Category «Courts»

Taking Laughter Seriously at the Supreme Court

Jacobi, Tonja and Sag, Matthew, Taking Laughter Seriously at the Supreme Court (March 9, 2019). Vanderbilt Law Review, Forthcoming. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract= “Laughter in Supreme Court oral arguments has been misunderstood, treated as either a lighthearted distraction from the Court’s serious work, or interpreted as an equalizing force in an otherwise hierarchical environment. Examining …

Subjects: Courts, Knowledge Management, Legal Research

Millionaires and Corporate Giants Escaped IRS Audits in FY 2018

Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse: “The latest data from the IRS show an alarming and continued downward spiral in government audits of the wealthiest taxpayers and America’s corporate giants. Despite growing income inequality – where the top 1 percent of Americans control much of the wealth in the United States – less and less attention is …

Subjects: Courts, Economy, Financial System, Government Documents, Legal Research

NYC Legal Aid Society releases searchable database of federal lawsuits brought against NYC police

The New York Law Journal: “The New York City Legal Aid Society has released a searchable database of federal lawsuits brought against New York City police, which it said could arm plaintiffs attorneys with crucial information for their own civil rights suits. The database, called CAPstat, contains more than 2,350 lawsuits filed from January 2015 …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, Courts, Freedom of Information, Government Documents, Legal Research, Social Media

Which District Court Judges Now Have the Largest Civil Caseloads?

Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse – “Nationally, there were 315,523 civil cases awaiting resolution before U.S. district court judges at the end of calendar year 2018. All of the “top ten” judges in the country with the most pending cases are currently handling significant multidistrict litigation. MDL dockets are usually complex litigation involving plaintiffs with common …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, Courts, Government Documents, Legal Research

New on LLRX – Making a difference with data driven decision-making

Via LLRX.com – Making a difference with data driven decision-making – Amanda L. Brown, Esq., Legal Technology Consultant, Louisiana Legal Aid Navigator Project, Louisiana Bar Foundation – shares her experience on how using technology is an effective way to bridge the justice gap, and supports this position by demonstrating how data-driven decisions are used to …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, Courts, Knowledge Management, Legal Research

National Archives Releases New Batch of Kavanaugh Records

Via EPIC – “In response to EPIC’s Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, the National Archives has just released thousands of records about Justice Kavanaugh work in the White House Counsel’s office after 9-11. The records include e-mails from 2002-2003, briefings, meeting memos, and correspondence, and office files about anti-terrorism legislation and access to presidential records. …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, Courts, E-Mail, Freedom of Information, Government Documents, Legal Research

Drafting Only Men for the Military Is Unconstitutional, Judge Rules

The New York Times: “A military draft that applies only to men is unconstitutional, a federal judge in Houston has ruled, saying that excluding women is no longer justified because they can now serve in combat roles just as men do. Judge Gray H. Miller of Federal District Court in the Southern District of Texas …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, Courts, Defense, Government Documents, Legal Research

Mail and Wire Fraud: A Brief Overview of Federal Criminal Law Updated

Via FAS – Mail and Wire Fraud: A Brief Overview of Federal Criminal Law Updated, February 11, 2019. “The mail and wire fraud statutes are exceptionally broad. Their scope has occasionally given the courts pause. Nevertheless, prosecutions in their name have brought to an end schemes that have bilked victims out of millions, and sometimes …

Subjects: Congress, Courts, E-Records, Government Documents, Legal Research

Researchers break digital signatures for most desktop PDF viewers

ZDNet: “A team of academics from the Ruhr-University Bochum in Germany say they’ve managed to break the digital signing system and create fake signatures on 21 of 22 desktop PDF viewer apps and five out of seven online PDF digital signing services. This includes apps such as Adobe Acrobat Reader, Foxit Reader, and LibreOffice, and …

Subjects: Courts, E-Records, Government Documents, Legal Research

Paper – The access-to-justice crisis is bigger than law and lawyers

Access to What? Rebecca L. Sandefur. © 2019 by Rebecca L. Sandefur doi:10.1162/DAED_a_00534 Rebecca l. Sandefur is Associate Professor of Sociology and Associate Professor of Law at the University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign; and Faculty Fellow at the American Bar Foundation, where she founded and leads the Foundation’s Access to Justice re search initiative. …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, Courts, Legal Research

Immigration Court Workload in the Aftermath of the Shutdown

Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse – “The latest available data from the Immigrant Court indicates that as of February 1, 2019 the court is still playing catch up in the aftermath of the five-week partial government shutdown. It is therefore still too early to get an accurate reading of just how much larger the backlog has …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, Courts, Freedom of Information, Legal Research