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May 15, 2006.
Kristy Moon, editor.
Summer Access to Online Legal Research Systems
LexisNexis
Your IDs will remain active through the summer but
remember that access continues to be limited to “academic purposes,” same as
during the academic year. Academic purposes include:
- law school coursework
- research for law journal or moot court
- working for a law professor (paid or unpaid)
- internship, externship, or clinic work that is unpaid
and for which you receive law school course credit
Westlaw
Continuing Students
You can register your passwords
for summer extension if you’ll need access for:
- law school coursework
- research for law journal or moot court
- working for a law professor
- unpaid non-profit/public interest internship or externship (or
pro bono work) that is required for graduation
To register for summer
extension, go to
http://lawschool.westlaw.com/registration/summerextension.asp?appflag=100.14
If you do not fall into one of
the above categories and do not register for summer extension, your password
will still allow you to use Westlaw for 2 hours per month during the summer.
Graduating Students
Passwords for graduating
students expire on June 30. You can receive a summer bar study password from WestlawRewards. (They’ll email you in mid-May. Contact
westlawrewards@gage.com if you don’t receive the email.)
Loislaw
Loislaw allows law students to use its product for
academic and commercial purposes. That means it is OK to use Loislaw for your
summer jobs! Obtain the “access code” from the Reference Office and register
for a password at
http://www.loislawschool.com/.
Casemaker
Casemaker is a fairly new product that is available to bar
members in 29 states (including Washington State). Attorneys are allowed to
share their passwords with their employees, so you might ask your supervising
attorney for his or her password. For more information, see
https://pro.wsba.org/Casemaker/.
King County Law Library
Located inside the King County Courthouse in the Pioneer
Square District of downtown Seattle, KCLL subscribes to several online products
including LexisNexis, Westlaw, HeinOnline, LegalTrac, and tax specialty CD-ROM for its library users.
Gallagher Law Library
Library users may use online products such as KeyCite
(just the citator portion of Westlaw), BNA (various practice areas), RIA
CheckPoint (tax), HeinOnline, and LegalTrac by coming into the library or
clicking on the “Off-Campus Access” link (UW NetID required).
Summer Access to Reference Assistance
--Cheryl Nyberg
Your summer jobs and externships will take you all over
the country. Many of you will work at law firms and in organizations that have
their own libraries and reference librarians. But who you gonna call if your
employer or sponsor doesn’t?
You can call, email, or visit your friendly and helpful
Gallagher reference librarians. We will be happy to help you identify sources
and plan a research strategy. Our phone number is (206) 543-6794 and our email
address is
lawrefst@u.washington.edu. During the interim periods and the summer
quarter, we are available slightly shorter hours
than during the regular academic year.
Through the “Off-Campus Access” link on the Law Library
website, you can continue to use HeinOnline, LegalTrac, LexisNexis
Congressional, and other commercial databases listed on the
Legal Databases &
Indexes page and on the
UW Libraries
Research Databases page. These sources will be
especially valuable to students who will not have access to LexisNexis and
Westlaw during the summer.
Public Computer Terminals
The public area Law Library computers are now limited to 1
hour per day per user. The four “Legal Research Only” terminals in the
Reference Area allow 2 hours per day per user. But remember: you can always
surf the Library’s website and use the
catalog without logging in with your UW NetID or barcode.
Book of the Week: Legal Ethics Stories
--Mary Whisner, from Trial Ad Notes
Lawyers may face
many moral dilemmas -- some covered by the formal rules of ethics and some not.
Legal Ethics Stories is
a new collection of essays looking at ten cases, exploring their contexts and
the decisions the attorneys faced, and often adding a postscript about
subsequent developments. It is edited by
Deborah L. Rhode and
David J. Luban.
Here is a sampling of the stories:
- David B. Wilkins, "Race, Ethics, and the First Amendment: Should a Black Lawyer
Represent the Ku Klux Klan?" looks at the situation of the ACLU cooperating
attorney who took on a pro bono case representing a Klan leader and
subsequently lost his position as general counsel for the local NAACP.
- In “Travails in Tax: KPMG and the Tax Shelter Controversy,” Tanina Rostain explores lawyer’s
role in marketing dubious tax shelters in a Big 8 accounting firm.
- Stephen Gillers, "In the Pink Room," discusses the conviction and exoneration (after seven
years in prison) of a substitute preschool teacher for child sexual abuse.
The Bronx District Attorney's Office had failed to turn over to the defense
documents that would have undercut the prosecution and, very likely,
prevented conviction. Eventually -- 20 years after the man was wrongly
accused -- the city offered a settlement of $5 million.
- Michael Mello, "United States v. Kaczynski: Representing the Unabomber," traces the
relationship between Theodore Kaczynski and his court-appointed lawyers.
Their persistent plans to present mental health evidence, despite his clear
wishes, led to his guilty plea. The author assisted him in a motion to
overturn the plea because of the bind he was put under -- denied the
opportunity to get new counsel or represent himself, he had to accept
portrayal as mentally ill or plead guilty. Writes Mello: "Most of what the
public knows about the Unabomber case is wrong. But not for lack of media
coverage." (p. 141)
- In "Spaulding v. Zimmerman: Confidentiality and Its Exceptions," Roger C. Cramton looks at a
case from the 1950s where defense counsel did not tell the plaintiff about a
life-threatening injury in order to maintain a strong negotiating position.
"It is fashionable today to lament the decline of professional standards over
time and to mourn the passing of a golden age of lawyering in which lawyers
were more civil to each other and more public-spirited than in today's era of
'commercialism.' The facts of Spaulding suggest that in a number of
important ways, things have gotten better rather than worse." (p. 183)
- Alex Beam, in "Greed on Trial," discusses litigation over the $1.3 billion in fees sought
by one of the firms that represented Massachusetts in the tobacco settlement.
Each of the stories
is very interesting and provocative. The book is available in the library:
KF306 .A4L43 2006 at Reference Area. Take a look -- for one story or a bunch of
them. | 