Today in 1991: Mardi Gras Krewes Desegregated

Twenty years ago today, the New Orleans City Council passed an ordinance that requires each Mardi Gras Krewe to provide an affidavit that they have:

“[N]o written or unwritten provision in its charter, bylaws, rules, regulations or policies which call for the refusal, withholding or denying of membership, or any of the services, accommodations, advantages, facilities or privilege offered by the respondent to members or others, because of race, color, creed, religion, national origin, sexual orientation or ancestry...” New Orleans City Code 34-3.

CALI Lessons and Reviewing for Final Exams

If, now, at the end of the semester, you are scrambling for some additional materials to review and you’re thinking about using CALI Lessons, realize that thousands of students around the country may be having the same idea.

ABA Journal Blawg 100

It is now time for the ABA to seek votes for the ABA Journal Blawg 100. If you are reading this blog you are obviously not opposed to reading blogs and there are lots of interesting legal based ones out there.

What I like about this process that the ABA Journal goes through is you not only get to see the results but lots of contenders so there might be something that interest you that could get trimmed BUT you still can find out about those possibilities in this process (see the blog directory for the master list of possibles).

Finals / Holiday Hours

A quick note to reflect what our hours are this Finals and Holiday season

Sunday, December 4 - Sunday, December 18
7:30 a.m. - 1:00 a.m.

Monday, December 19
7:30 a.m. - 10:00 p.m.

Tuesday, December 20 & Wednesday, December 21
8:30 a.m. - 6:00 p.m.

Thursday, December 22 - Sunday, January 1
CLOSED

Monday, January 2 - Thursday, January 5
8:30 a.m. - 6:00 p.m.

Friday, January 6
8:30 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.

Saturday, January 7
10:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m.

Sunday, January 8
10:00 a.m. - 11:00 p.m. -- Resume normal hours

New SSRN Research Paper Series for Loyola Law Faculty

Loyola University New Orleans College of Law is proud to announce their own Research Paper Series in Legal Studies, hosted by the Social Science Research Network. SSRN is the top digital repository of scholarly papers in the world, with over 300,000 full-text papers in both law and over a dozen other academic fields, such as economics, philosophy and cognitive science. Almost fifty million copies of these papers have been downloaded in SSRN's history, with almost 800,000 downloaded in the last month alone.

Law Professors in Halloween Costumes!

An annual tradition here at Loyola University New Orleans College of Law is that our local chapter of Phi Alpha Delta raises money each fall by having students bid on their “favorite” professors to wear costumes in class for Halloween. This year’s money - almost $500 - is going to various children’s medical charities.

Halloween and the Law of Masks

Several states have statutes that prohibit the wearing of masks for nefarious purposes, like California:

or Michigan:

(93 days?)

RIP Steve Jobs and Good Advice for Law Students

Download the iPhone candle app, step outside, and hold it up to the sky tonight in memory of Steve Jobs . Then listen to his commencement speech at Stanford in 2005. It was for their undergrads, but its good advice for law students and, well, anyone:

"Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true."

"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary."

- Steve Jobs, 2005 Stanford Commencement

If that excerpt is inspiring, you can read the full transcript of his commencement speech, or watch it here:

Casebook, Yes! Facebook, No!

With the fall semester in full swing, students here at Loyola New Orleans College of Law are busy reading hundreds of pages a week of case law and other assignments. That is a lot of material to absorb. How can you learn all that material more efficiently? Here’s one suggestion: shut down your laptop and smartphone.

Free Federal Rules eBooks from CALI’s eLangdell

Last week, the Center for Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction (“CALI”), in partnership with the Legal Information Institute (“LII”) at Cornell University School of Law, unveiled three free eBooks: the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, and the Federal Rules of Evidence.

The start of a new academic year

The Loyola New Orleans Law Library would like to welcome all the new 1L students in both the day and night programs and remind you to sign up for a tour. In addition to learning about library resources and the location of items you will recieve your free mug or water bottle and get enrolled in our computer system. - BB

Terry Stop Extension in Louisiana?

This story came across the wires today with regards to what is and is not enough for "probable cause" regarding a police search. The La. Supreme Court rules in an interim appeal that what the police in this case (see link) was enough to suggest probable cause. For more information see this short article at theNewspaper.com .

New Law School Dean

The Law Library would like to join in all of the other law school entities in welcoming our new Loyola University New Orleans Dean of the Law School, María Pabón López. For the official announcement see here. I've seen Dean López around the building this week so make sure and say hello when you get a chance to meet her.

Password Safety

I ran across this site today that I thought was pretty interesting, http://howsecureismypassword.net/.You can type in your password and it will tell you how long it would take a standard program to crack your password. Give it a try, it may surprise you.- BB

law student thoughts ...

For the first weekday after the 2011 Law Grads are no longer law students I thought I would post a "music video" entitled "I Hate Law School" that seems to be based on some real truisms.

On-Line Versus Print: The U.S.C.A.

Why would you ever want to use print copies of the U.S. Code when Westlaw and Lexis are so easy and convenient? Sometimes the finding tools in the print statutes are the better option.

David Foster Wallace, Zen, and the Internal Revenue Code

The drama of this year’s tax day is two weeks behind us, and unless they filled for an extension, most people don’t give a thought to income taxes under the following year’s April 15th (or 16th, 17th, or, as this year, 18th) is looming in the near future. Most people besides, of course, IRS agents and cutting-edge popular-darling “post-post-modernist” writers who’ve been dead for three years.

Library of Congress Twitter Feed

The Law Library of Congress has announced its newest Twitter account: @THOMASdotgov http://twitter.com/THOMASdotgov.

The @THOMASdotgov account will provide alerts on THOMAS.gov updates, bills being considered on the floor of Congress, and will serve as a venue for feedback on THOMAS.gov. To read more about it, see our In Custodia Legis blog post http://blogs.loc.gov/law/2011/04/thomasdotgov/.

In addition to the @THOMASdotgov Twitter account, the Law Library can also be found on:

- In Custodia Legis blog: http://blogs.loc.gov/law/

- Twitter: http://twitter.com/LawLibCongress

- iTunes U: http://deimos3.apple.com/WebObjects/Core.woa/Browse/loc.gov.3061529668

- Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/lawlibraryofcongress

- YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/LibraryOfCongress#g/c/96401BE3402149B9

(Information via Emily Carr, Senior Legal Research Specialist, Law Library of Congress)

Finals Hours for the Law Library

the Loyola New Orleans Law Library will be open extended hours beginning April 15th as follows:

Friday, April 15 :        7:30 am – 12:00 am

Saturday, April 16 :    9:00 am – 12:00 am

Sunday, April 17 :      10:00 am – 12:00 am

Monday April 18 – Thursday, April 21:        7:30 am – 12:00 am

Friday, April 22 :        CLOSED

Saturday, April 23 :    CLOSED

Sunday, April 24 :      12:00 pm – 11:00 pm

Monday, April 25 - Thursday, May 5 :         7:30 am – 1:00 am

Friday, May 6 :          7:30 am – 9:00 pm

Saturday, May 7 :      9:00 am – 10:00 pm

Sunday, May 8 :         10:00 am – 11:00 pm

Monday, May 9 :       7:30 am – 12:00 am

Tuesday, May 10 :     7:30 am – 12:00 am

Wednesday, May 11 – Saturday, May 28

                INTERIM SCHEDULE

Monday – Thursday  8:30 am – 6:00 pm

Friday                         8:30 am -  5:00 pm

Saturday                     10:00 am -  6:00 pm

Sunday                        CLOSED

Sunday, May 29 :       10:00 am – 11:00 pm

Monday, May 30 :     7:30 am – 12:00 am

NOTE: SUMMER 2011 SESSION BEGINS TUESDAY, MAY 31

Positive Law Experience

Once passed by Congress and enacted, a piece of legislation is ready to be integrated into the United States Code. That is the function of the Office of the Law Revision Counsel.

For most of my life, there were only 50 titles in the U.S. Code. Just recently, you may have read, a 51st title was added. Well, more are on the way. The Office is working on adding titles 52 through 55. The new titles will be:

Title 52, "Voting and Elections"

Title 53, "Small Business"

Title 54, "National Park System"

Title 55, "Environment"

Be sure to check out these new titles, as well as your old favorites.

Finals Help

Since finals are fast approaching, we would like to remind students that the library has a collection of old finals which they may use in preparation for their exams. We have books of old exams located in the third floor copy room. We have sets of newer exams which may be checked out at the Reserve Desk. Of course, we also have many exams online, available to students through our catalog.

For a very limited time, we will have several professor's upcoming Spring 2011 exams available at the Circulation Desk, along with sample answers.

Tulane's Curriculum Cited by Supreme Court

In the recent Supreme Court case Connick v. Thompson, the Orleans Parish District Attorney’s Office conceded that in prosecuting Thompson for attempted armed robbery, prosecutors violated Brady v. Maryland, 373 U. S. 83, by failing to disclose a crime lab report.

In her dissent, Justice Ginsberg noted her displeasure with the training a prosecutor had received at Tulane University Law School:

On what basis can one be confident that law schools acquaint students with prosecutors’ unique obligation under Brady? Whittaker told the jury he did not recall covering Brady in his criminal procedure class in law school. Tr. 335. Dubelier’s alma mater, like most other law faculties, does not make criminal procedure a required course.21



—————— 21See Tulane University Law School, Curriculum, http://www.law.tulane.edu (select “Academics”; select “Curriculum”) (as visited Mar.21, 2011, and in Clerk of Court’s case file).

Ouch.
Connick v. Thompson, 563 U. S. ____ (2011), at 29

Loyola Law School in the Early 1920s

Prior to the Loyola Law Review, our flagship law review here at Loyola New Orleans was the Loyola Law Journal. Begun in 1920, when the law school had been open only six years, it was published up until 1932 but wasn’t replaced by the Review until almost a decade later, in 1941 (perhaps such publications were an unnecessary luxury for the law school during the depression).

Scalia Rear-Ends Car

Justice Scalia was cited for driving too close, thereby causing a four car accident on the way to work yesterday.

BMW

Therapy for Law Students

This is an interesting development at Yale. We do not have therapy dogs available yet, but we do have dog-eared books on therapy.

For Law Students With Everything, Dog Therapy for Stress

Mardi Gras Parades, Krewe Liability, and Assumption of Risk

Louisiana has a statute that may be unique in American law. Louisiana Revised Statutes § 9:2796, “Limitation of liability for loss connected with Mardi Gras parades and festivities; fair and festival parades,” does just that: it states that “no person shall have a cause of action against any krewe or organization” that participates in a Mardi Gras parade. It goes on to also state that anyone attending a parade “assumes the risk of being struck by any missile whatsoever which has been traditionally thrown, tossed, or hurled by members of the krewe” and that those “items shall include but are not limited to beads, cups, coconuts, and doubloons.” The only exception to both parts of this statute is if an injury is caused by “the deliberate and wanton act or gross negligence of the krewe or organization.”

Scotistics

Are you interested in the U.S. Supreme Court? Do you enjoy statistics? Then this website will prove to be both fascinating and invaluable to you:

http://www.scotusblog.com/reference/stat-pack/


How many unanimous majority opinions did Roberts write in the October 2005 Term? Which circuit had the most cases affirmed by the Court? How many appellants had blue eyes? The answers to these questions and many more may be found at this website.

Tom Goldstein has compiled and posted Supreme Court statistics since OT95. That's a lot of material to explore.

Malcolm Gladwell and the Law School Rankings Game

A hot topic recently in the legal education blogosphere has been Malcolm Gladwell’s latest New Yorker article, The Order of Things: What College Rankings Really Tell Us (subscription required). He focuses on the U.S. News and World Report rankings for colleges but uses their law school rankings for a particular example. His main point is that its impossible to make comprehensive, useful rankings between institutions as different as a big state law schools and small, urban law schools who serve two entirely different student demographics.

Mardi Gras

As the season of Mardi Gras is upon us we would be remiss if we did not remind our patrons to beware of New Orleans Code 154-1036 - Parking in violation of Mardi Gras traffic plan.

(a)

No person shall stop or park a vehicle or other conveyance upon any street in the area of the Vieux Carre determined by the superintendent of police to be restricted as part of the Mardi Gras traffic plan between 6:00 p.m. on the Friday prior to Mardi Gras Day and 6:00 a.m. on the Wednesday after Mardi Gras Day. This violation shall be enforced only after the following conditions are met by the superintendent of police: Barricades shall be erected at intersections entering the restricted area; due notice shall be published in the city's official journal; any flyers outlining the Mardi Gras traffic plan, its boundaries, and restrictions shall be distributed to the public.

(b)

Any person stopping or parking a vehicle or other conveyance on-street in violation of the Mardi Gras traffic plan shall be subject to a fine, as set forth in section 154-699.

(c)

Unoccupied vehicles of whatever kind or description may be immediately removed or impounded by any police officer or other person duly authorized when found stopped or parked in violation of the Mardi Gras traffic plan, as set forth in section 154-777.

For many other New Orleans Code sections please see our hard copy code near the reference desk or Municode.com

Five Years

An odd anniversary has not gone unnoticed. Many newspaper stories and blogs have commented upon it. There has been much discussion of a rather singular silence. Tomorrow will mark the fifth anniversary of the last time that Justice Clarence Thomas has spoken during oral arguments.

Here are a few links to some of the stories:
http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/02/16/does-clarence-thomass-silence-matter?ref=us

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/13/us/13thomas.html?_r=1

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-02-16/when-keeping-your-mouth-shut-doesn-t-make-sense-commentary-by-ann-woolner.html

What to do with the law degree

Most people come to law school to become lawyers but there are many alternatives to the JD career path. One of our most used resources in the library is What can you do with a law degree? : a lawyer's guide to career alternatives inside, outside & around the law found at KF 297. A875. This post is about a specific alternative, law librarianship.

I admit I am a law librarian, and as such I'm biased, but these jobs really are an excellent alternative career for many. I will list a few of the general benefits

- Generally very static hours, which is excellent for the family centric
- No need to worry about being able to move from state to state and having to keep taking new bar exams (some jobs don't even require the bar license)
- No clients, while we do have students who are somewhat client like they rarely come with the emotion and perspective loss (think jail time, loss of child custody, bankruptcy) for practicing
- No 3 a.m. calls - if you have not practiced you probably don't understand that your clients will call you at ANY TIME since they have paid you to be their lawyer
- Generally work in a larger institution that worries about insurance, vacation, etc. - I know that many like to be independent figure out these decisions on their own but others take comfort of being part of the larger group which can spread risk and lower administrative costs

I have dozens more reasons but if you are interested I'm sure that any of our law librarians would be more than willing to talk with you about what the job consist of on a daily basis. Additionally, here are a couple of links for investigation on your own American Association of Law Librarians and Southeastern Chapter of AALL.

Attorney Advertising

The Fifth Circuit has struck down many of the Louisiana Bar's new, more stringent rules on advertising while upholding others. In Public Citizen v. Louisiana Attorney Disciplinary Board, the Court found that certain restrictions violated an attorney's right to commercial speech under the First Amendment. The LADB argued that the new rules were necessary to protect the public from deceptive advertising, but the Court rejected the Board's "assumption that Louisianians are insufficiently sophisticated to avoid being misled" by some of the ads in question. The opinion and related materials can be found on the Louisiana Bar's web site, http://www.lsba.org/2007MemberServices/lawyeradvertising.asp

New Title in the U.S. Code: Hello, 51 U.S.C. !!!

For over eighty years, the statutory law of the United States has been arranged into fifty titles of the U.S. Code. Fifty is a nice, even number, but there’s nothing legally significant about it. One of the titles, Title 34, has been empty since 1956 and no one seemed to care. Or notice.

Challenger Disaster Anniversary and Presidential Documents

Today is the 25th anniversary of the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster. The Challenger disintegrated seventy-three seconds after launch and that evening President Reagan, in lieu of his scheduled State of the Union address, spoke to the nation on the loss of the shuttle and its seven astronauts. His remarks, written by then-speechwriter and now-Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan, comforted the nation and evoked the tenuous nature of life with the words of WWII-era pilot and poet John Gillespie Magee, quoting his poem High Flight to say that the Challenger crew had “slipped the surly bonds of earth” to “touch the face of God”.

Politics and the Financial Meltdown

Congress established the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission in May of 2009 to conduct a bipartisan investigation into the financial and economic crisis. Yesterday, the FCIC issued its final report which concluded that the financial meltdown was "avoidable—the result of human actions, inactions, and misjudgments." It is no surprise that the Commission split along party lines in what commentators describe as routine partisan bickering. All of the Democrat members supported the final report, while the Republican members wrote dissenting reports. At least for now, the political drama threatens to overshadow the substantive work of the Commission. The report, the dissents, and background materials are available on the FCIC web site http://fcic.gov.

Not so funny ...

The National Law Journal is reporting that a certain unnamed bar applicant has been denied admission after (finally) passing the bar exam because of extenuating circumstances. Specifically cited are his criminal record and his failure to repay his student loans to this point.

What makes this story interesting is the applicant was one of his convictions was for "reckless conduct" involving an incident in which he pulled a seven inch knife on a store clerk in what the applicant claims was an "April's Fools Day" joke. The court does not cite to this as the sole reason for denying him based on character and fitness but it is definitely a story to be cognizant of when planning your "fun".

For more information on this particular story I recommend the NLJ article by Leigh Jones that is linked above.

The Library of Congress

The Library of Congress has many things that this library does not, including historical artifacts, murals, and a dome. And now, it has something that no other library in the country has--a resident raptor.

http://blogs.loc.gov/loc/2011/01/and-watch-a-hawk-makin-lazy-circles-in-the-dome/

Publish Post

Justices Laugh at Scalia

http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/scalia_is_funniest_and_grouchiest_justice_laughter_study_concludes/

Yes, someone conducted a study on who gets the most laughs.

This Washington Post chart shows from where the humor flows:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/graphic/2011/01/16/GR2011011604725.html?sid=ST2011011700433

A New Semester and A New Westlaw

If you haven’t noticed yet, Westlaw has unveiled a new version of its legal research service, “WestlawNext”. Westlaw has been slowly rolling out WestlawNext during the past year, and it is now available for law students around the country and here at Loyola New Orleans. But, at least for the time being, you still have the option of using either WestlawNext or Westlaw “Classic”, the version we’re all familiar with. What's the difference? Let’s take a look.

Elizabeth Moore

http://blogs.loc.gov/law/2011/01/interview-with-elizabeth-moore/

Here is an interview with Elizabeth Moore, now at the Library of Congress, who was our library's Deputy Director until 2008

The Public Library of Law

The Public Library of Law, http://www.plol.org, is a comprehensive source of primary law for both federal and state governments. PLOL contains the largest free database of U.S. case law, but registration is required to use the database. This web site also provides access to: constitutions, statutes and codes, regulations, and court rules. PLOL is powered by Fastcase.

The Law Student Guide to Free Legal Research

This new web site, http://freelaw.classcaster.net, is an excellent resource for conducting legal research on the Internet. It is especially designed for students but also contains materials for law librarians, research instructors and other legal researchers. The Guide currently includes research guides, links to primary and secondary sources, and teaching tools. And there is more to come.

Max Planck Encyclopedia

Do you need an idea for a paper or a project that involves an aspect of public international law? Browse through the wide range of articles in the Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law.

No, it is not on Lexis or Westlaw! It is an electronic resource subscribed to by the law library.

Access it through Research Quick Links at our online catalog page:

http://law.loyno.edu/library/research-quick-links

Start by using the "Quick Search" feature to put in a topic. A list of articles will appear, which are scholarly, give links to other articles, and provide a bibliography and list of documents to lead to further research.

JURIST;LEGAL NEWS AND RESEARCH

A web-based news source that is the only law-school based service in the world. Led by Professor Bernard Hibbitts at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, and his staff of law students, this is a comprehensive source to get up to date legal news of U.S. and world events.
Go to http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/currentawareness/
for insight into hot topics around the world! Read commentary, find actual documents, video clips and more at this valuable resource.

Interview with SCOTUS Justice Antonin Scalia

California Lawyer has released a short interview with Justice Anonin Scalia that might be of interest to some readers.