Welcome back for the second half!

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As the countdown to exams, and for 3L students, hooding, commences in earnest, here is some helpful information as you resume classes, buckle down on your studies, and prepare for oral argument.

This Week’s Featured Resources for Oral Argument

Be sure to visit the library display area for more resources on oral advocacy!

A Slightly Shorter Spring Break Than You May Have Wanted

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Spring Forward Into Spring Break

Faithful readers know that the college’s spring break is next week, March 12 – 16, and this year its opening weekend features the start of Daylight Saving Time across most of the United States. As you lament the loss of an hour, whether you would have spent it studying, partying, or sleeping, here are a few DST facts to ponder.

  • Benjamin Franklin is commonly credited with suggesting an adjustment in the clock to provide more hours of daylight at the end of the business day. At that point there were not standard time zones; rather, most localities set their noon hour based on observation of the sun through the seasons. With the advent of railroads in the nineteenth century, local time zones made it a challenge to published train schedules, spurring the adoption of standardized time zones.
  • Daylight Saving Time was implemented on a sporadic basis in the twentieth century, and became a little more widespread following World War II. However, in the mid-1960’s there was still a patchwork of setting the clock ahead. For example, if one traveled along the eastern seaboard of the U.S., crossing the Mason-Dixon line meant setting the clock ahead or back, depending on the direction of travel, during the summer months.
  • In 1966 Congress passed the Uniform Time Act of 1966, Pub. L. 89-387, 80 Stat.107. A year later (mostly) nationwide Daylight Saving Time launched on the last Sunday of April and concluded on the final Sunday of October. The dates for DST were expanded to early January during the energy crisis of the mid-1970’s, before Congress realized that extending darkness during the winter morning hours was not a particularly good thing to do, and the April – October dates returned until 2007, when Congress again acted to set the period from the second Sunday in March to the first Sunday in November.
  • While ostensibly the use of DST would save energy, the study mandated by the 2007 change did not find substantial savings. Furthermore, the change has documented effects on health, particulary in the spring, when the shift to awakening earlier for most of us on the Monday after the change results in a groggy population having more car accidents and other untoward health events.
  • States may opt out of DST; Arizona and Hawaii do, and over the years Indiana has altered its participation by portions of the state. Hence, when looking at time zone settings on your computer, you may have noticed UTC -5:00 Indiana (East).

So take it easy on yourself next week!

Library &Lexis Lunch & Learn on Wednesday

Join Susan Boland and Ashley Russell for a session on Advanced Searching. Lunch provided and Lexis points awarded. Wednesday, March 7th, from 12:15 – 1:15 P.M. in Rom 302. Advance registration is required.

Women’s History Month: NALP Statistics

This month Susan Boland’s library display features statistics on women lawyers in law firms, including proportion of partnership and associate positions held by women in Ohio.

Featured Resources

Are you getting ready for the MPRE Exam? Take a look at these helpful aids.

 

This Week: Judge in Residence

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The Honorable Shira Scheindlin (ret.)

Judge Scheindlin, retired from the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, will trace the history of the relationship between law enforcement and race from the Civil War to the present. She will address how this history explains many of the current issues surrounding police practices and how they impact people of color. Her talk will cover the legal standards to be applied in the controversial areas of stop and frisk, when use of force is justified, and whether the standards for either are sufficiently clear. She will touch on the problem of mass incarceration and its effect on minority communities. Finally, she will address some reforms and solutions to the continued problem of the relationship between the police and the community.

Judge Shira A. Scheindlin, who was appointed to the bench in 1994, authored many landmark decisions during her 22-year tenure with the Southern District of New York. Her opinions in electronic case management were highly influential in the development of electronic discovery standards. E.g. Zubulake v. UBS Warburg, 217 F.R.D. 309 (S.D.N.Y. 2003). Judge Scheindlin also wrote a series of opinions addressing challenges to stop-and-frisk policies in New York City, which resulted in a significant overhaul of the city’s policing practices. E.g. Floyd v. City of New York, 959 F. Supp. 2d 540 (S.D.N.Y. 2013).

Since 2016, Judge Scheindlin has been of counsel at Stroock & Stroock & Lavan, LLP where she is part of the Litigation Practice Group and serves as an arbitrator and mediator. Judge Scheindlin is a frequent author and lecturer and has been an adjunct professor for more than 30 years, teaching at Brooklyn and Cardozo Law Schools.

Featured Resources

 

It’s the Perfect Day to Consider How to Research Presidential Actions

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George Washington’s Birthday

I noted in this space a year ago that the official name of the federal holiday marked on the third Monday of February is George Washington’s Birthday, and that it is through the efforts of retailers that we have come to call it “President’s Day” in common vernacular. Whatever name we choose, it is a good day to consider how to research presidential action. If you follow the news at all, then you know that presidents issue “executive orders” to accomplish policy goals and proclamations to note an event or idea. An executive order may mandate subsequent action by executive agencies, such as issuing or rescinding regulations, or by exercising prosecutorial descretion by prioritizing actions based on resource limitations. Other actions include signing statements regarding enacted bills and memoranda. Whatever the action, it will originate in a written document that, unless it concerns a classified action, will likely be published and publicly accessible.

Presidential documents first appear in the Federal Register, the business daily publication of the National Archives and Records Administration. That publication includes proposed rulemakings, final rules, and notices of agencies as well. Presidential documents are then gathered into a Daily Compilation of Presidential Documents that is published online. Depending on the time period of interest, they may be included in the series Public Papers of the Presidents.

Annually the presidential documents are compiled in Title 3 of the Code of Federal Regulations, the publication that compiles and codifies all the regulations that are published in the Federal Register. Unlike the regulations in the other titles, Title 3 contains only presidential documents from a given year, generally approximating the calendar year, and depending on the closing date for publication of that issue of Title 3. Also, Presidential documents are not organized by chapter and section numbers, so they are cited by their name and the page number on which they start, followed by the year of the Title 3 edition.

These publications are available online at govinfo, the second generation digital platform that succeeds FDSys, the first such system launched by the Government Publishing Office. Many are available at the Legal Information Institute, and are also included by commercial legal database providers, such as LexisNexis, Westlaw, Bloomberg Law, and Fastcase. In addition to using full text searching in the online versions, published finding aids include an index to the CFR, and lists of sections affected for the Federal Register and parts affected for CFR. In the library, you will find the print version of C.F.R. and of recent issues of the Federal Registare in the Federal Materials Room. For additional information, please see the Presidential Materials section of Susan Boland’s Research Guide to Administrative Law.

This Week: Research Training and Resources for Taxing Problems

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Research Training Sessions

  • Tuesday, February 13th
    • Professor Oliver’s Section 1
      • Federal Law with Ron Jones
      • 10:40 A.M. – 12:05 P.M. in Room 100A
    • Professor Oliver’s Section 3
      • Federal Law with Ron Jones
      • 1:30 – 2:55 P.M. in Room 100A
  • Thursday, February 15th
    • Professor Smith’s Section 5
        • Federal Law with Susan Boland
        • 9:00 – 10:40 A.M. in Room 100A
    • Professor Bradley’s Section 4
      • Federal Law with Shannon Kemen
      • 10:40 A.M. – 12:05 P.M. in Room 302
    • Professor Bradley’s Section 2
      • Federal Law with Shannon Kemen
      • 1:30 – 2:55 P.M. in Room 302
  • Wednesday, February 21st
    • Library & Lexis Lunch & Learn with Susan Boland and Ashley Russell
      • Brief Citation Tools; Lunch provided & earn Lexis points.
      • 12:15 – 1:15 P.M. in Room 302; RSVP by February 19th.

 

Featured Resources

Income tax filing season has launched; with April 15th a Sunday and the 16th Emancipation Day in Washington, D.C. and Patriots Day in some New England states, you’ve got an extra two days to submit your federal return this year. Here are resources to help with that, or your studies for income taxation.

 

Don’t Forget Valentine’s Day

We’re sure you’ve already remembered your sweetheart, so check out the library display on “Love and the Law.”

Black History Month Begins – Employment Statistics

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Minority Hiring at Law Firms

Associate Director for Public and Research Services Susan Boland has included information on the representation of African Americans in law firms in this week’s library display. The statistics show the percentage of lawyers at the associate and partner label nationwide and in Ohio’s three major legal markets. You can view the information in the Marx Law Library’s digital display or view a PDF of it here.

Research Training Sessions

    • Tuesday, February 6th
      • Freedom Center Journal training with Susan Boland
      • 12:15 – 1:15 P.M. in Room 302
    • Tuesday, February 13th
      • Professor Oliver’s Section 1
        • Federal Law with Ron Jones
        • 10:40 A.M. – 12:05 P.M. in Room 100A
      • Professor Oliver’s Section 3
        • Federal Law with Ron Jones
        • 1:30 – 2:55 P.M. in Room 100A
    • Thursday, February 15th
      • Professor Smith’s Section 5
        • Federal Law with Susan Boland
        • 9:00 – 10:40 A.M. in Room 100A
      • Professor Bradley’s Section 4
        • Federal Law with Shannon Kemen
        • 10:40 A.M. – 12:05 P.M. in Room 302
      • Professor Bradley’s Section 2
        • Federal Law with Shannon Kemen
        • 1:30 – 2:55 P.M. in Room 302

 

Featured Resources

There Oughta Be A Law!

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And there may be one…

The sentiment expressed in the post’s title, which has been used as the title of a newspaper comic strip created by Al Fagaly and Harry Shorten, commonly comes to mind when one complains about a situation that seems unfair or patently stupid. “The law” in the United States is made up of two distinctive sources: court decisions of first impression and later ones modifying them, together making the “common law,” and statutes, which are enacted by legislative bodies. The phrase typically refers to this latter source.

Statutory law affects each of us in some way every day. Obeying speed limits, paying taxes, avoiding littering — these are all responses to statutes and ordinances that establish requirements for participating in society. Law students and lawyers do well by learning how to research the history of a given set of laws, i.e., how the sausage got made. To that end, please check out this week’s library display on statutory interpretation, and consider the following resources:

 

Upcoming Research Training Sessions

  • Library & Lexis Lunch & Learn
    • Researching Paper Topics with Susan Boland and Ashley Russell
    • Thursday, February 1st, 12:15 – 1:15 P.M. in Room 302
    • Lunch & Lexis points, please R.S.V.P. by January 30th!
  • Legislative & Statutory Interpretation with Susan Boland
    • Thursday, February 1st, 3:00 – 4:00 P.M. in Room 306