Moritz Legal Information Blog

Some new Congressional Research Service ("CRS") Reports have been made available. The Reports cover a wide-range of topics, including: USA PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act of 2005: A Legal Analysis Transnational Organized Crime: Principal Threats and U.S. Responses North Korea's Nuclear Weapons Program Campaign Finance NATO and Energy Security For a more complete list of recent CRS Reports, check out Open CRS .

How do you pronounce words like "pecan" or "caramel"? Is it "soda" or "pop" (or "coke")? Dr. Bert Vaux , currently a linguistics professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, has conducted a Dialect Survey . The Survey polled people about their pronunciation of certain words and which words they used to describe certain things or events. The results were then plotted on maps, so you can see the geographical trends. The Survey was conducted a couple of years ago, but I hadn't seen it. It's kind of fun.

The American Bar Association's Family Law Section has created a set of tables which summarize various family law issues in all fifty states. Internet Legal Research Weekly describes the tables : This is just a small part of the ABA's Family Law Section site, but it has some great information. Here' you'll find a set of tables summarizing the certain family law issues for all fifty states. You can check out custody criteria, grounds for divorce, property division, third-party visitation, and other topics. A nifty way to compare family laws amongst the states.

The Benesch Beat is a podcast by lawyers at Ohio law firm Benesch, Friedlander, Coplan & Aronoff LLP . The podcasts are professionally produced lectures on legal and business topics. Some of the recent topics include the firm's pro bono efforts, electronic discovery, and doing business in China. The podcasts directory has a link to an RSS feed.

The 2006 CIA World Fact Book is a great source of basic information about most countries of the world. The 2006 edition is the first to includes information about the European Union. The country profiles describe the country's geography, people, government, economy, communications, transportation, military, transnational issues (such as refugees and illicit drugs). The rank order page ranks the countries in all of the above categories as well. Check out which country has the most cellular phones in use, the highest population , or the lowest public debt . The book may be used online, downloaded or purchased in print. The online version is updated throughout the year. Thanks to beSpacific and TVC Alert for news of the updated version.

Finding the answer to your question with Google or another online search engine is usually fairly easy. Determining whether it's the right answer is the problem. So how sure can you be that the website is authentic? Try these out: Which WTO website would you trust? A or B Which food pyramid is official? A or B While the real site may be pretty easy to spot in these examples, it's not always the case. So, remember to be a bit skeptical and pay attention to details like the domain name. ".gov" is for federal government sites, while ".net" can be used by any internet provider. Other questions to ask: Who are the authors of the website? Do they have an agenda or a viewpoint that may bias the information you want to rely on? When was the site last updated? If you can't tell, be sure to update the information with another source. Thanks to Mary Ellen Bates for the examples.

Content can disappear from the web at any time. One place to check when you have an URL (say from a law review article or judicial decision) is the Way Back Machine . Just type the URL into the search box and click "Take Me Back." The Way Back Machine doesn't archive everything on the web, but it's one of the best tools to find a website that has disappeared.