Vincent G. Rinn Law Library

Video Podcasts of Bar Skills Workshops,Now Available!

If you plan to take the Illinois bar exam this February and missed any of the recent Bar Skills Workshops conducted by Professor Alba, you can now view them at your convenience by clicking on the following link: https://itunes.depaul.edu/login.aspx. Log in with your CampusConnect username and password, then click on College of Law > Rinn Law Library > tab marked “Video.”

Watch Workshop 1 first to get an overview of the exam. Workshop 2 covers the essay portion of the exam, and Workshop 3 covers the multiple-choice portion. The podcast for Workshop 4 (which will be conducted this week – see below) will be posted next week. Each workshop video is divided into multiple segments. Handouts for all workshops are available for copying at the reserve desk in the Rinn Library.

( Source: College of Law Student Newsletter Oct. 31, 2008 )

Current Listing Law Library I-Tunes Videos

DePaul Senior Research Fellow, Jody Raphael, on CNBC Program

"Dirty Money: The Business of High-End Prostitution" will air on Tuesday November 11th at 10PM & 1AM ET. It's about the clandestine world of prostitution among the super rich. The program will feature interviews with two authors :

Michael Bader, psychologist and author, Male Sexuality: Why Women Don't Understand It and Men Don't Either, and Elizabeth Bernstein, sociologist, Barnard College and author, Temporarily Yours: Intimacy, Authenticity, and the Commerce of Sex. Several women who worked as "escorts" will provide insights into the unique rules and practices of  this business.       

                         Three other experts will also be interviewed for the program, including Jody Raphael from DePaul, who recently co-authored a report on "Domestic sex trafficking of Chicago women and girls".

Law Professor on "60 Minutes" Show on "Credit Derivatives"

Sunday night the CBS news program "60 Minutes" had a segment on the role that credit default swaps play in the current economic crisis. It was a follow-up to a program three weeks ago on the crisis in the credit market. As the reporter said, "there's a lot more to tell". The focus of this progream was on the financial instruments called "credit derivatives" or "credit default swaps", which Warren Buffet has called, "financial weapons of mass destruction". One of the persons interviewed for the story is  law professor, Frank Partnoy, from the University of San Diego Law School who has written books and articles on these issues.

An audio podcast of the "60 minutes" broadcast which includes Profeesor's Partnoy's comments can be  downloaded from the WBBM radio web site, at this link.

For additional background on professor Partnoy's statements, here are three of his online articles that have examined the risks of new financial products being introduced in an unregulated marketplace. The most recent article posits that a rethinking of the fundamental principles of corporate law may be in order given the pace of financial innovation.

FINANCIAL INNOVATION AND CORPORATE LAW
University of San Diego , School of Law Legal Studies Research Paper Series
Research Paper No. 07-89,  April 2007
Frank Partnoy

The Promise and Perils of Credit Derivatives
University of Pennsylvania Law School
Scholarship at Penn Law  Year 2006  Paper 125
Frank Partnoy, David A. Skeel Jr.

The Dark Side of Derivatives: A Book Note on Infectious Greed: How Deceit and Risk Corrupted the Financial Markets
Frank Partnoy
North Carolina Banking Institute Journal
Volume 8,  p. 289  2004

PACER Adds Audio to Docket

Pacer has added audio from selected District and Bankruptcy courts to the docket listings in the service.  These recordings will be available for download for a fee of 8 cents aside from any fees associated with the docket reports.  Some courts, such as the Seventh Circuit, have had audio recordings of oral arguments for some time.  This is a bit different.  Transcripts have traditionally not been available through Pacer, even though they may be in the court file.  The audio recordings are not a substitute, but they may help determine if one needs to order up a transcript.  The press release is here.

Cross-posted with permission from the Tech Law Prof Blog,

University "Legal Hold and Record Preservation" Policy

DePaul has recently communicated  the policy on "Legal Hold and Record Preservation" to employees. [ accessible to DePaul staff ] It relates to the process of discovery in which relevant information is exchanged between parties in a lawsuit. It is conducted via production of documents, electronic data and the taking of depositions. Because of the immense growth in the volume of electronically stored information in most of our institutions. Special rules were promulgated to handle it appropriately in the litigation process. These became part of the official Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.

As part of complying with these rules, the university policy requires that, "Under certain circumstances, including when legal action involving the University is commenced or reasonably anticipated, the University must preserve all documents and information that may be relevant to the matter.  As soon as the Office of the General Counsel is made aware of circumstances giving rise to this obligation, a "Legal Hold" directive will be issued to the key record custodians."

The following paragraph in the policy explains that it is not always a matter of just waiting to hear from the General Counsel's Office to begin the process. " All members of the University who become aware of any information that suggests, as described above, the duty to preserve documents and information may be triggered or otherwise implicated must promptly inform the Office of the General Counsel."

Employees need to pay attention to these policies as the consequences for non-compliance can be severe for both the individual and the institution. " Individuals who have been notified of a Legal Hold may not alter, dispose of, or transfer or destroy any document or information that falls within the scope of the Legal Hold.  Violation of the Legal Hold may subject the individual to disciplinary action, up to and including dismissal for employees, as well as potential legal sanction by the applicable court or law enforcement agency."

The policy and the attached appendices provide more information re. the type of data, its location and procedures to be followed to comply with a litigation hold.

Two articles from Educause Magazine provide additional background for implimenting litigation holds in the higher education area. The "Question & Answer" one is directed at employees and goes into more detail including some  personal privacy concerns over certain  information stored at work and at home.

Electronically Stored Information and the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure
M. Peter Adler  May/June 2007

Frequently Asked Questions - Electronic Discovery and Data Preservation

Feds Catch Up With Burge - Indictment by US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald

The US Attorneys Office for the Northern District of Illinois has indicted former Chicago Police Cmdr. Jon Burge for obstruction of justice and perjury stemming from statements that Burge made in the civil suit of Hobley v. Burge, et al., filed in 2003 in U.S. District Court in Chicago. The indictment comes with weeks to spare on the statute of limitations for such charges.

DePaul law Professor Len Cavise was quoted on Oct. 21 on the ABC channel 7, 10PM news, regarding Burge's indictment, "This is the culmination of twent-two years of begging. Twenty-two years of begging the City of Chicago to see what's right in front of their face that these cops were torturing people sytematically for years". ( See "Perjury and Obstruction of Justice" video )

DePaul law Professor and former head of the Illinois Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, Andrea D. Lyon, was quoted in a New York Times story about the indictment, “I believe there are 40 to 50 cases where there was evidence of torture and the primary evidence against the defendant was a confession,”

Flint Taylor, one of the defense lawyer, who has called for investigations of Mr. Burge and his officers for decades, said,  “It’s a start, after 25 years." "After years of struggle, maybe a modicum of justice will be attained here.”

( Source: Ex-Officer Linked to Brutality Is Arrested  By SUSAN SAULNY and ERIC FERKENHOFF, NYT Published: October 21, 2008 )

Allegations of routine torture by Burge and his subordinates underlie the Hobley  case and the police department  scandal that has lasted over 20 years. A Special States Attorney report in 2006 documented that Burge and his subordinated used torture on several people in their custody to compel confessions. Burge was fired in 1993 after the Chicago Police Review Board ruled that he tortured Andrew Wilson into giving a confession. However, no one involved had ever been criminally prosecuted for any of these actions, with the statute of limitations having run out for the potential defendants. The City of Chicago has settled several civil suits with plaintiffs for millions of dollars.

Text: U.S. v. Burge The SPECIAL FEBRUARY 2008-2 GRAND JURY (pdf)

Election Related Lawsuits - More to Come ?

An article in today's Chicago Tribune reports on the efforts of both the Obama and McCain  campaigns to recruit a large number of volunteer attorneys to protect the integrity of the voting process. A spokesperson from the Obama campaign is quoted that, "The purpose of our voter protection program is not to file lawsuits," "Lawsuits are a last resort."

However, in this  pre-election period, several lawsuits have already been filed. They mostly involve the validity of voter registrations in several states :

Ohio governor accuses GOP of scare tactics
By STEPHEN MAJORS,  Octover 21, 2008
Associated Press

Ruling on Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen's lawsuit on voter verification could swamp state's municipal clerks
By Nathaniel Shuda, For the Wausau Daily Herald, October 19, 2008

McCain's old voter-fraud saw - His attack on ACORN undercuts real efforts to improve the system.
Editorial  Los Angeles Times,  October 20, 2008

ACORN Accusations
McCain makes exaggerated claims of "voter fraud." Obama soft-pedals his connections.
FactCheck.org ,  Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania
October 18, 2008

Two Impressive Writing & Citing Add-Ons For Firefox Browser

The WisBlawg - From the UW Law Library , produced by Bonnie Shucha, Head of Reference, has two postings about  free products that can greatly simplify the writing process for users of the Firefox browser :

CiteGenie Creates Bluebook Citations from Westlaw

See Review of CiteGenie on LLRX.com


A Must Have: Zotero Manages the Entire Research & Writing Process

"Zotero is a free, easy-to-use Firefox extension to help you collect, manage, and cite your research sources."

Law Library Adds Records for "BNA-ALL" to Online Catalog

Almost a year ago, this blog alerted DePaul law users to the subscription that the law library has to over 130 databases from the publisher BNA ( Bureau of National Affairs), in areas like antitrust, corporate law, health care, IP, international trade, securities, tax, and others.

These valuable resources can be accessed from the law library database list. And now, also directly from the online catalog. Working with BNA and the statewide library consortium known as CARLI, our associate director for computer services, Michael Schiffer and Denise Glynn, our cataloger, have added the BNA- provided  records for these databases, to our online catalog. Users can get a listing of all the records by doing a "Title"  search for the terms: "BNA ALL" . While there are 130+ databases presently available, there are over 690 catalog records. This is because each title, in such series as the Tax management, Corporate Practice and Foreign Income portfolios, has its own individual record. Each record has a direct link to the respective BNA database.

Users should also be aware that BNA provides "Educational & Training Resources" to provide  help in using their database products.

Faculty users may be interested in some of the provisions of the BNA License Agreement :

• Course Packs - Customer and Authorized Users may use a reasonable portion of the Licensed Products in the preparation of Course Packs.

• Electronic Reserve - Customer and Users may use a reasonable portion of the Licensed Products for use in connection with specific courses of instruction offered by Customer.

• Electronic Links - Customer may provide electronic links to the Licensed Products from Customer's web page(s), and is encouraged to do so in ways that will increase the usefulness of the Licensed Products to Users.

• Scholarly Sharing - On an occasional basis, Users may transmit to a third party colleague in hard copy or electronically, minimal, insubstantial amounts of the Licensed Products for personal use or scholarly, educational, or scientific research or professional use but in no case for re-sale, broad distribution, or on a routine or systematic basis. In addition, Users have the right to use, with appropriate credit, figures, tables and brief excerpts from the Licensed Products in the User's own scientific, scholarly and educational works.

These are exceptions for academic use. For general restrictions and permissions see :
BNA Copyright and Usage Guidelines

New ABA Magazine to Cover Intellectual Property Law

The first new magazine introduced by ABA Publishing in nearly seven years, called "Landslide",is debuting with the Sept/Oct 2008 issue. It is published by the ABA's Section of Intellectual Property Law and " is dedicated to sharing IP knowledge and experience acquired on the frontlines of legal practice, business, the arts and science, exploring national and international legal arenas.

It will be "a bi-monthly magazine that offers news and analysis on patents, trademarks, copyrights and related topics. Written by and for an audience of intellectual property lawyers, the magazine will cover this rapidly evolving legal specialization through an emphasis that includes business, technology, the arts, legislation and international developments."

The cover article, 'Virtual Worlds, Real World Issues", by Sean F. Kane and Benjamin T. Duranske, looks at the "virtual worlds" that have evolved from the original text-based role playing games into sophisticated 3-D environments in which the participants can engage in various activities with each other that mirror those to be found in the real world. It examinse some of the economic and legal implications of these developing activities in the digital world as well as in the actual one.

One of the co-authors of the article, Benjamin T. Duranske, , has written a book about these same issues   entitled, " Virtual Law: Navigating the Legal Landscape of Virtual Worlds", It is published by the ABA Section of Science and Technology Law. The book website states that "If you are one of the many who have read about and heard about virtual worlds but do not really understand what a virtual world is, or even how to use appropriate terminology when discussing them, then this is the book for you."

A good overview of  the alternative digital world phenomenon and the growing  real world applications, can be found in the recent testimony before the Committee on Energy and Commerce by Laurence F. Johnson, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer  The New Media Consortium, entitled “Online Virtual Worlds: Applications and Avatars in a User-Generated Medium”.