17 May 2007. The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals offers a Wiki for local practice and procedure. Launched in May 2007, there is not a lot of commentary posted yet. Currently, researchers will find the Practitioner's Handbook for Appeals.
According to a legal news article on the Wiki, its "goal is to concentrate on procedure (in both the court of appeals and the district courts) but not to cover substance." Registration using your real name and an active e-mail address is required. 6 January 2004. Appellate attorney Matthew J. Conigliaro comments on Florida appellate court decisions as well as litigation in the 11th Circuit. The site also features links to Florida and 11th Circuit court rules. The site's RSS/XML news feed consists of headlines and the full-text of the Weblog item 24 January 2002. This site boasts a collection of over 5,000 legal forms -- about 2,000 of which are available for free to registered users. Coverage includes affidavits, applications, bankruptcy, business, corporation, divorce, leases, partnership, rent, statements, trademark, and trusts. Also find practical plain English articles from Nolo.com and a forms search feature. 11 January 2008. Revised 16 January 2008. This Law Practice Today article summarizes how to authenticate digital photos and enter them as evidence. It discusses the role of metadata, and it outlines authentication procedures. 11 January 2008. This short blog comment highlights the type of information you might find hidden in the metadata of digital photos. It also points out: "[D]igital cameras will often embed a small thumbnail image of the photo as originally taken. In many cases, if you subsequently edit the photo, the original thumbnail remains. If the image is edited to cut out someone who didn't want to be photographed or if you blur the face of someone to protect their privacy, that information may still be available to anyone who gets the image." The article ends with a link to an FBI photo that has since been removed. However, the link to the source that discovered the metadata is worth investigating. 21 February 2008. A joint project of The Harvard Law Review Association, the Columbia Law Review Association, The Yale Law Journal Company, and the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, The Bluebook provides search and browse access to legal profession's method of legal citation. While you may browse the index, table of contents, and even the Bluebook tips, for free, full access requires a subscription key, which you may obtain through the purchase link or through buying the book in a bookstore.
According to the site documentation, this online edition is provides the same content "as the printed Eighteenth Edition."
Technical note: Use of the site requires javascript. 17 December 2004. Revised 9 December 2005. Find a commercial database of briefs filed in U.S. federal and state courts. Search by keyword, case name or attorney name to find information, including an abstract, about matching briefs. Downloading briefs incurs a charge, but the searching is free. Registered users (free) can take advantage of an e-mail notification service for discovering briefs that match your search terms. 6 January 2004. Sponsored by the Samuelson Law, Technology, and Public Policy Clinic at Boalt Hall School of Law at the University of California, Berkeley, BriefBank contains a small collection of briefs in the area of law, technology and public policy. Search by party name or court to retrieve brief bibliographic information with links to the full-text of the documents. Search All Courts to retrieve a listing of all the documents in the database. Many documents are available in PDF. 17 December 2004. Revised 9 December 2005. Court Record Services, Inc. offers U.S. Supreme Court (1984 to present) and U.S. Court of Appeals (1981 to present) records and briefs in portable document format (PDF). Search by keyword, case name or docket number to retrieve information, including an abstract, about matching briefs. You can then purchase and download PDF images of the court-stamped documents. Site registration required. This site offers an excellent assortment of commentary, U.S. primary law, statistics, sample briefs, case summaries, and litigation guides on death penalty related topics containing motions, briefs, memoranda, strategies, case summaries, statistics and other trial documents. 9 July 2001. This new site by the owners of Bankrupt.com offers a free email list service for distributing court documents pertaining to specific litigation, in particular, bankruptcy litigation. Parties to the litigation may set up an account (free) to distribute while any interested party may subscribe. The site also creates an archive of distributed documents. It intends to charge for downloading archived documents at some future time. Currently, there is not much here, but developments could be interesting to watch. 20 April 2004. The National Center for State Courts maintains this Web site devoted to jury information. Find white papers and other documents addressing issues such as juror privacy and hung juries. Also find in-depth information about jury services, jury management, jury trial innovations, jury decision making and grand juries. A newsletter, Jury News, covers current issues. 12 May 2006. The Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts offers this search tool for finding federal court contact information. Search by type of court and location to find the full street address, a map, phone number, Web site address and URL for submitting electronic filings. 28 September 2000. LLRX.com offers search access to source information for federal and state court rules, forms and dockets. The database includes links to over 700 sources. Search by keyword (e.g., pennsylvania forms to find links to federal and state court forms), or browse by one or more of the following criteria: jurisdiction, document type, or state. The database returns links to credible sources that match your query.
A tremendous improvement over the former court rules guide, this resource is easy to use, uncluttered, and fast.
13 May 2003. Revised 17 April 2008. This commercial research service provides searching and monitoring services for cases in federal district, bankruptcy and appellate courts as well as some state courts. Subscribers may order case documents online. The service also offers an interface to the PACER U.S. Case Party Index, which enables searching by name, social security number (SSN) or employer identification number (EIN), assuming these appear in the case caption. Access requires a paid subscription. The site also offers limited guest access upon registration. 8 October 2007. Find a database of court transcripts containing expert witness testimony. There is no information about the scope of coverage (courts, dates, fields/industries). Currently, it appears to be a small database, containing a few hundred transcripts.
While the presence of a search box indicates keyword searching is available, it didn't work for us. You may browse case name, expert name or type of expertise. There is a charge to download the transcript. 24 January 2008. K & L Gates provides a listing of state statutes and court rules that address the discovery of electronically stored information. The list links to the relevant legal documents. See also: The firm's Electronic Discovery Law blog also offers a list of states considering the adoption of special court rules to address the discovery of electronically stored information. The list also links to the relevant documents. 9 January 2002. Revised 2 August 2002. Attorney Peter Nordberg covers in detail the U.S. Supreme Court's 1993 decision on scientific evidence and the admissibility of expert scientific testimony (Daubert v. Merrill Dow Pharmaceuticals). Find commentary regarding U.S. Supreme Court post-Daubert decisions and procedural issues. Also find case annotations for key Circuit Court opinions as well as opinions by field of expertise. Nordberg arranges these annotations by Circuit and by fields of expertise. A section of the site (called Substance) provides basic information about Daubert and tries to correct misinterpretations. Another offers the author's thoughts about some legal tactics he "wishes somebody else would try first." Overall, a very useful site for learning about Daubert and monitoring developments.
14 January 2002. Revised 10 March 2006. A fee-based resource by MDEX (Medical and Disability Experts) Online, the Daubert Tracker tracks federal and state "Daubert" cases. The original U.S. Supreme Court Daubert decision set precedent with respect to scientific evidence and the admissibility of expert scientific testimony. Daubert Tracker maintains a database of reported Daubert, as well as Kumho Tire and Joiner, decisions. In addition to the reported decisions, subscribers may display the court docket online and order filings, as well as briefs and transcripts. A new brief bank (added during February 2006) contains more than "10,000 briefs and other supporting documents from both appellate and trial courts. You may search it for free. Subscribers receive a discount for the documents they download. 21 November 2000. This is the official Web site of the Nationwide Class Action Settlement with American Home Products Corporation. The Interim Claims Administrators, appointed by the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, manages the site.
The site offers the Official Court Notice package and accompanying forms as well as a Class Members' Guide, the original proposed settlement agreement and amendments, a table of exhibits to the settlement agreement, and Judge Bechtle's August 28, 2000 Memorandum and Pretrial Order approving the Nationwide Class Action Settlement with American Home Products Corporation. It also summarizes the proposed settlement's benefits to class members. 28 September 2000. The official Web site of the Supreme Court of the United States now offers docket information for pending and closed litigation during the current and immediately preceeding Terms. 14 September 2001. The site offers samples of medical images and sells medical legal exhibits, anatomical models and illustrations. It conveniently arranges its samples into browseable categories including medical specialties and parts of the body. 1 October 2007. Law.com sponsors this blog on electronic data discovery (EDD). It provides brief commentary on legal news and events. 5 April 2005. Revised 21 February 2008. The law firm Preston Gates & Ellis LLP provides access to its database of more than 900 electronic discovery cases collected from state and federal jurisdictions around the United States. Search by rule, context, issue or keyword to find descriptions of matching cases. The descriptions include a case citation, the nature of the case, description of electronic data involved, and a description of the electronic discovery issue. When available, it also includes a summary of the case. 1 October 2007. The law firm, Kirkpatrick & Lockhart Preston Gates Ellis LLP, sponsors this blog on news and developments pertaining to electronic data discovery (EDD). Lawyers comment on newsworthy events as well as important case law. A case law database lets you search for state or federal cases by keyword. (The search box appears on the left in the middle of the page.) Additional features include amendments to federal rules, annotated resources and an RSS feed. 5 May 2000. Revised 29 April 2005. The Bureau of Justice Statistics offers this resource for obtaining "information about suspects and defendants processed in the Federal criminal justice system." Researchers may query the database in two different ways.
The first and easiest method entails finding an "easy query" that matches your question. For example, "How many criminal suspects did U.S. attorneys investigate, by major offense category? The answer lists the statistics for each category and explains how to conduct the research using the second method.
For the second method follow the "query/search" link and select the year you want to search. The select the appropriate database and variables. To display the results, click the "frequency" option.
30 August 2005. According to the Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), the number of tort trials concluded in U.S. district courts declined by nearly 80 percent - from 3,600 trials in 1985 to fewer than 800 trials in 2003. Approximately nine out of 10 tort trials involved personal injury issues - most frequently, product liability, motor vehicle (accident), marine and medical malpractice cases. The percentage of tort cases concluded by trial in U.S. district courts has also declined from 10 percent in the early 1970s to 2 percent in 2003. 6 June 2000. FindLaw Forms offers federal and state court forms. 15 September 2004. Computer forensics experts the National Institute of Standards and Technology have published the second edition to a guide that provides step-by-step instructions on finding digital evidence. Subtitled "A Guide for Law Enforcement," the publication is available as a plain text or PDF download at the Web site of the National Institute of Justice. Chapters cover topics such as assessing, acquiring and examining evidence and documenting and reporting evidence. The publication also contains sample worksheets and sample requests for service forms. 10 November 2005. Federal district court for the Eastern District of Missouri makes available a PDF copy of the Handbook for Federal Grand Jurors. "It explains some of the terms that grand jurors will encounter during their service." It provides a brief history of the federal grand jury. It also outlines the purpose and selection of a grand jury. 10 November 2005. Federal district court for the Eastern District of Missouri makes available a PDF copy of the Handbook for Trial Jurors Serving in the United States District Courts. "It explains some of the language and procedures used in court," including the difference between an indictment and an information. It also outlines the stages of a trial. 7 January 2003. Attorney Howard J. Bashman comments on appellate court cases, news articles, and other information pertaining to the federal appellate process.
27 February 2008. Founded by a lawyer, JD Supra "promotes the free exchange of information to benefit the legal community, legal consumers, the media and the general public." Legal professionals may register with the site to post court filings and other legal documents or articles. Once you post at least one document, you may also create a free profile. Others may search the documents and profiles for free. Documents are available for downloading in Word or PDF.
You may search documents by keyword, and then limit the retrieval by court, type of filing or subject matter.
Technical note: You must activate javascript to search this site. Free registration is required to display documents in full. 14 March 2001. Revised 10 October 2007. The Federal Judicial Center offers a database of biographical information about federal judges serving since 1789. Biographical entries include the judge’s full name, birth year and date of death, place of birth or death, race and gender. They also provide information about a judge's education and professional career. Search or browse by the judge's name. You may limit retrieval with certain criteria -- court, nomination date, commission date, etc. To do so, follow the link for the database, which appears mid-way down the page. (Limiting retrieval to current judges is no longer available.) You may also create lists based on certain criteria; for example, discover all female justices on the U.S. Supreme Court since 1789 (two -- Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sandra Day O'Connor). 15 March 2001. Read the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts caseload report for fiscal year 2000.
2001 report: Federal Judicial Caseload Statistics, (March 31, 2001)
20 April 2004. Online reference information source Questia provides a bibliography of selected and related resources on the topic of juries. For free, you can find journal articles and book chapters on this subject. Questia also lets you review the first page of the resource. Reading the full text requires membership with a library that subscribes. Alternatively, the company offers several individual payment options.
Related topics include jury nullification and jury selection.
12 May 2006. The Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts provides an introduction to jury service. It cover trial juries (aka petit juries) and grand juries as well as the qualifications required to serve as a federal juror. 17 March 2004. Jury Verdict Review Publications, Inc. publishes several monthly reporters containing summaries of civil jury verdicts. Jury Verdict Review & Analysis is currently available in six editions--national, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, New England and Florida. Another reporter, Medical Liability Alert, covers medical liability verdicts. These publications require a paid subscription. You can, however, sign up for free monthly email alerts containing verdict updates. The updates provide the type of verdict, amount if relevant, county, type of legal action and brief description. 26 February 2007. Revised 26 November 2007. Legal information Web site, Justia, offers a database for searching federal district court civil cases. Coverage spans 1 January 2004 to present. Browse case filings or conduct a search by party name, court, type of lawsuit or date. Information provided includes case caption, date filed, court, judge, type of lawsuit and cause of action. Justia also provides a link to the docket sheet. To retrieve it, you must have a subscription with PACER.
Useful features include search-generated RSS feeds. Do a search using the above criteria (e.g., all Civil RICO cases in the E.D.PA) and then monitor new results via the RSS feed. You may also bookmark case information for a specific case using any one of about 20 social bookmarking tools, including Internet Explorer favorites, Del.icio.us, Google Bookmarks and Windows Live Bookmarks. 5 April 2005. Online Legal Services Ltd., a marketing company that specializes in advertising for lawyers and law firms, provides information about class action and personal injury cases. You may browse the index by "hot issue" or category, or search the collection of cases by keyword. The information retrieved includes a description of the case. Cases in the collection include those that have settled, those that are pending, and those investigating the possibility of filing a lawsuit. 28 August 2000. Revised 11 June 2008. This subscription-based site provides a portal to civil and criminal case information and court docket systems for federal, state and local courts in the United States. In June 2008, it added coverage for real estate and county recorder records as well as UCCs, business filings and professional licenses. The site also offers a Weblog on electronic filing and public records retrieval. 6 September 2000. Revised 18 April 2008. Exclusively available via LexisNexis (fee-based), CourtLink eAccess provides electronic access to court records in over 4,000 federal, state and local courts. CourtLink eFile - now available in 90 courts - provides online filing services. 28 August 2000. Revised 8 November 2000. lexisONE offers free case law, legal forms, and a legal sites guide. Find selected federal and state cases covering the past five years as well as a complete collection of U.S. Supreme Court opinions. Researchers may retrieve relevant decisions by citation or by keyword queries.
On 8 November 2000, Lexis rolls out phase two of LexisONE adding numerous free legal documents and forms, an expanded Internet Legal Guide, Matthew Bender forms (for a fee), and free access, by special arrangement and for a limited time, to the Martindale-Hubbell Law Digest. The enhanced site also includes articles on law technology, client development and practice management topics, legal news, information on lifestyle issues, and lexisONE Wireless for access to Lexis products and services via handheld devices.
23 May 2000. Warning! This page takes forever to load. However, litigators and public records researchers will find it worth the wait.
Linked here are all available federal court Web sites offer docket sheets via Web-based PACER. No more PCAnywhere! No more listening to unanswered modem calls!
Currently, four (4) U.S. Courts of Appeals and more than 50 other federal courts offer Web-based PACER docket access.
24 January 2008. K & L Gates provides a listing of states that are considering the adoption of special court rules addressing the discovery of electronically stored information. The list links to the proposed rules. See also: The firm's Electronic Discovery Law blog also offers a list of states with statutes or court rules on the discovery of electronically stored information. The list also links to the relevant documents. 7 January 2003. Michigan civil litigation lawyers comment on law and technology issues. The site separates issues into two broad categories: legal technology and politics. It covers news stories, court decisions, and other sources of related information. Several comments focus on Michigan law. 22 March 2007. Lexbe, a Web-based case analysis and document management system, sponsors this free collection of articles for litigators. In accordance with the site's terms of use, to be included, "[a]rticles must have been presented as part of a legal continuing legal presentation (CLE), in a bar journal, or be of similar quality, be of current interest to litigators and related legal professionals, and published in the last two years." You may search for articles by keyword or browse them by topic. Queries yield the title of the article, a description and a link to the original article, whether at Litilaw, a law firm Web site, or other Web-based location. As the collection grows, legal professionals should find it increasingly valuable. 25 January 2008. Revised 12 February 2008. K & L Gates provides a listing of federal district court rules, forms and guidelines pertaining to the discovery of electronically stored information. The listing notes: "In some districts where there are no local rules or court-mandated forms, individual judges have created their own forms or set out their own preferred protocols for e-discovery." Judge-mandated protocols are included. 31 January 2008. The Federal Judiciary Center offers this PDF publication (approximately 30 pages), which encourages judges to actively manage the discovery of electronically stored information (ESI). "The guide covers issues unique to the discovery of ESI, including its scope, the allocation of costs, the form of production, the waiver of privilege and work-product protection, and the preservation of data and spoliation." It also includes an excellent glossary of relevant terms. 11 January 2008. Revised 16 January 2008. Out-of-the-Box Lawyering highlights the fact that important data may lie hidden in digital photos, or any digital art. It links to some useful tools for finding the data. 15 September 2004. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals makes available oral arguments from January 2004 to present. The Microsoft Windows Media Player is required in order to listen to the audio files. Searching is by date or case number. The Web site indicates it will maintain the audio files for three months. Revised 5 September 2003. Listen to digital recordings of U.S. Supreme Court oral arguments or review the biographies of the 100+ justices that have served on the Supreme Court. The site also provides news concerning the U.S. Supreme Court and a listing of cases argued but not decided. Search or browse the site's collection of U.S. Supreme Court cases to find an abstract of a case, its participants (justices, attorneys), audio files (if available) of the oral argument and oral opinion, a transcript of the oral argument (if available) and a link to the written opinion at FindLaw. Recently, the site announced that it was converting many of the audio tapes to MP3 files. 28 August 2000. The PACER Service Center of the Administrative Office of the Courts offers three new search utilities. Search for a District by County Name retrieves the name of the federal district and appellate courts serving a particular county. Search for All Counties in a District finds county names associated with a specific federal district or appellate court. Search for Details by County Code returns the county name and state, as well as the names of the federal district and appellate courts, upon the entry of a county code. (Warning: the later feature takes a looooonnnng time to load.) 13 April 2001. The Federal Judiciary publishes a notice to courts concerning the rate to be applied to judgments affected by the provisions of 28 U.S.C. § 1961 and 40 U.S.C. § 258(e)(1). The notice includes the percent yield of the most recent auction of 52-week Treasury bills as well as a table of equivalent coupon issue yields for the 52-week Treasury bills since April 1982. 17 May 2001. Automated process service company Serve-Em.com offers state service of process rules, information about service in foreign countries, and various related federal forms. 20 April 2004. The Michigan Bar Journal provides a directory of online access to state jury instructions for all 50 states. It covers civil and criminal jury instructions. 13 November 2003. The American Bar Association (ABA) Division for Public Education provides analyses of the issues, arguments, background and significance of cases slated for oral argument in the U.S. Supreme Court. Find merit briefs, a summary of legal issues, full-text article about specific cases and more. 19 March 2008. Linked from this introductory page at The Bluebook Web site are all previous editions of the official Uniform System of Citation (The Bluebook) from the first edition (1926) to, and including, the 15th (1991). You may display or download each edition in PDF. 29 March 2005. FindLaw offers this tool for finding information about an attorney's litigation record. Search by a lawyer's name, or search and compare lawyers by a description of their experience. Information provided includes the lawyer's name, law firm affiliation, address, phone, fax and practice categories. Registered users may also display the names of the first 10 relevant cases, dockets or judges. Accessing the full-text of the relevant information requires logging in to your Westlaw account.
Technical note: Pop-up blockers may interfere with the performance of this search utility. If you receive no response when you click a hyperlink, disable any pop-up blockers on your PC.
23 July 2002. This public interest advocacy site by the Trial Lawyers for Public Justice offers news and information about some of the key cases the organization is currently litigating. It also provides briefs and other legal documents (typically in both HTML and PDF formats), its Public Justice newsletter, a guide for seeking justice through the courts and submitting a potential case to the organization, as well as a database of useful nonprofit resources and contacts for public interest advocates.
5 June 2000. Revised 8 April 2005. PACER (Public Access to Court Electronic Records) provides access to an index of court filings in federal district, bankruptcy and appellate courts. Conduct one search in available courts nationwide, or search individual courts. Review the site's Courts Not on Index to determine whether the court you want is available via the index. This is an easy inexpensive way to find federal civil or criminal litigation involving companies or individuals. Access requires a subscription. 17 March 2004. Yale Lillian Goldman Law Library offers a free site (currently in beta) for U.S. Supreme Court records and briefs. According to site documentation, the library selects cases for inclusion "based on a ranking developed from citation data in historical and constitutional texts." In other words, if one of 15 authorities (see list at the site) cites to a case, the library will add the records and briefs. In addition to browsing the archive, you can search it by U.S. Reports citation or party name. Search results also show arguments available at Oyez and opinions from Findlaw and the Legal Information Institute. 6 March 2001. This site offers thousands of legal forms, many of which are official state forms or forms drafted by attorneys. They cover federal and state business and litigation topics. While most of the forms are available for purchase, searchers will find some links to sources of federal and state forms for free. 12 July 2000. WestFind&Print is a simple citation retrieval service. You cannot conduct keyword or other queries, but you can locate and print multiple cases and KeyCite results simultaneously.
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