Moritz Legal Information Blog

When Shon Hopwood was 23, he was sentenced to approximately 13 years in prison for robbery. He spent his sentence learning about the legal system, and a few years following his release, he started law school. Mr. Hopwood is about to begin a prestigious clerkship with a federal judge. The New York Times has Mr. Hopwood's story as well as a link to a dialogue between him and the judge who sentenced him back in 1999. In the law library, we have the book Mr. Hopwood wrote about his experience.

Ohio has a bicycle lawyer , but perhaps more are necessary. Bicycling is on the rise in Columbus, and the police are declaring citations (i.e., traffic tickets) are on the rise . You know, for safety's sake. But tickets alone don't seem to resolve safety issues.  Last year at this time , the Ohio State campus dealt with several catastrophic bicycle accidents, and a few weeks ago , yet another cyclist was killed as the result of a collision. If you're looking for a niche area to practice, consider opening up your own bike-law shop. Here are a few resources to get you started: Bicycling & the Law: Your Rights as a Cyclist Ohio's Rules of the Road for Cyclists Digest of Ohio Bicycle Traffic Laws What Every Lawyer Should Know About Bicycle Traffic Law   

Service of process via Facebook is not valid, according to a court in Australia. Flo Rida can avoid suit on a contract dispute unless the unhappy concert promoter can track him down and serve him with notice in some other way. But does service via Facebook work in the U.S.? Check out one of our hundreds of books on civil procedure in the library to find out.

Welcome back to Moritz! Here are a few friendly law library reminders to get you started: You have 24-hour access to the law library with your BuckID. Westlaw no longer offers free printing. Lexis still offers free printing. Bloomberg never offered free printing. Printing in the law library is a couple of cents cheaper than printing elsewhere on campus. The Reference Desk is staffed 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Friday and 1 p.m.-5 p.m. on Sundays. Covered beverages are allowed in the law library. We have study aids galore. Choose print or audio versions to get a handle on the trickiest subjects. You can reserve study rooms at the circulation desk. We have tons of job hunt resources. From books about starting your own practice to résumé and writing books to data on employers, we can help. Not every research resource is online. Sometimes you'll only find what you need in print. That said, when you do make it in to look at the print resources, we periodically offer baked goods or

The Doors  are an iconic band from the late 60s and early 70s. Venice Beach is an iconic town in California. The two came together in 1969 when the Doors posed for a photograph in front of a landmark mural. So who has copyright stakes in this scenario? If you guessed the Doors, the photographer, the building owner, and the mural painter, you're right. It's possible each of these people could stake some claim related to the photo. When someone new came along and wanted to (i) re-do the mural, and (ii) add life-sized paintings of the members of the Doors, a legal quagmire ensued . The parties seem to have reached a resolution of sorts without resorting to the courts, but not all cases end so well. And the painting isn't complete yet, so don't be surprised if this one resurfaces. Advising your own artist clients? Check out the following: Public Art by the Book Starting Your Career as an Artist The Visual Artist's Business and Legal Guide

Lance Armstrong and the publisher of his two books are being sued for false advertising. The complaint is, more or less, that Armstrong's lies about doping during his Tour de France years misled purchasers who are now seeking refunds and other compensation. Arguments recently wrapped, and people are waiting to hear the judge's decision on the matter. (It seems this was a bench trial rather than a jury trial.) If you want to know the decision the minute it's announced, sign in to Bloomberg Law and click here . The case is Stutzman v. Armstrong, and it's in the district court in the Eastern District of California. The docket number is 2:13-cv-00116-MCE-KJN. Whether there is an actionable claim for an autobiography sold on lies is a reasonably interesting question. The juicier one, in my opinion, is whether the publisher has a claim against Armstrong. The answer to that question lies in the indemnification and warranty provisions of the publishing contract, which we m

Parents are naming their babies Messiah more and more often these days. According to the Social Security Administration , in 2005, the name Messiah was 904th in popularity among American babies. In 2012, it was ranked 387th. Keep in mind, however, that the ranking of a name does not indicate its prevalence. In other words, the popularity of a name (rank) does not indicate how many babies per million will have that name (prevalence). Despite the increase in popularity of the name Messiah, it hasn't cracked the top 100 in Tennessee for 2012 . Perhaps that provides some rationale (legally grounded or otherwise) for a Tennessee judge changing the name of an infant whose parents were disputing the child's last name. The judge's explanation includes two rationales: The child's new first name, Martin, is the last name of the mother. By changing his first name from Messiah to Martin and giving him his father's last name, both parents' last names are represented. &

Barry Schwarz has made dozens of comments to online news stories discussing "the long-running and literally heated battle between the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas and a next-door condominium called Museum Tower. The condominium stands accused of producing glare that has compromised the museum’s galleries and garden." His comments "contained accurate facts and data" in an effort to sway public opinion against the sculpture center. Unfortunately, Barry Schwarz is not a real person. He is instead "former Dallas television anchor, Mike Snyder, long a fixture in the city and now a public relations executive who had been hired by the [condo's] outside law firm," according to a recent story in the New York Times.  Strasburger & Price (the law firm that hired Mr. Snyder) hired Mr. Snyder as a consultant in the litigation, and a representative of the firm states it had no idea Mr. Snyder was engaging in such behavior. The question remains, how

The New York Times recently had an article about the ethics of people posting baby photos to Facebook and other social media sites. Babies being what they are, they cannot exactly protest the occasionally very public record being made of their early years. The Ethicist concludes "The violation of personal privacy doesn’t start until an individual has the ability to understand what the violation means. Until that moment happens, other people — in this case, the individual’s parents — get to make those decisions (and are ethically positioned to do so)." But you may still be wondering what laws exist (or don't) to police the rights of such children. Two suggestions for starting your research: (1) try a few books in our library ; and (2) read up on the Terms of Service or Use for social networking sites. Suggestion (2) may not create a right for your future clients (i.e., current babies) against their parents or social networking sites, but it may give you ideas about how

Need a primer on dactylography (a.k.a. fingerprinting)?  Check out the podcast Stuff You Should Know . Getting a handle on the science behind evidence (and its reliability) can help you make your case in court regarding admissibility. For more in-depth information and a little fact-checking, try some of these books in the library: Genetic fingerprinting: the law and science of DNA ABA standards for criminal justice: DNA evidence DNA and the criminal justice system: the technology of justice

Trying to fit a little more joy into the remaining weeks of summer? Need a respite after all of those hours studying for the bar? Consider the 25 Greatest Law Novels or a few lawyers' desert island reads . And of course, we have them in our library , free for the checking out.