We Love BoleyBlogs!

In a shameful, yet exuberant fit of log-rolling, check out BoleyBlogs, a place for "the finest legal research links, news and hints", and sister blog to Law Dawg Blawg. We greatly appreciate the insightful comments on our own blogging efforts from our outstanding colleagues at the Boley Law Library, Lewis & Clark Law School, in Portland, Oregon.

Ex-lawyer faces trial for fraud, hoarding clients' money

From COURTTV.com:

Ex-lawyer faces trial for fraud, hoarding clients' money

Russian emigre Nikolai Tehin put himself through law school and apparently obtained the American dream after three decades of lawyering: a 73-foot yacht, a seemingly endless fleet of luxury cars and an $8 million home.

But the rags-to-riches saga could end in federal prison for the now-disgraced and disbarred attorney. Tehin's fraud trial was scheduled to begin Monday and he faces more than 20 years in prison if convicted.

Federal prosecutors allege Tehin financed his lavish lifestyle by ripping off more than $2 million from his clients, who included low-income apartment tenants, disabled children and struggling immigrants.

More at http://courttv.com/trials/news/0804/30_tehin_ap.html

$140,000 to refer a widow to another firm?

From The New York Times:

Ethical Questions Raised on Legal Fee From Widow

When Joseph P. Dowd, a small-time lawyer, met Mary Corcoran, newly widowed, at the bar of Harpoon Louie's in Winthrop Harbor, Ill., in the spring of 1999, he at first decided not to approach her.

"It would have been too pie in the sky," he said at a deposition three years later. "It went through my mind, should I buy her a drink? But I thought it would be very tacky to do that, to pursue the case like that."

..."His only role was to call us," said Thomas A. Demetrio, of the Chicago firm Corboy & Demetrio, which represented Ms. Corcoran in the injury suit but declined to take any money. "He didn't work on the case. In Illinois, referral fees are permitted for just making a phone call."...

Full story at http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/28/politics/28law.html?th

Leaving ethically

From ABA Journal eReport

TWO ATTORNEYS HIT FOR LURING AWAY CO-WORKERS
Supreme Court Finds Interference With At-Will Employees

Certainly you should leave a former employer on good terms, but how about taking a few important co-workers with you?

Well, the California Supreme Court told two Pasadena immigration lawyers that persuading their former employer’s staff to leave and work for them, partly by unethical conduct, can amount to intentional interference with an employment relation, even if the employees in question are at-will.


Full story

Ethics Error

From ABA Journal eReport:

Ethics error

PARTING SHOT BACKFIRES

Judge Suspends Lawyer Accused of Hinting She Would Label Ex-client a Terrorist Sympathizer

Sheri Paige has been found responsible for several ethics violations in her law career – failing to return client evidence, using an improper fee agreement, even submitting falsified documents in her defense. This time, a judge has decided Paige’s misconduct warrants a one-year suspension.

When a client got a new lawyer and told Paige he was going to file a complaint against her, according to the court record, she suggested that any testimony she might present at a grievance hearing would undermine his application for a green card and could increase any interest the FBI had in him as an Egyptian immigrant and a "possible terrorist sympathizer."

Full story at http://www.abanet.org/journal/ereport/au27immig.html

Votes for sale, votes for sale

From Courttv.com :

Man caught trying to sell vote on eBay

James Pengov thought selling his vote would help get him out of debt. Instead it landed him in trouble with the law. ... "Up for auction is MY VOTE!," said Pengov's Aug. 19 posting on the online marketplace....Simply tell me who to vote for, after paying the auction, and it will be so. If you care, buy my vote and you will have twice the power in the upcoming election!!!!"

For full story, see http://courttv.com/people/2004/0827/vote_ap.html

Not Plagiarism, but Not a Good Idea

The United States Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit reversed and remanded a case to the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania, because the district court judge had adopted a proposed opinion and order submitted by one party’s attorneys, nearly verbatim, as the judge’s own opinion and order. Because of this adoption and certain other procedural irregularities, the 3rd Circuit found no evidence in the record that the District Court had conducted its own independent review, or that the opinion was the product of its own judgment.

See Bright v. Westmoreland County. See also The Legal Reader for more discussion and links.

CRS Provides Road Map to 9/11 Commission Recommendations

The Congressional Research Service’s recent report to Congress, Terrorism: Key Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission and Recent Major Commissions and Inquiries (PDF, 38pp.), provides “a structured road map to the most important recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, to those recommendations of the three other Commissions, and to those of the Joint Inquiry of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees that are directly related to the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission. . . .”

SOURCE: ResourceShelf

Dawg Blawg Watch: Health Care BlogLaw

Take a look at Health Care BlogLaw, containing “comments and thoughts on health care legal issues, HIPAA privacy & security, technology and other legal odds and ends that impact West Virginia” from attorney Bob Coffield of Flaherty, Sensabaugh & Bonasso, PLLC in Charleston, West Virginia. Recent posts covered a DOJ investigation of hospital purchasing activities, the first criminal conviction under the HIPAA privacy rule, and the first settlement of a nationwide uninsured patient class action targeting nonprofit hospitals.

SOURCE: Inter Alia

New Blog on Law & Entrepreneurship from Univ. of Wisconsin

Although its official launch is not scheduled until September 1, Law & Entrepreneurship News has begun posting today. According to its welcome message, this is a “collaborative project involving Professor Gordon Smith and students at the University of Wisconsin Law School. . . . [It] will track judicial, legislative, regulatory, transactional, and scholarly developments relating to the following topics: alliances, bankruptcy and debtor/creditor relationships, copyright and trademark, corporations, employees, family businesses, franchising, international trade, patents and technology, securities, small businesses, taxation, unincorporated entities, and venture capital.” The conceptual approach ought to be particularly interesting for legal educators because “[e]ach of these topics will be the primary responsibility of a student editor, who will research and write the blog entries.”

Schlesinger Panel Report Available

The full text of the final report of the Independent Panel to Review DoD Detention Operations, chaired by James R. Schlesinger, is now available.

Related article from American Forces Information Service: Panel Cites Direct, Indirect Responsibility for Abu Ghraib

New SIU Law Scholarship: Witness Disclosure in Illinois

SIU Professor of Law Keith H. Beyler is the author of “Witness Disclosure in Illinois,” 28 Southern Illinois University Law Journal 225-71 (2004).

ABSTRACT: In 2002, the Illinois Supreme Court adopted its third witness disclosure rule. Nearly 20 years earlier, the court had adopted its first such rule, Supreme Court Rule 220. On close inspection, however, the Rule 220 requirements did not cover all expert witnesses. So, in 1995, the Illinois Supreme Court adopted its second witness disclosure rule, repealing Rule 220 and amending Rule 213, to address the witness disclosure concerns. While this change solved most of Rule 220's problems, Rule 213 had problems of its own. Part I of this article reviews the lessons learned under the first two rules. In 2001 and 2002, the Illinois Supreme Court Rules Committee considered proposed solutions to Rule 213's problems and adopted its third witness disclosure rule. The development of the new rule, an amended version of Rule 213, took place in several stages before its adoption by the Supreme Court. Part II of the article describes this new rule’s drafting history. Since new Rule 213 took effect, the changes made by the rule have raised issues. In particular, the meanings of the terms “retained” expert and “reasonable notice” have been questioned. Part III of the article discusses these key issues under the new rule. Part IV of the article proposes the Illinois Supreme Court next adopt rules that allocate and reduce the expense of discovering the opinions of treating physicians. With the new rule in place, these issues have come to light. These concerns are the newest in a long line of witness disclosure issues in Illinois.

Power of Google & Yahoo Explored

In “More is Not Necessarily Better,” a thought-provoking New York Times op-ed piece, Matthew Hindman and Kenneth Neil Cukier write:

“Imagine if one company controlled the card catalog of every library in the world. The influence it would have over what people see, read and discuss would be enormous. . . .

“Few people realize that 95 percent of all Web searches in the United States are handled by two companies, Google and Yahoo. . . . The influence of search companies in determining what users worldwide can see and do online is breathtaking.

“As disquieting as this power may be, it masks a deeper problem. While search engines are indispensable for finding information online, the technology on which they are based serves to narrow the field of sites that people see.

“Google’s use of links to find content essentially turns the Web into the world’s biggest popularity contest—and just as in high school, this can have negative consequences.”

SOURCE: beSpacific

Judge Posner Blogs This Week

Richard A. Posner, judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and senior lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School, is the guest blogger on the Lessig Blog. The social and legal impact of technology is going to be the principal theme of his week as guest blogger. He cannot comment about pending cases, in the 7th Circuit or any court, or on current political campaigns.

Start Off the New Semester with Some Legal Humor

Looking for a laugh to lighten your load at the start of the semester? Wish you could find the lighter side of the law after an intense summer clerking job? Attorney Robert J. Ambrogi has the perfect solution for you in “Laughing at Lawyers and the Law,” an article from his syndicated column legal.online. The article describes a variety of Web sites that feature humor with a legal context. Some of the sites are produced by lawyers who poke fun at their profession (“funny lawyers” in Ambrogi’s parlance), while others are produced by nonlawyers. Ambrogi has a whole section on sites featuring lawyer cartoons.

Ambrogi’s conclusion rings true here: “If we cannot laugh at ourselves, someone once wrote, others will be glad to do it for us. On the Web, there is plenty of both—lawyers laughing at themselves and others laughing at lawyers.”

[Thanks to the Univ. of Baltimore Law Library Weblog for the tip.]

On Volunteering in Class

In Praise of Zeal by Cameron Stracher, professor at New York Law School.

The Perils of Being a Passive Law Student by Eugene Volokh, professor at UCLA School of Law.

Zimbabwe Proposes Bill to Ban International Human Rights Aid

From JURIST’s Paper Chase:

Zimbabwe's government Friday published a draft bill that, if passed by parliament, would bar international human rights groups from the country and would make it an offence for local aid groups to receive foreign funding for human rights activities. More of JURIST’s report.

Five Indispensable Tips for Law Students and New Lawyers

Matt Homann, an Illinois attorney and mediator, author of the [non]billable hour blawg, and Adjunct Professor of Pre-trial Practice and Procedure at Washington University Law School, has these Tips for Law Students.

“Backdoor Draft” Challenged

From Salon.com:

"An anonymous California National Guardsman filed suit in Federal District Court in San Francisco on Tuesday claiming that a "stop loss" order preventing him from leaving the military at the end of his contract is a violation of his civil liberties -- the first legal challenge to the 40,000 stop-loss orders issued by the U.S. military since 9/11."

See "Doe" vs. Rumsfeld for the complete story.

Illinois Protects Reservists from Discrimination

Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich has signed a law amending the Illinois Human Rights Act to include members of any reserve component of the armed forces within the definition of “military status.” The law, Public Act 093-0941, extends protection from discrimination in employment, real estate transactions, access to financial credit, and the availability of public accommodations to members of the Illinois National Guard and U.S. Reserves. Active duty service members were already protected by the Illinois Human Rights Act, 775 ILCS 5/1-103.

The “Citizen Soldier Initiative,” the first of its kind in the nation, was signed Saturday as part of a ceremony welcoming home 180 Illinois soldiers who had served more than 14 months overseas providing force protection and installation security in Iraq. This law is effective immediately. Military members can call 1-800-662-3942 and report violations to the Illinois Department of Human Rights.

American Constitution Society Launches New Blog

The ACSBlog will be moderated by a team of law students and will feature breaking legal news and student observations, plus expert commentary from guest bloggers. The commentary, by distinguished professors and practitioners, will take the form of short, easily digestible legal analyses of interest to a broad legal audience.

Thanks to Jerry Lawson of Netlawblog for the link.

Current Law School & Law Review Symposia: Website Listing

Professor Rick Bales at Salmon P. Chase College of Law, Northern Kentucky University, compiles and edits a current (and upcoming) listing of symposia held at law schools. He also indicates whether the school's law review will be publishing the symposia papers & proceedings, and lists dates, contact information, and locations.

Calif. Supreme Court Voids S.F. Gay Marriages

From the California Courts Web site: “The California Supreme Court today [Aug. 12, 2004] held San Francisco officials exceeded their authority in issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples before a judicial determination of the constitutionality of state marriage laws that limit marriage to unions between a man and a woman. The court did not rule on the issue of whether California’s marriage statute is constitutional.”

Text [PDF] of today’s Supreme Court’s decision in Lockyer v. City & County of San Francisco is here. Background information, including an archived audiocast of oral arguments on May 25, 2004, and briefs and other documents filed in the case, are here.

New Web Site - TSA Security Checkpoint Wait Times

The Transportation Security Administration has started a new web site on historical Security Checkpoint Wait Times to assist travelers in planning for their next flight. Selecting the state or territory from which you will depart brings up a form on which you select airport, day and time. The report then displays average and maximum security checkpoint wait times by time and gate. The listing by gate is nice, because it allows you to see the differences in check points at the same airport.

More Tips on Legal Writing

Last Friday I put up a post about The Illinois Trial Practice Weblog, on which attorney Evan Schaeffer promised to share Six Posts About Better Writing. All six posts, as well as three articles from the Illinois Bar Journal, are now available via links in Mr. Schaeffer's original post. You should also read Six Great Ways to Unmuddle Your Writing by Dennis Kennedy on Notes from the (Legal) Underground, another blawg from Mr. Schaeffer.

New E-Mail Alert Services for DOL and IRS

Two e-mail alert services have been announced by federal agencies, the Department of Labor Updates and the Internal Revenue Service GuideWire.

The DOL service provides subscribers with “regular updates on a number of topics including news releases, weekly unemployment claims reports, disability employment policies, labor law compliance and small business programs.”
According to the IRS announcement, subscribers to IRS GuideWire “will be notified by e-mail when the IRS issues guidance. The e-mail will include a brief description of the guidance and a link to the document in PDF format. . . . Subscribers will not receive all IRS guidance, only advance guidance; for a publication of all IRS guidance, see the Internal Revenue Bulletin.”

SOURCE: ResourceShelf

ABA Approves Resolutions at Annual Meeting

Yesterday, the American Bar Association approved the following resolutions:

• overwhelmingly approved a resolution condemning the government's handling of foreign detainees and recommending changes in the law to deal with abuses;


• voted to lobby Congress and states to eliminate mandatory minimum sentences;


• approved a resolution that addressed the legal status of human clones.

See ABA Condemns Bush Administration's Handling of Detainees for more coverage.

Attorney Web Sites – The Legal Writer

The Legal Writer is a web site by Raymond P. Ward, whose practice emphasizes appellate advocacy. The site links to articles on legal writing, posts on legal writing from Mr. Ward’s blog, and links to other helpful sources.

Online Tool for Puzzling Legal Abbreviations

The Cardiff Index to Legal Abbreviations, developed by Dr. Peter Clinch of the Law Library at the University of Cardiff, Wales, is a great tool to use when faced with a mystifying abbreviation in a citation. According to the site itself, the Cardiff Index is a “web-based service [that] allows you to search for the meaning of abbreviations for English language legal publications, from the British Isles, the Commonwealth and the United States, including those covering international and comparative law. . . . The database mainly covers law reports and law periodicals. . . .”

You can search by abbreviation to find the full title of the publication or by title to find its preferred abbreviation. It is also possible to possible to search from abbreviation to title using only a part of an abbreviation, or from title to abbreviation using any words (not just the first word) which appear in the title.

Attorney Blawgs - The Indiana Law Blog

The stated focus of The Indiana Law Blog is “on Indiana law, and on developments in law and technology of interest not just to Indiana lawyers.” But anyone who needs to follow 7th Circuit case law should follow this blawg. Attorney Marcia Oddi reports on all 7th Circuit decisions, regardless of the states in which they originated.

My only complaint is the use of the headline “Indiana Decisions” for postings on 7th Circuit cases. While it is true that 7th Cir. decisions are binding precedent in all federal courts within the 7th Cir., and in that sense they are “Indiana Decisions,” they are also binding precedent in federal courts in Wisconsin and Illinois. Use of a headline that appears to limit the scope of a posting to Indiana might cause someone interested in 7th Cir. decisions to skip over that posting.

But choice of headline is a small complaint, considering the value of the information provided. Check it out for yourself.

Do Customer Loyalty Cards Create a Retailer’s Duty to Warn?

When a customer applies for a loyalty card at any of a growing number of retailers, the customer is required to reveal a certain amount of personal information. The retailer then tracks the customer’s purchases and matches them with the customer’s personal data in order to tailor its marketing to that customer. Some retailers also use the customer’s application information to collect even more information from commercial databases and public records.

In exchange for giving up information about themselves, customers usually get discounts in the store and personalized advertisements and offers in the mail. Should consumers expect more from the retailer? A lawsuit in a Washington state court says they should. Jill Crowson has sued the grocery chain, Quality Food Center (QFC), for failure to warn her family, which QFC could have done using information it had gathered with its loyalty card program, when ground beef the Crowsen’s had purchased was recalled in December's mad-cow scare.

For more information on the issues raised by this lawsuit, see Anita Ramasastry’s article, Do Stores That Offer Loyalty Cards Have a Duty to Notify Customers of Product Safety Recalls? on Findlaw’s Writ at http://writ.news.findlaw.com/.

A Few Problems That Get in the Way of Good Writing

The Illinois Trial Practice Weblog provides "Tips and techniques for trial lawyers, appearing for the plaintiff or defense." This week and next, Evan Schaeffer, of the firm of Schaeffer & Lamere, P.C., will publish six posts about better writing. This week's posts included "Improve Your Legal Writing With Five Simple Rules;" "Five Steps Towards Persuasive Writing;" and "First Drafts Made Easy." While you are waiting for next week's posts, you can scroll down the blog's sidebar and link to the archive of previous posts about Legal Writing.

Points to Ponder

What if there were no hypothetical questions?

Attorney Blawgs – I/P Updates

Attorney William F. Heinze offers "News and information for intellectual property practitioners™" in I/P Updates. He has a nice mix of national and international news, including both legal and practical information.

Research Tip – Searching Is Not Research

With the wealth of information on the Internet today, some researchers are tempted to type a word or two into a well-known search engine and rely on the top few items retrieved. But running a search, even assuming you have run a perfect search using the correct tools, is only the beginning. You have to read and analyze what you found. And before you spend much of your limited time reading what you find, you need to evaluate the quality of the information, so you don’t waste valuable time reading something that is not current, accurate, or reliable.

The Virtual Chase’s revised and expanded section on Evaluating the Quality of Information on the Internet can help you to evaluate online information. The site includes easy-to-use checklists on quality criteria, evaluation strategies, and anecdotal evidence of bad information found on the Internet.

For other helpful sites, visit the SIU Law Library’s page on Evaluating and Rating Web Sites and Other Information Resources.

What Is a Blog?

Hewlett-Packard has an article on Blogging 101 in its technology tips for Small & Medium Business. It covers the basics, including what is a blog, why to blog, and how RSS (real simple syndication) and aggregators work. The article also links to other sources.

Thanks to Stephen M. Nipper, The Invent Blog.

Failure of High Tech Court Recorder May Lead to New Trial

Read Courtsmart Malfunction May Affect Conviction, an MSNBC article about a request by a convicted criminal for a new trial based on the fact that the court’s high-tech recording system—used instead of a human court stenographer—failed to function during his original trial, thus leaving the appellate judge and attorneys without a record of the proceedings. According to the article, "[a]n appeals court hasn't made a ruling yet, but it is likely [the appellee] will get a brand new trial."

Source: WisBlawg

Praise for Topix.Net News Site

Tom Mighell of The Blawg Channel praises Topix.net (which bills itself as the Internet's Largest News Site), calling it “a terrific news resource” and noting that it has “a new front page and a bunch of improved features” and “crawls over 7,000 news sources (which makes Google’s 4,500 pale in comparison).” He also likes that fact that “you can receive an RSS feed for just about anything on the site, whether it be a specific news topic, keyword search, or even your own zip code.” Check out the full story and then take a look at Topix itself if you’re interested in keeping up with the news.

Attorney Blawgs - SIU Law Alum Has Patent Law Blog

Stephen M. Nipper, SIU Law '98, covers news and information relevant to independent inventors, small businesses, interesting inventions, patents, trademarks, copyrights, and intellectual property law in general at The Invent Blog. Mr. Nipper is a registered patent attorney working in Boise, Idaho, with the firm Dykas, Shaver & Nipper, LLP. His blawg is definitely worth a visit.

Do you know of any other Southern Illinois University Law Alumni who have blogs? Let us know at llibweb@siu.edu.

About Law Dawg Blawg

Welcome to the Law Dawg Blawg, brought to you by the law librarians at Southern Illinois University. We decided to start this blawg primarily as a way to share research tips, library announcements, news, and links to interesting articles, web sites, and blawgs with members of the SIU Law School community. We also hope it will be of interest to alumni and other members of the legal and library communities. Click to read the whole story -->

First, we should explain the name. A weblog, or blog for short, is like an online journal. It is frequently updated with short items of interest to the bloggers. Blawg is a term used to describe a law-related blog. Dawg comes from the fact that the mascot of Southern Illinois University at Carbondale is the saluki, a breed of dog. And Law, because our intended audience is the law school community.

Salukis were the royal dog of Egypt and are believed to be the oldest known distinct breed of dog. Southern Illinois has long been referred to as "Egypt." According to Baker Brownell in The Other Illinois, "Although the legend probably was invented after the fact, it is persistent. There was a drought in the northern counties (of Illinois) in the early 1800's . . . the wheat fields dried up, the streams died in their beds. But in southern Illinois rain fell and there were good crops, and from the north came people seeking corn and wheat as to Egypt of old. Thus, the name ‘Egypt.’" See also Tales and Songs of Southern Illinois by Charles Neely. For more information on the Saluki breed, see what the American Kennel Club has to say; for a more extensive discussion of SIUC’s mascot, see What the Hell is a Saluki?

We will be posting items on the following topics: Research Tips; Writing Tips; Web Sites for Legal Researchers; Blawgs; News Related to Law, Law Schools, and Legal Education; Warnings about Viruses and Scams; Legal & Library Miscellany; and Library Announcements.

We have ATOM and XML feeds for those wishing to subscribe using a blog aggregator or reader such as Bloglines. After you sign up for a free Bloglines account at http://www.bloglines.com and log in, right click on the ATOM or XML link above or toward the bottom of the Law Dawg Blawg sidebar and choose "Copy Shortcut" from the menu that pops up. In Bloglines, click on the My Feeds tab in the left frame, then click on "Add" right below the tab. Right click in the "URL" box that comes up in the right frame, then click the Subscribe button. On the next screen choose the options you want and click "Subscribe" again. That's all there is to it.

To avoid the problem of comment spam, we have made this a moderated blog. If you want to suggest something for inclusion or want to comment on this blawg, e-mail us at llibweb@siu.edu. For more information about our law library, visit the Southern Illinois University School of Law Library site.

U.S. Supreme Court Grants Review of Sentencing Guidelines

When the Supreme Court struck down the state of Washington's sentencing guidelines in Blakely v. Washington (6/24/2004), it left unanswered Constitutional questions about the federal Sentencing Guidelines. Now the Court has granted the Solicitor General's petitions for certiorari in U.S. v. Booker, 04-104, and U.S. v. Fanfan, 04-105, to consider "Whether the Sixth Amendment is violated by the imposition of an enhanced sentence under the United States Sentencing Guidelines based on the sentencing judge’s determination of a fact (other than a prior conviction) that was not found by the jury or admitted by the defendant."The Court ordered expedited briefing, and the cases are set for oral argument on Monday, Oct. 4, the first day of the new term.

Read commentary on the Supreme Court's granting these two petitions by SCOTUSBlog, law.com, and Sentencing Law and Policy. See SCOTUSBlog analysis and Sentencing Law and Policy analysis for background on the Blakely decision itself.

Research Tip - Don't Get Caught Without a Search Engine

Last week, as a result of viruses and denial of service attacks directed at it, Google was down for several hours. Several newspapers ran articles about people who couldn't do research because Google was down. See Horrors! Google AWOL!.

Don't let this happen to you! As researchers, you should not fall into the trap of relying on only one search engine. Different engines perform different searches better. No one search engine database covers all the information available on the web - in fact, none of them covers even half the web. And you never know when your favorite search engine might be down for a couple of days, or get sold and disappear forever.

A couple of good search engines to add to your research tool box are Teoma and Vivísimo. Click to read more ->

Teoma returns search results based upon their authority. Besides relevant web page Results, Teoma displays suggestions to narrow or Refine your search and the Resources of link collections from experts and enthusiasts.

Vivísimo is a clustering engine, which clusters or sorts your search results into categories. Besides a general search, Vivísimo has several special searches of news topics and individual news sites; other search engines and directories; eBay and government sites - including FirstGov, PubMed and USDA.

To find a specialized search engines, see our page on Legal Search Engines, Directories, and Other Research Tools, or try one of these directories of search engines: GeniusFind and Beaucoup.

If you have a favorite legal research tool we haven't mentioned, please email us at llibweb@siu.edu.