SIU Law Students Published

The Fall 2006 issue of the Southern Illinois University Law Journal is out, and it includes several articles by SIU law students:

Kristin Beasley, “Up-Skirt And Other Dirt: Why Cell Phone Cameras And Other Technologies Require A New Approach To Protecting Personal Privacy In Public Places;”

Matthew J. Hodge, “The Fourth Amendment And Privacy Issues On The “New” Internet: Facebook.Com And Myspace.Com;”

Erin R. Doyle, “Endangering The Great Divide: Challenges To The Establishment Clause In Van Orden V. Perry, 125 S. Ct. 2854 (2005);” and

Natalie J. Kussart, “Paid Bills V. Charged Bills: Insurance And The Collateral Source Rule Arthur V. Catour, 833 N.E.2d 847 (2005).”

Congratulations, students!

Current issues of the SIU Law Journal are available on reserve in the law library, on LexisNexis (password required), and on Westlaw (password required).

Mini Is Law Cat of the Week

This week's SIU Law Cat is Mini, an "older and persnickety" cat, adopted by Carla Chatham, who works in the law library. Mini lives with Chief and three cats who will appear here in the next few weeks. Click on the photo here to see more photos of Mini.

To see photos of all previous Law Dogs and Cats of the Week, visit our Gallery of SIU Law Dogs and Cats, which you can find under "Related Links" in the sidebar. See Submitting Your SIU Law Dog and Cat Photos for instructions.

Research Guides and Tips on Federal Statutes

• Publication of Federal Statutes
• Steps in Using a Statutory Code
• Using the Table of Contents for Statutes on Westlaw
• Using the Table of Contents for Statutes on LexisNexis
• Searching Just the Text of Statutes
• Printing Just the Statute

You can find Research Guides, Research Tips, and more resources through the SIU Law Library website.

Cream Pie Is Law Cat of the Week

This week's SIU Law Cat is Cream Pie, who belongs to Laura Duncan, the law library's administrative assistant. Laura says that Cream Pie is the most affectionate cat she has ever had.

Cream Pie also lives with Sombra, who was our Law Cat of the Week a few weeks ago. Cream Pie was added to Laura's household to keep Sombra company, because "one cannot have just one cat." She and Sombra are thick as thieves and have gotten along beautifully from their very first day together.

To see photos of all previous Law Dogs and Cats of the Week, visit our Gallery of SIU Law Dogs and Cats, which you can find under "Related Links" in the sidebar. See Submitting Your SIU Law Dog and Cat Photos for instructions.

U.S. Department of Defense Releases Manual for Military Commissions

On January 18, 2007, the U.S. Department of Defense released The Manual for Military Commissions. The 238 page document is "a comprehensive Manual for the full and fair prosecution of alien unlawful enemy combatants by military commissions, in accordance with the Military Commissions Act of 2006." The Manual is available at: http://www.defenselink.mil/pubs/pdfs/The%20Manual%20for%20Military%20Commissions.pdf

Civil Rights Documents Digitalized

The Thurgood Marshall Law Library, which is a GPO Federal Depository Library, has been scanning hundreds of historical Civil Rights publications to make this digital collection possible. These documents are provided by USCCR.
These documents are accessible at:
<http://www.law.umaryland.edu/marshall/usccr/index.asp>

How Current Are LexisNexis and Westlaw?

A few months ago, I posted an item here about a LexisNexis statutory database that was much less current than I expected it to be. I recently discovered that another LexisNexis database—this time the Journal of Legal Medicine—is almost a year behind the same journal on Westlaw.

The Journal of Legal Medicine is a quarterly publication. The December 2006 issue is available in print, and the table of contents and abstracts have been added to the publisher's website. The most recent articles available on Westlaw are from the September 2006 issue—not as current as the print, but only one issue out of date. Westlaw's Scope for the database says that "Documents selected from this periodical ... are made available after a license for inclusion in WESTLAW has been obtained from the author(s)."

The most recent Journal of Legal Medicine articles available on LexisNexis are from the December 2005 issue. The LexisNexis Source Information says that coverage is "From March 1995 through current" and that the database is "Updated regularly - Atypical update schedule/as received from the publisher."

Although these are just two examples, I have started to wonder just how current databases on LexisNexis are. I wasn't looking for out-of-date databases when I stumbled across these two. Maybe I just happened to find two anomalous databases. Maybe there are many more. Have you seen other LexisNexis databases that are less current than you would expect? How about Westlaw databases? If so, please leave a comment.

The image above is the rabbit from The Tenniel Illustrations for Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, found at Project Gutenberg.

Resources about Martin Luther King, Jr.

ResourceShelf provides A Collection of Web Resources For Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day 2007. See also the Librarians' Internet Index list of recommended websites on Martin Luther King.

Law Dawg Blawg Renovation

This weekend I switched Law Dawg Blawg over to a New Blogger template. One reason for the switch is the New Blogger tagging function, which lets us add labels to our posts, so you can quickly get a list of all our posts on a topic. Click on one of the links under Labels in the sidebar to see all the posts we have labeled research, dogs, or whatever.

Unfortunately, the New Blogger templates are pretty rigid, so it may take me a little while to get this looking exactly right. Also, some blogs that switched to New Blogger templates have had to switch feeds. I won't switch if I can avoid it, but if we need to switch, I will post a notice here. The http://feeds.feedburner.com/LawDawgBlawg feed and Feed Blitz email should be okay, but I'm not sure about any others.

Thank you for your patience. Please let us know if you have any problems accessing Law Dawg Blawg or the feed.

Murphy Is Law Cat of the Week

This week's SIU Law Cat is Murphy, who belongs to Jim Stivers, a third-year law student at SIU. Murphy lives with Zoe, who was SIU Law Dog of the Week last July. Murphy is shown here reading the Clean Air Act. Click on the photo here to see Murphy's web page.

To see photos of all previous Law Dogs and Cats of the Week, visit our Gallery of SIU Law Dogs and Cats, which you can find under "Related Links" in the sidebar. See Submitting Your SIU Law Dog and Cat Photos for instructions.

Congratulations to Student Authors

The following 2L students had their casenotes chosen for publication in upcoming issues of the Southern Illinois University Law Journal.

BEST CASENOTE:

The Knock and Announce Rule: More Trouble Than Its Worth. Hudson v. Michigan (Ryan Straw)

OTHER ARTICLES:

It's Political, You Can't be Offended! A Discussion of Student Speech Analysis in Guiles ex rel. Guiles v. Marineau (Derek Ruzicka)

Murky Wetlands Protection Following Rapanos v. United States (John Persell)

The Duty Question in Special Relationship Negligence Cases: Preserving the Role of the Jury, Marshall v. Burger King Corp (Craig Runyon)

The Practical Effects of the Ruling in Davis v. Washington (Andrew Fisk)

To Decide or Not to Decide: Is That the Question? Jurisdiction of Immigration Appeals in Kambolli v. Gonzales (Jessica Reese)

ALTERNATES:

Rumsfeld v. Fair: The Military's Message Comes Home (Jessie Mahr)

Determining Who Constitutes an "Employee" Under Title VII After Smith v. Castaways Family Diner (Jeff Wright)

Current issues of the SIU Law Journal are available on reserve in the law library, on LexisNexis (password required), and on Westlaw (password required).

SIU Law Students Published in Journal of Legal Medicine

Congratulations to SIU 3L students Jared Martin, and Jarred Tynes, each of whom had commentaries published in the December 2006 issue of the Journal of Legal Medicine.

Current issues of the Journal of Legal Medicine are available on reserve in the law library and on Westlaw (password required).

Thinking about Grades

Welcome back. We hope you had a relaxing break.

Most of you are probably a little disappointed in your grades. We know this because it happens every year. There are two things to keep in mind about law school grades: (1) law school grading is very different from undergraduate grading; and (2) you can probably improve your exam performance, but it will take some effort.

If you want to improve your performance on law exams, there are several things that you can do:

• review your first-semester exams with your professors;
• attend the academic success workshop on Feb. 1 from 3:30–6 on how to improve law school performance; and
• meet with Prof. Schmitz, director of the Academic Success program.

Austin Groothuis, at CALI's Pre-Law Blog, has this advice on Your First Semester Grades in Law School.

SIU Law Alums with Blogs

Eric Waltmire, SIU Law '05, has has been writing about "Law, Technology, and Other Contributions to the Marketplace of Ideas" at Eric Waltmire's Blog for a couple of months. He has recently posted entries on The Core of Persuasion, Help Me Build a School and Give the Life Long Gift of Education, and Research Tip: How to Quickly Find (for Free) Cases Supporting a Rule of Law. His posts so far are not numerous, but they are thought-provoking and enjoyable to read.

Other alums with law blogs include Steve Nipper, SIU Law '98, The Invent Blog, and Jeremy Richey, SIU Law '06, Jeremy Richey's Religion Law Blog. Please let me know if I have overlooked anyone.

Felix Is Law Cat of the Week

This week's SIU Law Cat is Felix, who belongs to Regina Moreland, a first-year law student at SIU. Click on the photo here to see another photo of Felix.

To see photos of all previous Law Dogs and Cats of the Week, visit our Gallery of SIU Law Dogs and Cats, which you can find under "Related Links" in the sidebar. See Submitting Your SIU Law Dog and Cat Photos for instructions.