development resource for prosecutors at all levels of government. The major program areas of the APRI include, among other topics, "Child Abuse and Exploitation," "Community Prosecution," "Drug Prosecution and Prevention," "Violence Against Women," "Gun Violence Prosecution," and "White Collar Crime." Each area contains information for visitors including an overview of the topic, news, CLE information, related publications, and links to other sites for further information. Legal researchers will appreciate the Institute's "Publications" section, organized by topic, which is a good source of in-depth and free documen

The annual Ohio Courts Summary has recently been released by the Ohio Supreme Court. According to the Court's press release : Ohio's courts saw 3.1 million new cases filed in 2005, representing a 2 percent increase over the number of cases filed statewide in 2004, according to the 2005 Ohio Courts Summary recently issued by the Supreme Court of Ohio. The Ohio Courts Summary is released each spring and provides a retrospective overview of the activity in Ohio 's courts – from municipal and county courts to the Supreme Court of Ohio – including statistics about caseloads, case terminations and clearance rates. The entire Ohio Courts Summary can be viewed here .

Some new Congressional Research Service ("CRS") Reports have been made available. The Reports cover a wide-range of topics, including: Government Access to Phone Calling Activity and Related Records: Legal Authorities Unemployment Compensation (Insurance) and Military Service Health Savings Accounts: Some Current Policy Issues From Open CRS and beSpacific .

HTML 2 PDF will generate a PDF document from any html Webpage. Users simply type in the URL for the Webpage the would like to reformat and click a button. Bonnie at WisBlawg sees this being used to (1) digitally archive Web pages; (2) capture Web pages for off-line presentations; and ( 3) get a clean print for Web pages that don't print correctly from your browser. From LibrarianInBlack and WisBlawg .

The Law Library of Congress has just made it easier to keep up with world wide legal developments. The first issue of Global Legal Monitor (PDF) is now available. This interactive PDF is arranged by legal topics such as Employment Law, Human Rights and Terrorism. Beneath each topic, a summary of developments is arranged by country.

The following sources are now available to Law Schools that subscribe to Lexis: Asian Wall Street Journal Barron's- Dow Jones Business News Dow Jones Capital Markets Report Dow Jones Corporate Filings Alert Dow Jones Emerging Markets Report Dow Jones International News Dow Jones News Service Reuters EU Highlights Reuters News Reuters Health E-Line Reuters Washington Daybook Report The Wall Street Journal Europe The Wall Street Journal Sunday The Wall Street Journal Source: WisBlawg

HeinOnline just got better - it has two new libraries, The U.S. Presidential Library and the Philip C. Jessup Library, and four new journals. The presidential library has public papers and addresses for many presidents, an index to executive orders, and some documents related to the assassination of President Kennedy. Access to the Jessup Library is currently limited to libraries that purchase the print collection. Four new journals have been added: Annual Review of Banking & Financial Law Brown Journal of World Affairs Colorado Journal of International Environmental Law and Policy Tribal Law Journal

The American Gaming Association (AGA) has recently released its 2006 State of the States: The AGA Survey of Casino Entertainment . The survey includes information about Internet gambling, economic figures and specific information about specific kinds of gambling, such as poker. You can read the AGA's press release or download a PDF copy of the report . From ResourceShelf's DocuTicker .

Firstgov.gov has provided a nice list of federal government phone and e-mail directories. The directories listed include: Elected Officials – Governors, President, Representatives, Senators, State Legislatures U.S. Blue Pages Comprehensive Phone Directory of Federal Officials in Congress, Executive and Judicial Branches Federal Employee Phone Directories, by Agency Congressional Pictorial Directory Presidential Appointee Directory From DALL Blog .

The U.S. Sentencing Commission has submitted to Congress its proposed amendments to the federal sentencing guidelines. The proposal also includes policy statements and official commentary. The Commission's proposed amendments can be downloaded here . From beSpacific .

The online decisions of the Ohio Supreme Court can now be searched using a Google interface. From Ohio Law : The Supreme Court of Ohio now offers a way to search its opinion archive (1992 - present) that promises to be a big improvement over the current system that is used on the Reporter of Decisions page . To access, scroll down to the bottom of the Court's home page and click on "Search." Use the drop-down menu to choose "opinions." An advanced search is also available. Here is a direct link to the search page .

Legally Related reports posted in the last week: Creative Commons Podcasting Legal Guide American Lawyer The Am Law 100 Bureau of Justice Statistics Justice Expenditure and Employment in the United States, 2003 U.S. Courts 2005 Wiretap Report Violence Policy Center's American Roulette: Murder-Suicide in the United States (PDF) Harvard Business School Working Papers Winning Legally: The Value of Legal Astuteness (PDF) Harvard Business School Working Papers Deep Links: Business School Students' Perceptions of the Role of Law and Ethics in Business (PDF) Canadian Human Rights Commission Canadian Human Rights Commission: 2005 Annual Report The Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation Law and Public Policy, Department of Economics, University of Massachusetts-Amherst The Impact on New Mexico’s Budget of Allowing Same-Sex Couples to Marry (PDF) Congressional Research Service Tax-Exempt Organizations: Political Activity Restrictions and Disclosure Requirements (PDF) American C

Some new Congressional Research Service ("CRS") Reports have been made available. The Reports cover a wide-range of topics, including: Federal Habeas Corpus: A Brief Legal Overview Lebanon Iraq's Debt Relief: Procedure and Potential Implications for International Debt Relief Topics in Aging: Income of Americans Age 65 and Older, 1969 to 2004 Russia's Accession to the WTO Free Trade Agreements: Impact on U.S. Trade and Implications for U.S. Trade Policy For a more complete list of recent CRS Reports, check out Open CRS .

Internet Legal Research Weekly describes the Oyez - U.S. Supreme Court Multimedia website : Developed by some folks at Northwestern University and others, Oyez, is a multimedia guide to the U.S. Supreme Court. It contains over 2000 hours of Supreme Court audio, from cases dating back to 1995. Here you'll find info on the cases being argued before the Supremes, as well as links to other authoritative Supreme Court sites. Oyez makes good use of other Supreme Court resources, like the Supreme Court Podcast, memos from Mayer, Brown & Platt, and Justia's Supreme Court Center.

The nonprofit Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has released its 10 Most Censored Countries list. The list includes Burma, Turkmenistan, Equatorial Guinea, Libya, Eritrea, Cuba, Uzbekistan, Syria, and Belarus. The top name on the list was North Korea: North Koreans live in the most censored country in the world, a new analysis by the Committee to Protect Journalists has found. The world’s deepest information void, communist North Korea has no independent journalists, and all radio and television receivers sold in the country are locked to government-specified frequencies. From ResourceShelf's DocuTicker .

Some potentially big news in the library world. From the OCLC Press Release : Two of the world's largest membership-based information organizations have agreed to come together. The combined organization will offer an integrated product and service line, and will give libraries, archives and museums new leverage in developing services, standards and software that will help them support research and disseminate knowledge online. The RLG Board of Directors and OCLC Board of Trustees have recommended that the two service and research organizations be combined effective July 1, 2006. If approved by RLG member institutions, RLG’s online products and services will be integrated with OCLC products and services, and RLG's program initiatives will be brought forward as a new division of OCLC Programs and Research. Lean more about OCLC and RLG at their websites.

The White House has issued a detailed strategy (PDF) for dealing with a possible pandemic. Appendix C should interest legal researchers because it details the legal authority of the federal government to take the actions outlined in the plan. The plan is also available in PDF from FindLaw .

To celebrate its tenth anniversary online, The Wall Street Journal is making its entire website available to users with no charge. Special anniversary coverage includes a look back at previous versions of the website, year-by-year coverage of the most read articles, and more. Source: beSpacific

Every year American Lawyer Media publishes a detailed financial survey of the largest 100 law firms in the country. This year, the survey is published in the May issue of American Lawyer. Read highlights from the survey on the ALM Research blog . The survey, including data in spreadsheet format, may be purchased online .

Recent reports on legal topics: U.S. State Department's annual Country Reports on Terrorism Vertex Inc.'s Sales Tax Report (PDF) focuses on changes to North American sales taxes in 2005 Amnesty International's Stonewalled – still demanding respect: Police abuses against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in the USA National Online Resource Center on Violence Against Women's Marital Rape: New Research and Directions (PDF) AEI-Brookings Joint Center's The Law and Economics of Software Security Phoenix Center's Network Neutrality and Industry Structure (PDF) Center for Responsible Lending's Overdraft Loans: Survey Finds Growing Problem for Consumers (PDF) Source: ResourceShelf's DocuTicker

The U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics has created an Occupational Employment and Wage Estimates webpage that contains occupational employment statistics for the years 1999-2004. Internet Legal Research Weekly describes the site : Here's another gem from the Department of Labor site. And it's very simple in what it offers: it's just employment and wage estimates for 1999-2004, broken down by occupational group. It's a good place to find the mean andmedian hourly wage estimates for nearly every job imaginable, both on the state and federal levels.