Aug 27
The King County Superior Court has posted the set of Local Rules that take effect September 1, 2010. You can view the entire set of new local rules, a set of the rules showing changes from the previous version, and sets of rules going back to 2004 at the King County Superior Court Local Rules page. We have also printed sets of the new rules for your use when you are at the library.
Jul 09
Many of you are familiar with doing legislative history research in Washington State, but if you need similar information from other states, here are some suggestions.
You might try looking at a research guide on legislative history for the state you are interested in. The law library at the Indiana University Maurer School of Law maintains the website State Legislative History Research Guides on the Web. It has a list of the states and online legislative history guides for each state — in some instances, more than one for a state.
Another possibility is to enlist the help of a law library in the state you are researching. The Legislative Source Book on the website for the Law Librarians’ Society of Washington, D.C. has a page on State Legislatures, State Laws, and State Regulations. That page has contact information for the state law library or other resource in each state.
Finally, you might want to hire someone to do the research for you. The same webpage from the Legislative Source Book has contact information for commercial services that perform legislative history research (scroll down to the bottom of the page to find that list.)
Jun 04
The U.S. Courts website has a new look as of May 15. Among the new features are an email update service, more video features, widgets for users to add dynamically updated content to their websites, and a link to the Federal Judiciary YouTube Channel. The videos, both on the web site proper and the YouTube channel, include Bankruptcy Basics in both English and Spanish.
Apr 23
The Office of the Code Reviser has posted an online archive of the Revised Code of Washington going back to 2002. The archived versions are PDF files of the official printed volumes.
While there are no plans to add more retrospectively, the archive will grow going forward.
Mar 19
Washington Attorneys Assisting Community Organizations (WAACO) has some terrific nonprofit legal resources available for free on its website.
First, there is the 2009 edition of the Washington Nonprofit Handbook: How to Form and Maintain a Nonprofit Corporation in Washington State published by WAACO and the King County Bar Association Young Lawyers Division. This 200-page book covers formation and governance of a nonprofit corporation, obtaining and maintaining 501(c)(3) status, and topics such as international activities and grantmaking, employment issues, and intellectual property considerations.
There are also sample forms, such as articles of incorporation and bylaws, and a nonprofit legal self-assessment checklist.
Jan 15
Many of you are probably familiar with the “Wayback Machine” as a resource for finding archived web pages. The Wayback Machine is part of the Internet Archive. “Wayback” is used in the request “Can you do a Wayback on that?”, meaning, can you find archived web pages for that website? See Michael Fagan, Note, “Can you do a Wayback on That?” The Legal Community’s Use of Cached Web Pages In and Out of Trial, 13 B.U. J. Sci. & Tech. L. 46 (2007) (available for free, but without page numbers, at the journal’s website. Available WITH page numbers from HeinOnline, LEXIS and Westlaw at KCLL). The article covers a lot of ground and speaks mainly to cached web pages in general, including some of the possible difficulties in getting cached web pages admitted under the Federal Rules of Evidence. A more recent law review note analyzes and provides a framework for determining the admissibility of archived web pages from the Wayback Machine under the Federal Rules of Evidence. See Deborah R. Eltgroth, Note, Best Evidence and the Wayback Machine: Toward a Workable Authentication Standard for Archived Internet Evidence, 78 Fordham L.R. 181 (2009) (available at the Fordham Law Review website).
Both articles provide an overview of how the Wayback Machine works. The website itself has extensive FAQ and legal FAQ pages describing how the site works and some of its limitations. There is also an information page for use by lawyers and a standard affidavit for use by Internet Archive staff in authenticating archived web page printouts, should that be necessary.
The “Wayback Machine” is named in honor of Mr. Peabody’s WABAC (pronounced way-back) machine from the Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoon show. See the FAQs Wayback Machine. If these cultural references don’t mean anything to you, then here is a Toonepedia entry on the Rocky and Bullwinkle show and another with an image of the dog Mr. Peabody and his boy Sherman with their WABAC Machine.
Jan 04
On December 1, 2009, amendments to federal court rules took effect, including important changes to the rules regarding the computation of time. The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure were amended, as were the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure, the Federal Rules of Bankruptcy Procedure, and the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. A list of rules amended with respect to time computation, as well as a list of new rules and amendments not having to do with time computation, can be found on the Federal Rulemaking page of the U.S. Courts website.
Here are links to amended versions of the rules online:
The changes in the national rules required corresponding changes to local court rules and general orders. The current versions of the local rules – civil and criminal – for both the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington and the Eastern District of Washington are on the courts’ websites (Western District) (Eastern District).
Changes to the local rules for the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of Washington and those for the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Washington are also posted on those courts’ websites.