Vincent G. Rinn Law Library

Keep Up With ABA Meeting On NLJ Blog

The American Bar Association Annual Meeting begins today in Chicago. See previous blog posting, here. Various news media will be covering it. But to get some of the inside developments including some that may not make the morning paper or the evening news, check out the national Law Journal's blog of the ABA meeting,  "ABA 2009/Chicago"  by Lynne Marek. Lynne has been news reporter since 1992, working for the Chicago Tribune,Bloomberg News, The National Law Journal and is now blogging for the first time to bring you coverage of the ABA meeting.

Federal Courts Try to Deal With Dead Links In Opinions

Most of us who use the internet for research find ourselves providing links to online materials to backup a quote or lead our readers to additional information. But as we well know, the passage of time, even a brief one, can  lead to some of those links becoming inoperative. For  many  reasons , online resources can come and go, move elsewhere or be altered, from  the moment we located them.  Judges confront this situation too.

An article in the July 2009 issue of  “The Third Branch”, quotes Judicial Conference Secretary, Jim Duff, “Judges are citing to and using Internet-based information in their opinions with increasing frequency,”. When a judge’s legal opinions have citations to internet  materials , their potential inaccessibility becomes a serious problem. Since attorneys cite opinions to support their legal arguments, missing citations and information from an opinion can seriously undermine its usefulness and maybe even its value.

The Judicial Conference has developed a series of “suggested practices” to attempt to deal with this somewhat pernicious problem. They recommend capturing and preserving the web pages cited in an opinion which would then be added as attachment to the opinion that had cited them. The article indicated that the recommendation came after a pilot study conducted by an ad-hoc working group of circuit librarians. Judges will retain the ability to decide which citations to preserve. “The attachment, like the opinion, would be retrievable on a non-fee basis through the Public Access to Court Electronic Records system.”

There is no mention of any intellectual property considerations that may impede the copying and saving of the online content. Since the judiciary is a branch of government carrying out its mandated function, it may not need permission to do this. This may be analogous to the situation of congressional  hearings that often include reproductions of copyrighted works along with the congressional testimony. However, this is in the print versions of the hearings. When the online version is produced, the copyrighted content is usually absent.

We will have to wait and see whether this may become a stumbling block for this seemingly elegant solution to the vanishing links problem in federal court opinions.

New Illinois Rules of Professional Conduct In Effect In 2010

“A new legal thriller is about to be published that every lawyer in Illinois should read. It has elements of intrigue, disputes over money, conflict, and sex and it will definitely have something of interest for every lawyer. It is called The Illinois Rules of Professional Conduct.”  With these facetious words, Alberto Bernabe ,Professor of Law, The John Marshall Law School, begins his law journal article, "Coming Soon to a Law Practice Near You: The New (and Improved?) Illinois Rules of  Professional Conduct".
(39 Loy. U. Chi. L.J. 691 2007-2008 )

A recent article in the National Law Journal, "Illinois revises code of conduct for lawyers" by Lynne Marek, 7/02/09, reports that  this “legal thriller” has been finally approved by the Illinois Supreme Court and its provisions will become effective for Illinois lawyers on January 1, 2010.

Since the 1980s most states have replaced their own professional conduct codes with a version of the ABA Model Rules. According to professor Bernade, the process in Illinois has moved through several iterations over several years.

“Illinois began the revision process in 1999 when the Illinois State Bar Association (“ISBA”) appointed a special committee to monitor the work of the ABA’s Ethics 2000 Commission and to consider recommendations for changes in the Illinois rules. In 2002, this committee became a joint committee of the ISBA and the Chicago Bar Association (“CBA”) which issued a final report with recommendations for changes in 2003. After considering comments on the report, the Joint Committee issued a new report in 2004, and submitted it to the Illinois Supreme Court Committee on Professional Responsibility, which reviewed it and issued its own report in which it agreed with most, but not all, of the recommendations of the Joint Committee.”  [ finalized in Jan. 2007 ]

According to the NLJ article, the version approved this year has gotten the input from lawyers, judges and law professors. The new rules make significant changes to the old Illinois rules in areas such as :

• adoption of Comments as well as the rules
• clarifying the relationship between the Rules of Disciplne and Civil Liability for malpractice
• expanding permissible disclosure of confidential information
• how lawyers should respond to inadvertently received documents
• prohibition of sex with  clients

The latter issue might be the only potentially “thrilling” part of the new Code. Unless one also includes the “thrill” of being brought up before the ARDC ( Attorney Registration & Disciplinary Commission ) or a court, for violations of its rules.

Three Latinas at DePaul Law School Reflect On Sotomayor

An article in yesterday's Chicago Tribune by Oscar Avila, presents the views of three female law students with Latino backgrounds from the DePaul University Law School, on the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court and how this historic event has affected their own journey to a legal career. Mr. Avila provides some  background information and presents quotes from each of the three local students.

Screening and discussion of “The Reckoning: The Battle for the International Criminal Court”

On Friday July 17 2009 from 5:30-8:00pm, at Chicago_Kent Law School,in the 10th floor Event room ( 565 West Adams Street   Chicago, IL 60661 ), there will be a showing of the film The Reckoning: The Battle for the International Criminal Court in honor of International Justice Day and in commemoration of the adoption of the Rome Statute, the treaty that established and now governs the International Criminal Court.

After the film there will be a panel discussion featuring Chicago-Kent College of Law Professor Bart Brown, Daniel Rothenberg, the Managing Director of International Projects for the DePaul University International Human Rights Law Institute. Attorney Dan Thomann will serve as moderator for the panel and Q&A.

The event is free however advance registration is required: please rsvp to Ms. Violeta Jimenez vjimenez@kentlaw.edu

I f you cannot attend the film showing at Chicago_Kent today, there is an opportunity to view the film online from July 15 - August 15, 2009, on the web site of the American Documentary (AMDOC), [ Click on "watch the entire film" ] . There is also additional information regarding the content of the film and a statement by the filmmaker.

“Law Lords" Turn Into Justices - Britain Gets A Supreme Court

While the American legal system owes much to the traditions of the British legal system, there has been a longstanding and significant difference regarding  the location of the final arbiter of legal questions. Under the doctrine of separation of powers, the founders made the the United States Supreme Court  an equal and separate branch of government. Although it took many years for the Court to develop its role and to  establish its power of judicial review of legislative & executive legal pronouncements.

However, for centuries , the British system has had the final appellate function located within the legislative House of Lords.  A committee of appointed “Law Lords” were the Court of Appeal  for the whole United Kingdom, except  for criminal appeals in Scotland. After a series of report and debates, the British government eventually decided that it was time to separate these basic governmental activities, through the Constitutional Reform Act of 2005. It establishes a separate Supreme Court made up 12 justices who will replace the House of Lords in its judicial capacity beginning Oct. 2009.

“Once sworn in, the 12 justices won't be allowed to return to the House of Lords until they have retired. Justices appointed in future will not be members of Parliament and will have no link to the House of Lords.” “In the future, newly appointed justices will be selected by the court's president, his deputy and representatives of the independent bodies that appoint judges to Britain's lower courts.”

The decisions made by the new Supreme Court will affect the cases brought in the lower courts across the UK. Unlike the US, the Court will not be able to strike down acts of Parliament.

Some observers point out that big changes should not be expected because initially,  the same people with the same jurisdiction, will be the judges in the new court. But over time with independent appointments and the ability to shape its own separate  role.  Might we see the British Supreme Court looking to the former colony’s legal traditions for guidance ?

SOURCES :

About the UK Supreme Court
United kingdom , Ministry of Justice

Britain prepares to open first Supreme Court
By LEFTERIS PITARAKIS (AP)  2009-07-15

Inside the UK Supreme Court
By Dominic Casciani  BBC News

Jenny Rowe: speech to the British and Irish Association of Law Librarians

Supreme Court Of The United Kingdom
The Supreme Court Rules 2009

DePaul Law Alum To Run For Illinois Governor

Illinois State Senator Kirk Dillard (R – Hinsdale), a 1982 DePaul Law School graduate who also serves on the Dean’s advisory council, is declaring his candidacy for governor.  An article in “The Times” newspaper ( Ottowa, Streator) indicates that  Mr. Dillard’s campaign will include such issues as taxes, ethics reform, job creation and education.

“Kirk Dillard has served in all three branches of state government. He was a judge for the Illinois Court of Claims, chief of staff for Gov. Jim Edgar, director of legislative affairs for Gov. James Thompson and was elected state senator in 1994.” Mr. Dillard is a partner at the Chicago law firm of Locke Lord Bissell & Liddell.

The Spring 2008 issue of the DePaul Law School magazine, Dialogue, has an interesting political profile of Mr. Dillard. Most interesting is his willingness to appear in an ad for Barak Obama with whom he worked closely on some major issues in the legislature. But as Mr. Dillard makes it clear, “Politics is always a game of friendships and relationships,”... “I think highly of Senator Obama and I respect him, but I’m a John McCain delegate.”

New Google Operating System – More About the Web Than the Box

The announcement that Google plans to develop its own operating system ( OS ) that can be used on the newer smaller netbook computers, has people wondering whether this may fundamentally challenge Microsoft in its  traditional stronghold.

Microsoft is well aware of the growth in the market for netbooks for which it’s desktop versions of  Vista and Windows-7 OSs are ill-suited. It has aggressively  pushed an abbreviated version of Windows for use in these netbooks.  This is meant to blunt the growth of Linux OS-based netbooks in the market. However, now it looks like Google is stepping into this market by developing its own Linux based OS for use in the web-centric netbooks.

However, there may be more than just the current competition for the netbook market, occurring here. A clue to what may be Google’s broader vision and plans, is the fact that their new OS is based on their recently introduced internet browser, Chrome.  In addition, Google has also been releasing what use to be traditional Windows desktop applications such as word processing  and  spreadsheets, for use over the internet.

If more applications can be moved to “the cloud” on the internet, the smaller the role for an OS inside the “computer box”, and the greater the need for an OS that fully integrates with this emerging “cloud computing” and the central tool that mediates this: the internet browser. It appears that Google’s new Linux-based OS is aimed directly at furthering this process which means that less software will be needed on the computer box itself, to run applications.

Competing versions of the Linux OS and non-Windows application packages like Google Apps , Open Office and Star Office,  have yet to seriously challenge the Windows OS dominance on computers  worldwide. Perhaps, Google’s “end around” the software in the computer box, via a web-centric OS and cloud computing applications, may yet present a more effective challenge to Microsoft.

Sources:

Introducing the Google Chrome OS
Google Blog, 7/07/2009

Google Challenges Microsoft With New Chrome Operating System
By Thomas Claburn  InformationWeek   July 8, 2009

Google to challenge Microsoft with launch of own operating system
Press Trust of India / Washington July 8, 2009

Would You Miss Windows With a Google Operating System?
By Saul Hansell   New York Times,  July 8, 2009

American Bar Association Units Re-examine Law School Accreditation

While the American Bar Association annual meeting in Chicago is about a month away, the ABA Center for Professional Responsibility just recently finished its 35th National Conference on Professional Responsibility (May 27-30) in our town. While several issues were on the agenda, one may be of particular interest to our readers.

The ABA Section of Legal Education has begun a comprehensive review of the ABA law school accreditation standards. Members of the Accreditation Standards Review Committee  discussed the committee’s approach and some of the hot button issues and sought input from the attendees, as to possible improvements in the standards.

A recent article in the ABA Journal, "Sweeping Accreditation Review May Prompt ‘Sea Change’ in Law School Evals", By James Podgers, Jun 3, 2009,  reports on some of the discussion that took place at the meeting :

“The most significant change in the Standards for Approval of Law Schools is likely to be a move away from evaluating law schools on the basis of criteria that measure “input”—such things as faculty size, budget and physical plant. Instead, the Legal Education Section would evaluate law schools more heavily on the basis of “outcome” measures.”

“Other key issues the Standards Review Committee will look at include “security of position” for law school professors and other teachers, which will encompass the tenure structure. The committee also will consider ways to make the law school accreditation and review process more transparent.”

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The Section of Legal Education & Admission to the Bar of the ABA which has the responsibility for the accreditation of law schools has relevant reports that have been produced within the last few years that present different positions on some of these “hot button” issues. Here are three that may be of interest to our readers:

REPORT OF SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON SECURITY OF POSITION, 5/5/08

ALDA - American Law Deans Association Security of Position comment, July 21, 2008

Special Committee on Security of Position, July 21, 2008

DePaul Law Librarian Speaks At Wayne State Seminar

A previous posting on this blog reported that one of our reference Librarians and legal research instructors, Mark Giangrande, was invited to participate in a seminar at Wayne State University Law School, entitled “Getting Started – Switching Gears: Practical Advice for Attorneys in Transition.”

The seminar was well received and was a front page story In the Detroit Legal News,  "Switching gears - Seminar coaches lawyers on how to find jobs in tight economy"  by Cynthia Price . The focus of the program on providing advice for  finding employment in the very tough legal market , brought out over 50 attendees. In addition to the informative presentations by several speakers  and responses to questions,  each participant left with a CD with tips for establishing  an effective Web site quickly and a multi-page handout, “Career Transition Strategies and Resources,” which included 19 pages of internet resources.

Mark said he enjoyed being part of the seminar and would be willing to participate in future programs of this type. Given the depth of the economic crisis out there, they probably will be needed.