KCLL Klues: Washington State Legal Research

The flooding of the Green River will affect virtually everyone in the Seattle/Tacoma metropolitan area.  It may directly affect your home, business or commute.  Or it may indirectly affect you when your staff can’t make it to work, or the products you use are stored in a warehouse in the Kent valley.  Here are a few links to alert services that will help you stay on top of the flooding situation.

You can sign up for alerts from the Regional Public Information Network.  You would receive news alerts from safety and transportation agencies in Puget Sound.  They include traffic, wind, flood and earthquake alerts. 

Mystateusa.com allows you to sign up for weather alerts in your area.  You may select what type of emergencies you want to receive notification.  Just click on the weather alerts button in the upper right hand corner.

The cities affected by the potential flooding have established reverse 911 call systems.  Each city has its own signup.  If you click on each city listed below, the link will take you to their signup page.

Auburn

Kent

Renton

Tukwila

Many of these services will allow you to sign up multiple phone numbers or receive text messages. 

Check them out!

There is a new document assembly site which allows anyone to put together their documents in a coherent and orderly manner with little to no cost.   Whichdraft.com describes itself as a “self-directed legal resource that allows individuals to build a variety of high quality contracts.”    

The site also describes several of the types of contracts from which it provides sample clauses.   This can be helpful for the novice or expert alike.

The web site for the Washington Defender Association has a great set of links to a variety of documents with information about representing non-citizens and others with immigration law problems.  They are located on a page called Immigration Resources and Practice Advisories.  Included is a document titled Quick Reference Chart of Immigration Consequences of Selected RCW Offenses that reviews the immigration consequences of particular crimes.  There is also a general guide to representing non-citizens.

When I attended the King County Superior Court Clerk’s office most recent CLE workshop, one of the presenters devoted a good deal of time to an explanation of the “working copies” component of the new e-filing system.  This was good because many of the attendees seemed confused by it.  If you find yourself in the same boat, here are a couple of specific links to useful information about this:

E-Working Copies Active Demonstration – this link leads to an automated demostration showing how to use the E-Working Copies portion of the e-filing system.  The advantages of the process are clearly spelled out in the very beginning and since you can start and stop the demonstration yourself, you can review it at your own pace.

E-Working Copies Help – this link leads to the portion of the e-filing web site that describes how the E-Working Copies process works.  It includes a link to the demonstration mentioned above as well as a detailed FAQ document and an instructional document with screenshots from a simulated E-Working Copies process.

If you’re like many of us and still learning how to use King County’s new mandatory e-filing process, don’t forget to check the helpful FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions) they’ve posted on the E-Filing News and Information page.  Locate the Helpful Resources portion of the page and follow the link called Frequently Asked Questions about Mandatory E-Filing.  The document includes sections for general, process and technical questions and was last updated on 9/1/2009.

The law library branch in Kent is supported by King County General Fund dollars and therefore is involved in the effort to secure funding for 2010.    This impact of this effort is shared today in a SeattlePI article and gives more information on the budget deliberation process over the next several weeks.

In May, Rita K. blogged about paid bloggers promoting payday loans and she mentioned that the FTC was considering new guidelines on the topic.  The new guidelines are now available and they cover a wide range of subjects, including celebrity endorsements, paid bloggers and even diet commercials.  The FTC has put out a press release about the new rules.  The Law Librarian Blog also has an informative post about the changes.

Today, the Government Printing Office and the National Archives and Record Association are publishing the Federal Register in XML format.   This allows other individuals to develop the daily publication in new and more accessible ways.  This is the first federal government publication to be delivered in this format and may show the willingness for greater transparency and access to information.  To get to the raw data you can go to the data.gov website.

When I teach my Public Sleuthing on Social Networks class I often caution the students about being careful about both their privacy and what they post when using social networks. Others may be checking your postings. Trial Ad Notes posted a cautionary story the other day about photos posted on a Facebook page and the BBC posted a story about serving a court order via a Twitter page.  Everyday I seem to come across another instance of social networking that could bring trouble to the person posting. 

I know that I always try to post with caution myself, although I still like to comment about #dwts occasionally. Maybe I should stop.  But doesn’t social networking also have to be fun?

In this episode of KCLL’s SideBar Rita K. talks about some of her favorite podcast episodes and says good-bye as she passes KCLL’s SideBar on to its new producers. Craig, in his “Reel Verdict” segment, reviews a documentary he watched recently called “A Lawyer Walks into a Bar.” The movie is about law students trying to pass California’s bar exam.

Listen to Episode 34
Links for Episode 34