Check out this nifty list of Washington law-related blogs (sometimes referred to as “blawgs”) from the University of Washington Gallagher Law Library. Did you know there are Washington blogs on topics ranging from construction law to China law to speeding tickets – even one for food liability?
We’ve added a permanent link under Research Links in the sidebar. Thanks to Mary W. for adding KCLL Klues to the list!
Yesterday I wrote about a new book that we have in the Library called Intellectual Property: Principles Governing Jurisdiction, Choice of Law, and Judgments in Transnational Disputes. Then later I read an opinion piece written by Elizabeth Wurtzel published in the Wall Street Journal.
What she had to say resonated with me as it relates directly to some of the material in the book. For instance, she says the following: “The one thing the United States exports with serious success is our popular culture. We have conquered the world not with our weaponry, but with our music and movies. If these industries suffer, so does our economy.” She is warning us that we must maintain control of our intellectual property, as it is a large part of our gross domestic product.
Check out the book I spoke about yesterday to find out more about these intellectual property issues.
Thomson/West and ALI publishers recently added another component to the Restatement of the Law series called Principles of the Law. The first installent in this new series is Intellectual Property: Principles Governing Jurisdiction, Choice of Law, and Judgments in Transnational Disputes.
The book focuses on the jurisdictional issues concerning intellectual property given the technological advancements available in today’s world. Its introduction states, “given the extent to which intellectual property crosses borders, the world requires coordination between civil-law and common-law jurisdictions.” This book addresses those issues.
Watch for more titles in this series focusing on a range of relevant topics.
The King County Superior Court has an Office of Interpreter Services which obtains interpreters for more than 100 different languages to assist non-English speakers with court matters. Here in the King County Law Library we provide public computers for visitors to the court, including those who are working with Interpreters.The following is a short list of Internet based translator services that may help when working with a language other than English.
The first site is Babelfish, which is now part of Yahoo. Babelfish has been around for years and gives a basic translation for twelve different languages, from Chinese and Dutch to Russian. Access Babelfish here.
Google has a translation service in beta that claims to translate over 20 different languages and includes Croation and Swedish among its selections. Access Google Translate here.
A commercial site titled Free Translation, links to in person translators for more than brief translations, and includes limited language selctions, but is another option. Access Free Translation here.
One last web site is Gramtrans, which specializes in English, Swedish, Danish, Portuguese and Norwegian, and works well between these five languages. Access Gramtrans here.
There are others, but these four can give you a good start.
Criminal Searches.com – provided by PeopleFinder, is a new web site that offers to do free criminal background searches. Tamara Thompson of PI Buzz, blogged about this at the end of July.
I read about this search on other blogs including Laura Orr’s Oregon Legal Research, with a posting she links to from the Oregon Judicial Department warning state residents about using this search as a definitive source for criminal records.
I decided to try my own searches to see how useful this site might be for Washington State. I used searches I had done previously at the free state court case search and found that the search results pretty much missed more often than hit. While in some cases I found a few of the offenses that I knew existed, in other cases nothing showed up at all. It seems that what does appear are offenses that led to state imprisonment, so I have to agree with Tamara that the most records, from our state at least, appear to come “from the states’ Department of Corrections because this is a statewide agency in every state. These are felony convictions only of offenders who have been in the custody of the DOC.”
Other court records do not appear. This means you still have to do a court search, and you need to check with the Washington State Patrol, as they are the official keeper of our state’s criminal records. My conclusion is that Criminalsearches.com may be a place where you can start your search, but you must not rely on this for a complete criminal background search. The search is much too limited for that.
In this episode of KCLL’s SideBar we talk about the change in Washington law which requires the top two primary. In October of 2006, in our second podcast, we described the change that required a pick a party primary, after the blanket primary system had been declared unconstitutional. Kim Ositis, of our staff describes what has happened to require the new primary law. Craig, in his “Reel Verdict” commentary reviews the top 25 greatest legal movies as declared by the ABA plus his own picks.
The best thing I read today comes from an interview with DeCarlous Spearman, the Law Library Director at Texas Southern University’s Thurgood Marshall School of Law. It was written by Mary Flood of the Houston Chronicle, copyright 2008, and published on Aug. 1, 2008. Here is a link to the full story if you would like to read more, but this question and answer struck me as particularly apt in today’s “let’s find our answer on the first page of Google’s result world.”
Ms. Flood asked the following question about technology’s effect on legal research:
“What do you miss? What has technology taken away?
A: What I miss is what technology’s taken away from the students.
Students now want quick, fast answers — yesterday. But they have no idea how to get the complete answers, or what it takes to get the entire picture. Technology’s taken that from the student body and even faculty members.
I call it the microwave age: If it can’t go in and come out ready in five minutes, they don’t want it. But that’s not enough. Research isn’t always quick. Complete research has to be comprehensive.
Sometimes one source won’t do it. But today students want what I call Wal-Mart research — one-stop shopping. Students 12 years ago were more patient. They mixed book research with Lexis or Westlaw. I’m not OK with the quick answers.”
We have added three more training classes for September & October:
Friday, September 15th: Legal Research for the Non-Attorney: Part 1 12-1:30pm
Friday, September 22nd: Legal Research for the Non-Attorney: Part 2 12-1:30pm
Friday, October 3rd: Skip Tracing 4-5:30pm
All our training classes are free. Space is limited so sign-up today by giving us a call at (206) 296-0940.
VotingforJudges.org is a nonpartisan, impartial source of information about judicial elections in the state of Washington. The site was established in 2006 to provide information to voters in connection with the judicial candidates running for election that year.
The American Bar Association honored VotingforJudges with its 2007 Silver Gavel Award for Media and the Arts, in the “New Media” category. In addition, the Atlanta-based Foundation for Improvement of Justice presented one of its Paul H. Chapman Justice Awards for 2007 to VotingforJudges.
Paul Fjelstad, the Kitsap attorney and law librarian, who designed and provides ongoing updates to VotingforJudges, was honored with the 2007 King County Bar Association President’s Award for his work.
Numerous newspaper editorials have praised and recommended this site. Check it out!
FYI: Our August podcast will feature information about the recent changes to Washington’s primary election system.