Vincent G. Rinn Law Library

Legal Mentoring A La Carte – Vimeo 7th Circuit Bar's Channels

For new lawyers embarking on their careers and also law students  contemplating future directions, mentoring by experienced practitioners can be very valuable. However, not all new lawyers, much less law students can be involved in a formal mentoring relationship.

While not being able to replace that kind of relationship, the Young Lawyers Committee of the Seventh Circuit Bar Association, has developed a more "bite-size" approach to mentoring, geared to busy new practitioners and law students.

What they have created are five video channels on the online video service called Vimeo. Most of the  videos are short and feature judges of the Seventh Circuit and attorneys who practice in the circuit.

They provide how-to guidance and tips, but also address such issues as  the relative merits of clerkships, pro bono work, areas of practice. They look at what values to cultivate and the challenges of the justice system itself.

They also speak to the relevance of the law school curriculum, hiring preferences, mistakes to avoid, personal career planning and even how to find a real-life mentor for your career.

The committee describes the aims of their project as, “It’s a way to gather and communicate wisdom and experience from one generation of lawyers to the next, by building a library of video clips of various judges and practitioners. We also seek to have younger lawyers gather these videos in order to make connections with judges and experienced practitioners.”

The videos are publicly accessible and can prove useful and convenient both for new attorneys and law students. Just pick a few from the extensive “menu”, to get started. You’ll probably want more.

 

Federal Student Loan Forgiveness Bill Introduced in House

U.S. Representative Hansen Clarke of Michigan has just recently introduced H.R. 4170, the Student Loan Forgiveness Act of 2012, which would extend a helping hand to those struggling under massive amounts of student loan debt. The bill was introduced, 3/8/2012, with twelve co-sponsors including Rep. Janice Schakowsky,  from the Ninth Congressional District of Illinois. The bill's introduction identifies both the needs of students and of the national economy, as reasons for this bill.

As tuition continues to rise, and total higher-education debt  has surpassed credit-card debt  for the first time, rising to $830 billion in mid-2010. The bills findings state, "Because of soaring tuition costs, students often have no choice but to amass significant debt to obtain an education that is widely considered a prerequisite for earning a living wage." 

For many families the unpredictability of tuition increases makes it difficult or impossible to know how to plan for saving for school expenses. If they want a college education, most students don't have a choice but to go into debt both through government and  private lenders loans.

Unlike other areas of borrowing, it is almost impossible to have student loans forgiven through bankruptcy. Also unlike consumer debtors, student borrowers can have their Social Security  and other federal benefits garnished for repayment. Private loans usually have higher interest rates than government loans. They also do not have provisions for easier repayment options for lower-income student nor options for participating in public-service loan forgiveness programs.  ( "Student Debt  Is the college-loan system fair?"  By Marcia Clemmitt ,  CQ Researcher,  Volume 21, Issue 37 )

Representative Hansen Clarke's bill attempts to provide some relief to student borrowers and their families  who find themselves entangled in these circumstances.

The bill also cites broader economic considerations beyond the individual students. "Excessive student loan debt is impeding economic growth in the United States. Faced with excessive repayment burdens, many individuals are unable to start businesses, invest, or buy homes. Relieving student loan debt would give these individuals greater control over their earnings and would increase entrepreneurship and demand for goods and services." ( See : "Student loan debt a growing threat to the economy" )

 

Author's summary of bill's provisions ( Double check legislative language )  :

1 )  "10/10 Loan Repayment Plan"  -  Limitation on monthly payments based on family income with  automatic deductions from bank account.

2 )  "10/10 Loan Forgiveness" - Eligibility if have made 120 monthly payments on a loan. Government will assume the loan or cancel the loan depending on factors involved, up to $45,520.  Forgiven loans will not to be included for income tax purposes.

3 )  Capping  interest rates for all Federal Direct Loans at 3.4% .

4 )  Extending public-service loan forgiveness to a full-time job as a primary care physician in an under-served area or population.

5 )  Creating a one year eligibility period for a  Federal Direct Consolidation Loan for private loans held by borrower. The consolidated loan interest will not exceed 3.4% .

 

Chasing the Moving Train of Digital Data

A 2008 RAND report on "Digital Preservation ; The Uncertain Future of Saving the Past",  states that " At a time when digital objects are being generated everywhere and technology is changing at unprecedented speed, developing an archiving strategy for these objects is like chasing a moving train."  Now, a  few years later, the report's observations retain their force.

Many institutions throughout the world are digitizing traditional analog content to create vast new national and international repositories of texts, images, recordings. While some these institutions address the need to preserve this digital content into the indefinite future, others do not.

Beyond the traditional digital content mentioned above, there is a constantly growing array of "born digital"objects and artifacts. Besides image-based objects, this can include such things as Spreadsheets,Patient records, Meteorological data, Seismological data, Multimedia works, Models and simulations, Geographical Information Systems data, Web content.

Some of these other forms of digital information are much more complex than images and require more complex techniques for long term preservation. To preserve these types of  interactive digital objects requires preserving the reactions to user input, that were intended in the original design. Their "functionality may be a crucial part of a digital object's intellectual content."   More layers of content preservation are required to be present to allow these digital resources to be reproduced with their functionality, into the future.

So many computer applications that we use become superseded in diminishing time periods. Both hardware and software go out of use and much content becomes inaccessible and unusable. Computer hardware, operating system software, application software and specific content mediated by  these components, must all be preserved to allow future generations  to reliably study what has come before.

The need is only growing day by day, but as the Rand report points out, "As yet there is not wide concern in the scholarly community about preserving the original behaviour of digital artifacts; the focus is mainly on guaranteeing access to  future ‘vernacular’ versions of page-image documents."

Preserving page-image documents is basic to any plan to maintain a record of out cultural and scientific production. Yet those institutions, traditionally charged with keeping this historical record, libraries, museums, government agencies, publishers, must begin turning their attention and resources toward the inherently digital artifacts, so that their contributions are not lost to history.

Two New Additions to HEINOnline

Supplement GPO Fdsys Holdings with Latest HeinOnline Addition of Congressioanl Hearings

The new GPO online government information system, FDsys, contains selected House and Senate hearings for the 105th Congress (1997-98) forward. ( Some single committee hearings for 99TH - 104TH Congresses)

A recent initial release of nearly 3000 hearings on HeinOnline, will provide  coverage for the period  from the 71st Congress (1927) through the 103rd Congress (1994). This significantly extends historical access beyond current FDsys holdings.

In March HeinOnline has loaded the scanned and searchable  PDF images of 1 million pages of content from the pretigious holdings of the the law firm of Covington & Burling. "Founded in Washington, D.C., in 1919, the international law firm of Covington & Burling has long been known as one of the preeminent law firms in the United States. Perhaps less well known, but equally as important, its library has been among the best of the country’s private law firm libraries. Moreover, the firm has a long history of contribution to law librarianship and the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL)."

HeinOnline plans to release additional hearings each month with plans to bring the collection up to date through the 112th Congress. Until GPO and library partners can scan older legacy depository collections, the HeinOnline loads will provide much additional content to users with access to both systems.

 

"National Archive" Nixon Grand Jury Records Now Also Available On HeinOnline

 In Novemeber, 2011, a federal court case by historians and archivists resulted in the public release of President Nixon’s grand jury testimony and the Special Prosecutors associated materials. ( See post : Historians' Law Suit Gets Release of Nixon Grand Jury Files )

Now these materials are also avaialble in two HeinOnline libraries : the U.S. Presidential Library  and the World Trials Library.

These document are also avaialble on GPO Fdsys web site, here.