KCLL Klues: Washington State Legal Research

Recently West replaced volumes 1-1C of Washington Practice with new paperback volumes.  The new volumes contain completely different content from the older volumes.  The new volumes serve as a guide to information contained in the rest of the set.  Some of the chapters of the older edition dealing with substantive information will be released as new volumes of Washington Practice later in the year.

Although the filing instructions say to discard the old volumes, King County Law Library kept two copies of the replaced volumes.  If you find that you have already discarded your old copies, you can still find the information in our library.

In this episode of KCLL’s SideBar Seattle attorney and amateur historian George Sjursen interviews President Richard Nixon’s youngest brother, Edward Nixon, who has written a book titled, The Nixons: A Family Portrait.  Then the Seattle University Law School librarians join KCLL in their last session of “At the Reference Desk,“ this time discussing the initiative and referendum process.

Listen to Episode 31
Links for Episode 31

Lately I keep getting this question. My divorce is going to trial and the judge told me I need a trial notebook. What do I put in a trial notebook and why do I want one?

A trial notebook is a three-ring binder which contains tabs to help organize the documents that you will need to refer to during the trial. Put any of the documents you will need in the binder and label the tabs for each section.

Some suggestions for what you may need are as follows:

• pretrial motions and orders 
• copies of all other pleadings and motions by each party (Petitioner and Respondent)
• discovery transcripts and responses
• witness lists
• exhibits you want to use (assets and financial records with subsections for property division, financial spreadsheets, tax returns, debts, bank accounts, pensions, child support, visitation and custody issues, etc.)
• research and law that applies to your case, including trial brief if submitted
• subpoenas

This is not an exhaustive list. Create a table of contents for the documents so you can find them easily within the sections. For more information about what you may wish to include in a trial notebook look at the classic McElhaney’s Trial Notebook or check out Debbie Brooks Advanced Civil Litigation Handbook for King County Superior Court. Both books are available in the King County Law Library.

Today’s post comes from our former staff member, Stina. She sent me a message me about a number of legal applications that lawyers and law students can use via their iPhone. A couple of these are VERY inexpensive, which is always nice. This is what Stina has to say:

First up, there is the application “Legal E,” which provides information on student rights, as well as other education laws. This is a resource for both students and teachers, as it includes both current and historical education laws. The application is constantly updated as changes in education law are made at the Federal level. Not a free app, but only costs $1.99.

Next is the “Copyright Coach.” This app provides the entire text of Title 17 of the United States Code, along with choice Code of Federal Regulation provisions and parts of Title 18 of the United States Code, the sections which deal with criminal copyright infringement. The app is divided into three parts, and includes a Registration Guide as one of the sections. The guide (really cool) breaks down the USC and CFR sections by topic. The code is current and the app costs 99 cents, which is crazy! Think about this app as a portable NOLO guide for copyright questions.

Finally, is “Legal Ease.” This is an application that could be helpful to anyone gearing up to take the bar. It helps in preparing for the Multistate Bar Exam and contains 800 flashcard questions written by attorneys. It includes detailed explanations to help students understand the details. The questions include the major areas of law and a practice exam, and then gives you your results via your phone. The app is pricey at $39.99, but then again, so is taking the bar – twice.

There have been lots of reviews of the Black’s Law Dictionary, so we won’t repeat those here. Check out these apps by visiting the iStore.

Thanks, Stina. Good apps to consider.

Last week I kept hearing about this story. The City of Bozeman, Montana required all potential employees to disclose their Facebook, MySpace, and other internet social networking usernames and passwords. The story was originally broken by a local television station and then spread through blogs, twitter postings and other social networking sites themselves. The city has backed down now due to the public outcry about privacy concerns of this practice.

The King County Superior Court Clerk’s Office recently sent out a Clerk’s Alert to announce that the enhanced version of E-Filing is now available. 

“This new version streamlines the electronic filing process, allows for the initiation of multiple new cases with one submission, facilitates e-mail notification to filers and E-Service recipients, upgrades the user account maintenance process, and introduces the new E-Working Copies component.” 

The law library in the Maleng Regional Justice Center will close for the day at 12pm this Friday (June 19) for staff training. 

Recently, a patron who is on probation and is moving to California wanted to know more about something called the Interstate Compact.  I was pleased to find a website (www.interstatecompact.org) all about this topic.  The full name is the Interstate Commission for Adult Offender Supervision (ICAOS).  The website is chock full of information, including rules, a knowledge base, forms and advisory opinions.  There is also information for each state that has adopted the Compact and a link to the enacting statute for the state.  For Washington, that is RCW 9.94A.745.   

The U.S. Tax Court has developed a series of instructional videos explaining the tax court process.   You can view the video here.  These videos highlight the following areas: 1.)Understanding the Process, 2.) Introduction to the U.S. Tax Court, 3.) Filing the Petition, 4.) Pretrial Matters, 5.) Calendar Call and Trial, 6.) Post Trial Proceedings, and 7.) Conclusion and Review. 

The Seattle Times reports on a new Supreme Court decision announced yesterday in Caperton v. Massey, 08-22, that “elected judges must step aside from cases when large campaign contributions from interested parties create the appearance of bias.” This case comes from West Virginia and involves a situation where the largest contributor to a state supreme court judge’s campaign was also involved as a party in a case that was coming before that court. Interesting case.

Here are two more stories about this case. I am sure there will be many discussing this. The first comes from law.com and the second is from the ABA Journal that a reader of our blog pointed out to me.