Articles and Columns for September 2020

• A Time to Act: Putting Awareness into Action – Wendy L. Werner’s call to action is clear: “lawyers have a unique opportunity to intervene on behalf of those with fewer resources, and people who have been under served and under-represented. Many of us have been impacted by the growing knowledge of racial inequities, and recognition of disparities. This is a moment to intervene and no one group has more power to make a difference than lawyers. Now is the time.”
• RSS Feeds, PACER, and the Fight for Access to Federal Docket Information – What is RSS and how do federal courts use it? Rebecca Fordon informs us that courts vary in the types of documents they provide via RSS feeds – only about 70% of bankruptcy courts and 50% of district courts provide full feeds. The effort urging courts to fully enable RSS feeds has many advocates and would have a significant positive impact for legal researchers in all sectors.
• How to Identify a Phishing Attempt and Thwart It – There has been a huge surge in phishing attacks and swindles during the COVID-19 pandemic as more people are working remotely. The attacks and scams have been perpetrated against businesses and individuals alike. Catherine Sanders Reach talks about the increased importance for lawyers and their teams in the office or working from home to understand the threats, and how to actively engage in efforts to reduce both individual and enterprise wide exposure.
• Investing in Libraries is the Right Thing for Administrators To Do, Even if There Are Fewer Resources Overall – Todd A. Carpenter advocates for libraries at this critical juncture when remote learning is now pervasive for academic institutions around the country. Although digitized resources delivered via IP-based authentication were the norm before the pandemic, users of library resources were only vaguely aware that the services they regularly use are provided by the library because of IP-based authentication. Carpenter argues that the need for budget cuts must be weighed against the expanded and critical need for students and faculty to have uninterrupted access to digital resources provided by their libraries.
• Book Review: A Short And Happy Guide To Advanced Legal Research – Nicole L. Black’s review highlights this book’s breadth of coverage and its format, information about a variety of free online tools, including public records databases, newsletters, and encyclopedias, and case law and statutes, fee-based legal research tools, as well as traditional case law and statutory research tools, and cutting edge AI-based legal research and data analytics software.
• Hands On with Lexis+, New Premium Research Service from LexisNexis – Robert Ambrogi has authored the definitive review of Lexis+. His precise and expert review of the site, accompanied by relevant screen shots, is a must read guide for legal researchers as they consider whether to transition to this new platform. Ambrogi states: “The basic experience of conducting legal research in Lexis+ is not all that different from Lexis Advance. But the added features that I described above — Search Tree, Missing and Must Include, Search Term Maps, and Ravel View — are valuable in that they give researchers more control over their searches and results without requiring them to be power researchers.”
• Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, September 26, 2020 – Four highlights from this week: How to Blur Your House in Google Maps’ Street View; USPS Phishing Texts Are Flooding Phones Across The Country; Creepy ‘Geofence’ Finds Anyone Who Went Near a Crime Scene; and Weather Apps Continue To Share Data With Third Parties.
• Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, September 20, 2020 – Four highlights from this week: How to Blur Your House in Google Maps’ Street View; USPS Phishing Texts Are Flooding Phones Across The Country; Creepy ‘Geofence’ Finds Anyone Who Went Near a Crime Scene; and Weather Apps Continue To Share Data With Third Parties.
• Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, September 12, 2020 – Four highlights from this week: Even a Federal Judge Agrees That the FBI and NSA Are Flouting Civil Liberty Safeguards; Chinese hackers go after UNC for COVID-19 vaccine info; COVID-19 and Emerging Global Patterns of Financial Crime; and The State Of Identity Security, 2020.
• Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, September 6, 2020 – Four highlights from this week: Amazon’s Alexa for Landlords Is a Privacy Nightmare in the Making; This Email Could Wreak Havoc on the 2020 Election; How can you spot a tech support scam?; and Republicans flooding internet with deceptive videos and Big Tech isn’t keeping up.

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