KCLL Klues: Washington State Legal Research

The GOP news release below came to us directly from Cynthia Etkin, Sr. Program Planning Specialist in the Office of the Superintendent of Documents.  Thanks for the update, Cynthia!  GPO Access was launched in 1994 and has been the official source for Federal government information online.  FDSys is the “next generation” system and includes expanded source materials in multiple formats , a more robust searching mechanism and the use of metadata for retrieval.

Direct from GPO — On Friday, November 4, 2011, the U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO) draws one step closer to shutting down GPO Access. Once the Friday editions of daily updated content (e.g., Federal Register, Congressional Record) have been uploaded, GPO will cease updating GPO Access in terms of both database content and HTML pages. This will mark the start of the archive only phase of GPO Access and new content will only be loaded to FDsys. During this phase, GPO Access will remain publicly accessible as a reference archive.

 In order to make the switchover from GPO Access to FDsys as seamless as possible for users, GPO is in the process of creating one-to-one redirects from GPO Access content to the FDsys equivalent. This will ensure that bookmarks, Web links, URLs in print publications, and other GPO Access references point to valid Web resources. Once this has been completed, GPO Access will be taken offline. A date has not yet been established for the final shutdown of GPO Access; however, it is slated for fiscal year 2012.

Our online public access catalog, powered by EOS International, now has an interface developed specifically for mobile devices. If you’d like to use your iPhone, Droid, Blackberry or other Internet-capable phone to search our collection, simply point its browser to http://207.67.203.67/K80000. If you have any questions about searching our catalog or accessing our collection, please feel free to contact the staff at (206) 296-0940.

Whether your firm has jumped into the social media waters with both feet, or you’re being dragged kicking and screaming to the side of pool, you need a social media policy.  And, ideally, it should be in place before the first Twitter tweet or posting of funny cats.

Your policy should be simple, to-the-point and provide employees with guidelines for appropriate online behavior and outline consequences for inappropriate behavior. 

It should include a section about creating and maintaining social media sites for the firm using company time and computers (such as a law firm Facebook page or LinkedIn profile).  Content creators on these types of sites will need guidelines regarding protecting client confidentiality, refraining from providing legal advice, how to respond to negative comments, etc.

The policy should address employees’ use of third-party online sites during company time and discuss what is acceptable conduct for posts on personal sites; keeping in mind that there is no expectation of privacy on the Internet.

Thankfully, there are many print and online resources available for help in drafting a social media policy.  Here are just a few:

Books at the Law Library:
Social media, 2011: addressing corporate risks, Practicing Law Institute.
Social media for lawyers: the next frontier, Carolyn Elefant and Nicole Black (2010).

Online Newsletter:
Socially Aware: The Social Media Law Update (Morrison & Foerster)
http://www.mofo.com/files/Uploads/Images/100722SocialMedia.pdf

Social Media Policies and Templates:
http://www.jaffepr.com/sites/default/files/Social_media_policy.pdf
http://www.bakerdstreamingvid.com/publications/Baker_Daniels_Social-Media-Policy.pdf
http://socialmediagovernance.com/policies.php
http://www.compliancebuilding.com/about/publications/social-media-policies/
http://www.lawmarketing.com/pages/articles.asp?Action=Article&ArticleID=1024

Blog Posts:
http://abovethelaw.com/2010/07/social-media-policies-for-legal-types/
http://www.socialmediaforlawfirms.com/2010/09/social-media-policy-for-law-firms.html
http://www.fastcompany.com/1668368/social-media-policies-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly
http://mashable.com/2009/06/02/social-media-policy-musts/

A recently revised edition of the King County Probate and Guardianship Policy Manual is now available!  The Manual has been in existence since 1969 and was last revised in 2003.  According to the introductory page, the manual is a “helpful guide to practitioners and referred to in King County Local Rule 98.04.  This manual is the result of a joint project of the bench and the bar and contains useful tips for practitioners that are not necessarily the official policy of the court.”

We have multiple copies of the Manual at both libraries, though none are available for check-out.  It can also be purchased from the King County Bar Association in print and electronic format.

Are you 13-25 years old and in need of legal help? SYLAW, or Street Youth Legal Advocates of Washington, is a nonprofit organization that provides civil legal representation to homeless and at-risk youth.  To take advantage of their services, contact SYLAW at info@sylaw.org or visit one of their many Drop-In Clinics.

SYLAW will also help citizens of ANY age seal their juvenile criminal records.  If your juvenile criminal record is from King County or Snohomish County, you can visit one of SYLAW’s many Juvenile Record Sealing Clinics that are offered once a month. If your juvenile criminal record is from another county in Washington State, SYLAW offers an online interactive form generator that asks you questions, then generates the forms for you.

The King County Superior Court Clerk’s Office has released the new Superior Court Local Rules effective 9/1/2011.  Copies of the rules can be downloaded directly from the Superior Court Clerk’s web site or can reviewed and purchased in hard copy from either the Seattle or MRJC courthouses.

Even if you have visited the main web site for King County Superior Court many times, you may have missed the departmental links listed on the lower left-hand corner.  In particular I’d like to highlight the Civil and Criminal Department links.

The Civil Department link leads you to information about court rules, civil calendars, court services such as arbitration, settlement conferences and weddings, our State’s civil pattern jury instructions and the Court’s Civil Department Manual.  The latter contains a variety of sample documents including an amended case schedule, order on pretrial conference and a sample trial checklist.

The Criminal Department link leads you to a link to join the Criminal Department’s listserv, links covering the Court’s major criminal calendars, links to community correction services like the Helping Hands and Work Education Release programs,  and links to our State’s criminal pattern jury instructions and Sentencing Guidelines Manual.

The Finish Your Divorce class held at the Seattle library on the second Wednesday of the month will now run from 4-5pm.  This is a walk-in class (no reservation required) taught by a volunteer attorney.

The law library’s 2010 Annual Report is now available!  We are using a new format this year; employing charts, a wordle and less text to recap what happened at the law library in 2010.  Check it out!

The Ex-Parte/Probate committee of the King County Superior Court has decided to continue using the current guardianship training video posted on the Court’s guardianship forms site instead of the new online training routine now available on AOC’s web site.  We will post an update when/if the local Court decides to change its requirements.