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H.R. 3221 Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008, signed Wed., July 30^th, Public Law 110-289, is now available - as Enrolled or Typeset

See NeighborWorks’ Summary of the new legislation and link to Senate Statement and summary .

From the President ‘s page: signing information “The Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008, which authorizes the Department of the Treasury to purchase obligations of housing Government Sponsored Enterprises (GSEs); reforms the regulatory supervision of the housing GSEs; provides reform of the Federal Housing Administration; provides homeownership assistance and reforms to mitigate recent increases in foreclosures; and contains housing-related tax incentives and other tax provisions.”

The C-M Law Library Blog has two different widgets you can put in your webpage or blog. The first shows some of the text of each blog post, the second contains just post titles. Simply click on the "Get Widget" link on the bottom of each widget, to get code to embed in your blog or webpage.  (More)

While the Ohio Employer's Law Blog has been around since 2007, it's new to me! Cleveland law firm Kohrman, Jackson and Krantz, PLL, brings you "Practical employment law information for businesses in Ohio and beyond". Recent articles include "6th Circuit decides standard of proof for mixed motive cases" and All hail dads(about more men filing claims under the FMLA for family responsibilities).

They even have this handy widget which you can paste into your webpage or blog:

Thanks to yesterday’s post on Out of the Jungle, I was tipped off to HeinOnline’s Facebook debut. Doesn’t surprise me in the least that this family-run legal information purveyor is reaching out to customers through social-networking media. You can also check out how-to videos on various HeinOnline collections on their YouTube channel. Some of the most popular collections in the database are law journals, session laws, CFR, English Reports, legal classics, U.S. Supreme Court library, U.S. Congressional documents, and world trials.

Today, the Sixth Circuit upheld a decision from the Ohio Northern District denying an appeal to suppress evidence obtained from a warrantless search conducted by a police officer who smelled marijuana and saw a partially smoked marijuana cigarette in plain view in a vehicle during a traffic stop. In U.S. v. Crumb (No. 08-3207), the Sixth Circuit stated that the officer had probable cause to conduct a lawful search of the vehicle without a warrant. The search incidentally turned up more marijuana, crack cocaine, Ecstacy pills, and a semi-automatic weapon in the defendant’s car.

You may save money by finding used law school text books online. The Four L Blog mentions Amazon.com, Ebay, Ebay's Half.com and AbeBooks, and recommends using the book's ISBN number to order, as it is a unique identifier for the book. Some of our staff used Amazon and Half.com to buy law school books. (These services did not exist when I was in law school!) Be sure to allow enough time for shipping, so you can get the books in time to prepare for the first day of classes. For first-day assignments, and the book titles required for each class, with ISBN numbers see First Assignments/Book Lists on the law school's webpage.

The library does not buy a copy of every text book, but we may have copies of some textbooks. Most likely those copies were donated by a student. If our library does not have the book, you may be able to get a copy via Ohiolink. Just check Scholar, the library catalog. Using the advanced search, click on the "other" tab to search by ISBN number. (You can search for title too, but you may not retrieve the most current version of the book required by the professor. If you use an older version, you will have to supplement it with the case opinions added to the new edition). See Circulation Policies and Services for loan periods and the number of times you can renew a book.

If CSU does not have the book, hit the Ohiolink button, and see if you can order the book from another Ohiolink institution. Ohiolink books take at least 3 days to arrive.

Rebecca Flanagan, Director of the Academic Success Program at Vermont Law School proposes using a visual arrangement to brief cases, called the "star strategy". The star strategy was developed by Lynn Melzer, PhD, of the The Research Institute for Learning and Development.

Source: Law School Academic Support Blog,(Rebecca Flanagan).

The star diagram was created by Melzer as a tool for students to organize their thoughts before writing. Melzer put the main topic in the middle, surrounded by who, what, when, where, why and how at the points of the star.

I came up with this "diamond strategy" diagram, based on the more traditional IRAC approach (Issue, Rule, Application, Conclusion):

 (More)

Our Amy Burchfield was much too modest in her previous post There’s More on Sports Law Than You Think. When she referred to the recently updated International Sports Law resource guide published by GlobaLex , she neglected to name herself as the author. Now, Amy’s just celebrated her first anniversary here as our Access & Faculty Services Librarian, and quickly established credentials as our international and foreign law expert. Who knew she was also such a fan? Kudos, Amy!

The involvement of two graduate students from Dominican University, near Chicago, to bring a successful law suit to a close a night club in Ecuador that employed underage prostitutes is the topic of a story in today’s Chronicle of Higher Education. Human trafficking, a major human rights violation, is widespread in many regions of the world. The Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, a division of the U.S. Department of State, compiles yearly reports on human trafficking, placing countries into tiers based on compliance with national and international norms. The Trafficking in Persons Report 2008 includes an evaluation of human trafficking in Ecuador, which is classed as a Tier 2 country. The key international document to read is the UN’s Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons Especially Women and Children, which supplements the Convention against Transnational Organized Crime.

The ACLU hosts a free brown bag lunch lecture on discretionary policies within the criminal justice system. The speaker is criminal defense attorney Terry H. Gilbert, an alumnus of Cleveland-Marshall. The lecture will take place Wednesday, Aug. 6, 2008 from noon to 1:30 pm at the ACLU of Ohio's Max Wohl Civil Liberties Center, 4506 Chester Avenue in Cleveland (just a little east of Cleveland State). More information/RSVP .

Check out the Top 35 Law Professor Blogs rankings, released yesterday. The rankings are taken from the Law Professor Blogger Census. The blogs must be edited by law professors, and have traffic over the past 12 months with publicly available sitemeters. Some popular law prof blogs, such as Feminist Law Professors, are not included because their sitemeters are not publicly available.

The Law Professor Blogger Census contains lots links to professor blogs. You may also want to look at Law Professor Blogs.com and Law X.0 to find more blogs of interest.

Tip from TaxProf Blog

The new Cuyahoga Enterprise Geographic Information System (CEGIS)
provides detailed information on houses and businesses in the county. Just type in an address or owner's name. The system combines information from the Cuyahoga County Auditor's Office and Recorder's Office. It will show the property owner, liens, how much was paid for the house, whether taxes have been paid and a detailed deed transfer history. There is a map which shows information about the property's neighborhood - census information, nearby sex offenders, nearby foreclosures and more.

The site is free, with registration. The database is still in its testing phase.

See Cuyahoga Engineer's Office Starts Up New County Map, Info System, The Plain Dealer Blog, July 14, 2008.

On Thursday July 31, 8:30 a.m. at City Hall, Cleveland's Charter Review Commission will hold a public meeting. The issues to be discussed include amending the city charter to...

• Have fewer city council members
• Change the recall rules and residency rules for city council members
• Put the Hopkins Airport director in charge of an airport police force, instead of the Cleveland chief of police.

For more details, see Cleveland Charter Review Commission Considers Ways to Streamline Government,7/19/2008, Cleveland Plaindealer Blog.

See our prior post Help Revise the Cleveland City Charter.

Find out what’s going on in Columbus with the Supreme Court of Ohio’s RSS feeds. One feed covers case opinion summaries and the other Supreme Court news. In case you’re not au courant with the intricacies of RSS, the site helpfully gives you tips on setting up a feed. Unfortunately, the Sixth Circuit has yet to syndicate their site.

With the Beijing 2008 Summer Games just 21 days away, I thought a quick assessment of research sources for sports law would be in line. Closest to home you’ll find C-M Law Library’s Sports Law Research Guide, which is a fairly comprehensive bibliography of Ohio and federal materials. For international sources, try the recently updated International Sports Law from GlobaLex. And it’s always worth a quick read through a standard like the third edition of Sports Law in a Nutshell.

Finally, one of my personal favorites is the very Web 2.0 tag-enabled Bibliography on Sports Law from the Peace Palace Library, which brings your basic bib into the 21st century.

Two days ago, I posted about the ICC’s indictment of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir and I completely missed the mark on the facts in one part of the post. Yes, Bashir has really been indicted by the ICC, got that part right. What I got wrong was the number of heads of state prior to Bashir who had been prosecuted by international tribunals.

I said two -- Charles Taylor and Slobodan Milosevic – but that’s not right. Can you name the others? To check your guess, see the answer to the IntLawGrrls Prosecutorial Puzzler.

Want the scoop on diversity in the legal workplace? Vault’s Guide to Law Firm Diversity Programs surveys over 190 law firms nationwide on their demographic profile covering minorities, women, and gays and lesbians. Other questions address part-time/flex-time policies, diversity initiatives, attorneys with disabilities, recruiting methods and more. Baker Hostetler, Jones Day, Littler Mendelson, Porter Wright, Squire Sanders, Thompson Hine, and Vorys are some of the firms with Ohio offices included in the Guide.

Hoping to avoid billable hours? A third edition book from the ABA Law Practice Management Section might help you do that. Winning Alternatives to the Billable Hour: Strategies That Work suggests ways to sidestep the billable hour by using value billing, fixed fees, transaction plans and other strategies.

Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, has accused Sudan president Omar Hassan al-Bashir of genocide and crimes against humanity in the Dafur region of Sudan. This is the first indictment of a head of state by the ICC. Two other heads of state – Charles Taylor and Slobodan Milosevic – have been charged by international tribunals, the Special Court for Sierra Leone and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, respectively.

Three judges of the ICC will decide whether to issue an arrest warrant for Bashir. ICC judges have issued eleven arrest warrants requested in the past, so it is likely that Moreno-Ocampo’s request for a warrant on Bashir will be granted.

For more details, read the NYT article.

A recent post on the Legal Scholarship Blog features a call for papers for the Fall 2009 Best Practices in Persuasion issue of the Journal of the Association of Legal Writing Directors (J. ALWD). Deadline for submissions for the Fall 2009 issue is September 15, 2008. For more information, see the JALWD website.

Some advice for Law Review and Journal of Law and Health write-on candidates:

1. Read the Out of the Jungle blog post, Law Review Writing Time.

2. Try Suffolk's handy online Bluebooking Guide

3. Take a look at the books Law Review put on reserve: Academic Legal Writing : Law Review Articles, Student Notes, Seminar Papers, and Getting on Law Review , Eugene Volokh, KF250 .V6 2007 and Scholarly Writing for Law Students: Seminar Papers, Law Review Notes, and Law Review Competition Papers, Elizabeth Fajans, Mary R. Falk, KF250 .F35 2005.

Thanks to Jeanie Fallon at the Suffolk Law Library Blog.

C-M Law Library's Scholarly Writing Resource Guide and Avoiding Plagiarism Guide may help, too. Also, see our prior posts:

• Good Advice for Writing Your Note or Seminar Paper;
• CiteULike: It's Del.icio.us for Academia;
• New Circuit Splits: Potential Paper Topics;
• Five Tips for Writing Better Papers and
• Finding Topics for Papers and Law Review Notes Using ACS Research Link.

Our hours for Summer Reading/Exam period, Friday, July 4 through Thursday, July 10 are...

Friday, July 4th---Closed (Independence Day)

Saturday, July 5th---9am-10pm

Sunday, July 6th---Noon-Midnight

Monday, July 7th-Wednesday, July9th---8am-Midnight

Thursday, July 10th---8am-10pm

Friday, July 11th, we will be open 8am-6pm.

Have a safe holiday and good luck with exams.

The Rhode Island Supreme Court overturned a verdict against Sherwin Williams, and other paint manufacturers, which was based on the theory that lead paint is a public nuisance. See State v. Lead Industries Association, Inc., et al, No. 04-63, Rhode Island Lead-Paint Verdict Against Sherwin-Williams Overturned, Peter Krause, The Plain Dealer, Jul. 2, 2008. For an analysis of the case, see Drug and Device Law blog.

The Ohio Attorney General and several Ohio cities filed similar suits against paint manufacturers in Ohio courts. See Ohio Sues Lead Paint Manufacturers, Cleveland Law Library Blog, After these suits were filed, the Ohio legislature passed a law prohibiting public nuisance suits against manufacturers for products liability claims. Am. Sub. SB 117. You may recall that a veto of this bill by Governor Strickland was challenged in court, and the veto was held invalid. See State ex rel. Ohio Gen. Assembly v. Brunner (Aug. 1, 2007), 114 Ohio St. 3d 386, 2007-Ohio-3780.

The Law Library is launching a new service for students. We are now offering custom research sessions on whatever area of law you need help researching. These sessions are for 3-8 students, and can be set up for a time that is convenient for you. For example research sessions can be customized for tax law, legislative history, or health law. Just to name a few. We would like your help in naming this new service by taking a one question survey. If you don’t like any of our suggestions, then feel free to make your own suggestion.

Just click here to take the survey.

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