Legal Research News and Information with an Emphasis on Wisconsin
Social Media Law Student reviews a recent student note in the Stanford Law Review which claims that blogs can and eventually will influence the Supreme Court. In Rachel C. Lee’s article, she discusses the flaws in the current ethics law to handle this form of ex parte communication with the court. “Ex Parte Blogging: The …
From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinellast week: The 4th District Court of Appeals on Thursday upheld the secret use by police of a GPS tracking device to gather evidence against a Dane County man accused of stalking an ex-girlfriend. But the court also urged the state Legislature to consider regulating police and private use of the …
The Wisconsin Judicial Council has presented petition to the state Supreme Court proposing “amendments to the Wisconsin rules of discovery in direct response to the unavoidable increase in the discovery of electronically stored information.” From the petition: A key goal of these proposed rule changes is to increase judicial efficiency in the circuit courts by …
A recent decision from the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals rules that students’ copyrights were not violated by plagiarism detection service TurnItIn, even though the works were archived. From ars technica: The federal decision (PDF) reads like a primer on “fair use,” which was the legal doctrine that TurnItIn relied upon for its activities. TurnItIn …
From the North Jersey Crime Examiner: A Bergen County [NJ] judge mistakenly let a collection company lawyer cover a gap in evidence against a credit-card holder by using a Wikipedia page, a state appeals court has ruled. “[I]t is entirely possible for a party in litigation to alter a Wikipedia article, print the article and …
In his blog, BYU Law professor, Gordon Smith, formerly of the UW Law School, responds to criticism leveled by several Seventh Circuit judges who question the state-focus of legal education in Wisconsin as related to the diploma privilege. The criticisms are in response to a case before the court which is “challenging the privilege as …
From The Third Branch (newsletter of the federal courts): The Judicial Conference, in its continuing efforts to ensure appropriate public access to court files, has voted to make federal court sealed cases more readily apparent. The Conference, acting at its March 17 meeting, voted to have Internet lists of civil and criminal cases in district …
On Monday, the Federal Nominating Commission announced its recommendations for the pending vacancy for the United States District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin. The opening results from the retirement of Judge John Shabaz. The four individuals recommended for consideration for the pending vacancy are (in alphabetical order): Louis B. Butler, Jr. William M. …
According to The Third Branch, the newsletter of the Wisconsin Court System, CCAP is undergoing some security upgrades. It seems that the majority of these recommendations will have an impact only on CCAP staff, but some will be noticeable to CCAP users. Some of the updates include: Authenticating new users Implementing OS patches Implement hard …
From The National Law Journal: Sen. Joe Lieberman, ID-Conn., has asked the policy body of the federal judiciary why it continues to charge the public and lawyers for access to electronically filed documents and whether enough is being done to protect the personal data collected by courts. The senator, who is head of the Homeland …