Moritz Legal Information Blog

From the Cornell Law Library : Cornell Law Library is pleased to announce its new Legal Research Engine available at http://library.lawschool.cornell.edu/guides/researchengine.asp This specialized search engine helps users easily find authoritative online legal research guides on every subject. It searches approximately 20 different web sites that either prolifically publish guides, or index and link to guides. The number of web sites searched was deliberately kept small to keep search results manageable and focused. You can also add it to your Google home page.

From the Cleveland Law Library Weblog : On Jan. 25, 2007, the Ohio Department of Health filed its proposed smoking ban regulations with the Secretary of State and the Legislative Service Commission, beginning the formal process for adopting regulations. There will be a 65 day public comment period on the rules. A public hearing will be held on Feb. 27 in Columbus, Ohio, where individuals can testify and provide comments about the regulations. More information on the hearing, including preregistration information is available in the following ODH press release: ODH Begins Formal Rule-Making Process for Indoor Smoking Ban , Jan. 25, 2007. The proposed regulations can be accessed at the Department of Health's Website , or through the Register of Ohio, Rules for Deparment of Health . To access via the register, keep hitting "next" at the bottom of the screen, until you get to Rule No. 3701-52-01 thru -09, filed 1-25-07. The Department of Health hopes to begin enf

California Assemblyman Lloyd Levin (D-Van Nuys) announced on Tuesday (1/30) that he is introducing legislation to ban incandescent light bulbs in California. Although he is not in favor of the proposed ban , law professor Glen Reynolds has been very interested in compact fluorescent bulbs lately (the good and the bad ). Tip from beSpacific .

A series on the history of the U.S. Supreme Court begins tonight (1/31) on PBS. PBS describes the four-part series as "an unprecedented series exploring the history, impact and drama of America's highest court." From beSpacific . Update (2/1) : It looks like the reviews for the series are generally positive ; however, not everybody is a fan . I didn't watch the episode last night, but I plan to take a look at it over the weekend (I recorded it).

The IT firm Justice Served (JS) has released its Top 10 Court Websites list . The criteria used by JS in the rankings include court functionality, web functionality and extras. The list includes the following: Supreme Court of Singapore Superior Court of California, Los Angeles County Federal Court of Australia Nebraska Workers' Compensation Court Iowa Judicial Branch U.S. District Court, District of Nevada Connecticut Judicial Branch Law Libraries Superior Court of California, County of Napa District of Columbia Courts Brevard County Clerk of the Court, Florida It is possible to quibble with the evaluation methodology of any ranking of this nature, but the list provides good examples of the kind of online access that courts need to be providing to parties, attorneys and the general public. A website that I use a great deal, the Ohio Supreme Court website , is very good and continues to improve. All courts should be moving in this direction. From Robert J. Ambrogi at Law.com Bl

Last night's (1/23) State of the Union address is available on this page from GPO Access. The page also contains all State of the Union addresses going back to 1992.

The National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) has issued its annual Top 10 Policy Issue Forecast for 2007 . According to NCSL, the top issues facing state legislatures in 2007 will be: Immigration Homeland security and standardized ID cards Budget pressures Health insurance Sexual offenders and predators Energy and environment Minimum wage Higher education reform Privacy Obesity The NSCL identifies several others issues such as same-sex marriage and stem-cell research as "simmering and emerging issues." From Library Boy .