UW Law Prof. Marc Galanter has a new book out called "Lawtalk: the Unknown Stories Behind Familiar Legal Expressions."

Like Galanter's last book entitled "Lowering the Bar: Lawyer Jokes and Legal Culture," this book looks like a lot of fun. WI State Journal columnist, Doug Moe, recently profiled Galanter and the new book. He writes:

The new book explains how words and phrases such as "shyster," "jailbait," "green card," "rainmaker" and "indict a ham sandwich" came into everyday language.

One of my favorites is "rap sheet" -- an individual's criminal record -- which dates to 1947 but jumped in popularity in 1954 when a self-promoting crook named Blackie Audett wrote a colorful but factually challenged autobiography titled "Rap Sheet." One reviewer suggested Blackie's biggest crime was writing "Rap Sheet."

Incidentally, the green card -- which documents a noncitizen's right to live and work in the United States -- hasn't been green since 1964.

The phrase "indict a ham sandwich" -- which speaks to how prosecutors can easily manipulate grand juries -- was popularized by a Jewish judge who later said he wished he had made the sandwich corned beef.

For more, read the full article.

Posted by Bonnie Shucha at 10:11 AM to UW Law School | Permalink

Want a clean printout without all the extra ads, navigation bars, and headers? There is a free tool called CleanPrint that can help.

You install it on your browser and it strips all of the extra stuff and just lets you print the main content of the page. CleanPrint is compatible with IE8+, Firefox 3.5+, Chrome 2+, Safari 4+, and iPad.

To install it on your browser, follow these simple installation instructions.

Posted by Bonnie Shucha at 2:32 PM to Browser Add-ons | Permalink

The UW Madison Campus Libraries recently released a new mobile website at m.library.wisc.edu/s.

Note that if you use a mobile device to go to our main home page URL, it will automatically redirect you to the mobile page.

The mobile site defaults to a listing of current hours for the campus libraries.

To search the catalog, click on the search link at the bottom.

The default is a search of the catalog, but you can also change it to search the library website or library staff (people). See that I've left it at catalog and entered search terms at the top.

After pressing Go, you'll get a list of quick catalog results.

If you select one of these results, it will open the full catalog result in Forward, UW Madison's new beta catalog.

Posted by Bonnie Shucha at 11:51 AM to UW Madison | Permalink

From the Legal Skills Prof Blog:

The Utah Legal Ethics Advisory Committee considered whether an attorney who encouraged a student to breach her agreement by doing firm-related research had committed an ethical violation. The Committee answered in the affirmative finding that an attorney's misuse of a student's educational Wexis access is theft of services, a potential felony.

Interestingly, the opinion notes that students are increasingly under pressure by employers to use their free Wexis access for firm matters. Indeed, the opinion notes that "numerous" students have reported that their "initial or continued employment" has been conditioned upon a willingness to violate their user agreements with Wexis.

Wow, this is really troubling - especially the part about conditioning employment upon willingness to violate a user agreement.

But it provides a good opportunity to remind WisBlawg readers that there are ways to legitimately access legal information at no or low cost. See our Wisconsin Legal Information Sources Guide for tips on what information is available and how to access it.

For example, did you know that the UW Law Library, Wisconsin State Law Library, and Milwaukee & Dane County Legal Resource Centers all offer free walk-in access to numerous legal databases, including Westlaw? Attorneys can even access some databases remotely with a Wisconsin State Law Library card.

Posted by Bonnie Shucha at 9:09 AM to Data & Databases | Permalink

FedCtRecords is a iPhone/iPad app which allows registered PACER users to search and retrieve documents. It is free for a limited time.

According to the support page, you can:

* Search Attorney and Party names within a District Court.
* Add Attorney information to the Contacts Application.
* Save multiple cases for quick retrieval.
* View Party and Attorney information.
* View Case Summary information.
* View Deadline and Hearings summary information.
* View Docket summary information.
* View and Email Docket Filings in pdf format.

Note that this application is for case searching only - it cannot be used to file documents.

Hat tip to LexScripta

Posted by Bonnie Shucha at 8:08 AM to Courts | Permalink

Earlier this month, Portage County joined Wisconsin's Consolidated Court Automation Programs (CCAP) electronic case-management system. Since it was the last of Wisconsin's 72 counties to join, CCAP now has complete statewide integration.

For more information, see The Third Branch.

Posted by Bonnie Shucha at 9:57 AM to Courts | Permalink

According to the Law Library Directors' listserv, Index to Legal Periodicals (ILP) will no longer be available through LexisNexis at the request of the publisher. It is unknown whether it will continue to be available on Westlaw.

ILP indexes English language legal periodicals published in the United States, Canada, Great Britain, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand.

For many years, ILP was published by H.W. Wilson Company. Earlier this year, Wilson merged with EBSCO Publishing.

Posted by Bonnie Shucha at 10:23 AM to Data & Databases | Permalink