| President’s Selection of a Nominee for a Supreme Court Vacancy: Overview | Following Justice Kennedy’s departure from the U.S. Supreme Court, the website “Every CRS Report” provides info on the process for selecting a new Justice. It also links to CRS Report R44235, Supreme Court Appointment Process: President’s Selection of a Nominee.
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| The Longform Guide to the Supreme Court | beSpacific links to a cache of in-depth stories on the Supreme Court hosted by Longform.org. Article authors include Jill Lepore, Thomas L. Dybdahl, Justice John Paul Stevens, and Jeffrey Toobin.
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| 14 editing tips | Wayne Schiess shares fourteen editing tips on his blog, legalwriting.net. They include “build in ample time for editing” and “employ an editing checklist—a list of mistakes you make, of required parts the document needs, and of formatting and other matters to check.”
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| Explaining the First Citation in Every Supreme Court Slip Opinion | This statement is at the top of the original form of every Supreme Court opinion: NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued. The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader. See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337. Why? Orin Kerr on reason.com explains; it stems from a 1906 property dispute. Click through to the blog post to learn more. |
| Getting a password manager is the most important way to improve your online security | The Washington Post recommends Dashlane, used by over 10 million people, as the best password manager available today. Free for use on a single device, and $3.33 per month for multiple devices, it can securely sync your passwords across computers, phones, and tablets; it also sends you a new password via an app each time you try to log into a password-protected program. It hasn’t been hacked since 2015 – and even then, no passwords were stolen. This beSpacific blog post links to both the Washington Post article and the Dashlane website itself.
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| 13 New Exhibitors at AALL Annual Conference: ILS Software, Data, Training Vendors | Jean O’Grady of the Dewey B Strategic blog highlights the 13 “first time exhibitors” who attended the AALL Conference in Baltimore, held July 14-16th. Companies included Gobi (a web-based acquisition tool for managing both print and e-books) and Tyler Technologies (court workflow and records management services).
If you attended the AALL Conference, let us know if you chatted with reps from any of these companies! We’d love to get your opinion and schedule a Fall 2018/Spring 2019 lunch-and-learn program with anyone who knocked your socks off!
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| Win for Public Right to Know: Court Vacates Injunction Against Publishing the Law | A win for those dedicated to preserving public, equitable access to information: “A federal appeals court today ruled that industry groups cannot control publication of binding laws and standards. This decision protects the work of Public.Resource.org (PRO), a nonprofit organization that works to improve access to government documents. PRO is represented by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), the law firm of Fenwick & West, and attorney David Halperin.” Click the link for more info and the full opinion.
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| The last 22 years of UK politics just became searchable online | In an email from WPLLA member Joel Fishman, the new UK politics archive “contains over 1.4 billion web pages, documents and social media posts, from the ‘dodgy’ Iraq dossier to ministers’ tweets.” Though the main link requires a user account, the links in the body of the email to the UK Government Web Archive and GOV.UK are free and open to the public. |
| Congress.gov New, Tip, and Top for July 2018 | The second set of enhancement to Congress.gov went live in June 2018; one area of focus “is on enhancing committee data.”
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| Beware the Hidden Costs of Bad Formatting | “The Legal Office Guru has heard every excuse in the book for why law firms skimp on training, and reader Roberta Gelb forwarded an article illustrating how firms could be losing up to $400,000/year on basic editing mistakes that need to be painstakingly corrected. The post also includes a downloadable Word Skills Checklist so you can make sure you’re one of the competent, capable ones in the office!
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| One more time – No, Amazon Cannot Replace Libraries | After Forbes magazine published the article, “Amazon Should Replace Local Libraries to Save Taxpayers Money,” the world erupted. Folks were especially upset with the author “. . . picking Amazon—notorious for its horrible treatment of employees, and accusations of ruining the cities it opens warehouses in—as a potential replacement.” “[T]he notion that libraries aren’t worth their value to taxpayers—one that fails to take into account the financial returns of a library and expenses of buying these items on one’s own—fails to address the vast importance a library has on its community as a physical space open to anyone in the public.” Forbes has since removed the anti-free-libraries article from its website.
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| The Librarian And The Astrophysicist | As WPLLA member Rita Young noted, Forbes quickly followed up their anti-free-libraries article with a pro-library article; “[a] bit of an ‘oops, we’re sorry.” This new mea culpa was written by an astrophysicist/library-enthusiast.
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| Three Technologies Transforming the Legal Field | “Thomson Reuters’ 2018 Report on the State of the Legal Market surmised that declining profit margins, weakening collections, falling productivity, and loss of market share to alternative legal service providers are chipping away at the foundations of firm profitability.” But there are ways to “counteract these market pressures and to differentiate . . . from competitors.” Review this beSpacific post linking to a Law Technology Today article to learn more about analytics, blockchain, OCR, and other cost-effective services.
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| Judicial Opinions of Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh and his very bigly paper trail | Coordinating three articles from the Congressional Research Service, The Hill, and the Washington Post, this beSpacific post analyzes Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh and the nearly 1,500 decisions he has adjudicated. Some suggest his paper trail “tops a million pages.”
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Western Pennsylvania Law Library Association 