Tara Calishain is the co-author of Official Netscape Guide to Internet Research, 2nd Edition, and author or co-author of four other books. She is the owner of CopperSky Writing & Research.
In This Issue:
Web Cites for Federal Defenders
Oxford Reference Service Launches Next March
Google Spider Spins Out of Bounds
Transition Complete for .US Domain
Rapsheets.com Announces Expansion
LLRXBu zz Tour of 50 State Web Sites
LLRXBu zz Archives : April 3, 2000 – Present
The Latest on Legal Research
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Hello! We’re doing something slightly different this week — there was so much news we created a small news roundup section and we’re including it at the end of this issue. Hope it’s useful and helpful to you. Thanks for reading!
Web Cites for Federal Defenders
Web Cites for Federal Defenders, at http://www.geocities.com/fpdweb/, says it’s brought to you by Paul Rashkind, from the Office of the Federal Public Defender in Florida.
Through its navigation bar on the left, the site features links to the U.S. Supreme Court, the U.S. District Court and the Court of Appeals. It also
lists, alphabetically and by district, profiles of the practices and procedures of District Court and Magistrate Judges practicing in Florida, as well as federal defenders online throughout the United States. Unfortunately annotation is minimal, but defenders should be able to find their way through with little
trouble.
I suggest you check out the Research Links tab on the left. It links to Federal and State Constitutions, Codes and Statutes. There are also links to Court
Related and Congressional cites, both on the Hill and Executive. And there are additional research sites including DNA Tutorials for Non-Scientists. Worth a
look.
Legal technology (http://www.legaltechnology.org/) provides an independent look at news about legal technology and media law through two publications.
The site’s front page is divided into three columns: site index on the far left, portal links in the middle column, and this week’s stories on the far right.
Legal Technology Insider is subscription-based and focuses on legal systems in the UK, Europe and the Pacific Rim. Prices vary depending on whether or not you’re in the UK and whether or not you’re a student; pricing information is available at http://www.legaltechnology.org/ordernow.htm. Free trial subscriptions are available. They also offer the 1995-2000 archive PDF format for free (it’s on a CD; you must provide your postal address.) Back issues are
available on the site, but the most recent back issues (six or seven months’ worth) are not available.
New Media Lawyer is a free electronic publication that reports on both technology and law news through the UK and internationally. It doesn’t
look like it’s quite a weekly — occasionally issues are published every two weeks. Many back issues are available on the site.
This site has a keyword search engine and links to other search engines such as infolaw and Legal Technology Solution Finder, each of which has drop-down
menus for quicker searching. It also provides a site index and links to additional legal information portals. After I got past the rather busy front page, I
fount it well worth a look.
HighTechAttorney, at http://www.hightechattorney.com/, offers an online community and association to lawyers whose practices specialize in technology issues. The free membership includes a monthly newsletter and a
discussion list. (The discussion list is hosted by Topica and the archives are publicly available.)
The association also maintains a referral database to help facilitate contacts between members, but you must go through the association to take advantage of this. There’s also a forms library under construction; the association is requesting that members help out by contributing forms of interest to the high tech lawyer community (cease and desist letters, trademark opinion letters,
etc.)
Oxford Reference Service Launches Next March
Oxford Reference is planning to launch a reference service next year at http://www.oxfordreference.com/.
There’s plenty of information available at the site right now. Looks like the idea is a reference engine, ala Xrefer, with 100 Oxford dictionaries and other
reference works (there is a complete list of sources available on the site.) Search options look like they’ll be extensive, with restrictions by person, topic, date, or individual work or reference topic. You can get a list of sample entries at http://oxford.semantico.com/public/sample.html.
I could not find pricing information on the site, but there is a link on the site to sign up for a prerelease mailing list. The mailing list will provide information on pricing, free trials, and beta test opportunities.
Google Spider Spins Out of Bounds – ZDNet News: November 26, 2001.
Paul Festa reports that Google’s new spider will make it easy for even the novice hacker to access classified documents. Google says the security tapping is not their fault, but they are trying to come up with new ways to protect sensitive information. They have also posted ways to avoid spiders on their site for Webmasters.
Security analysts say it isn’t just search engines that they are concerned about. Some automated hacking tools, such as the Internet worms, can run
independently of search engines. See the article at
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,5099914,00.html.
Transition Complete for .US Domain – November 20, 2001.
NeuStar has announced the completion of its assuming operational responsibility for a top-level domain to be used in the United States. NeuStar will run dot-US names on it’s highly secure platform as well as handle registration and technical assistance. PRESS RELEASE.
SEC to Link to EDGAR Online
EDGAR Online Inc., has announced an agreement with Security & Exchange Commission in which SEC will link to EDGAR Online for immediate access to SEC filings. PRESS RELEASE – http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/011126/nym042_1.html.
Rapsheets.com Announces Expansion – Internet Wire: November 26, 2001.
Rapsheets.com has added another 2.5 million names (from Cook County, IL) to its database of criminal records, making it the largest public database of its type. Registered customers on Rapsheets.com can now search the criminal records of over 32 million people for a charge of $3.00 per name. PRESS RELEASE – http://biz.yahoo.com/iw/011126/01035106_1.html.