Data.gov - New Page at USA.gov

USA.gov has recently been updated with Data.gov as a part of the Data and Statistics - General Reference Resources page. The following is the stated purpose:

The purpose of Data.gov is to increase public access to high value, machine readable datasets generated by the Executive Branch of the Federal Government.

Further,

Data.gov includes a searchable data catalog that includes access to data in two ways: through the "raw" data catalog and using tools.

The Primary Goal of this site reads as follows:

A primary goal of Data.gov is to improve access to Federal data and expand creative use of those data beyond the walls of government by encouraging innovative ideas (e.g., web applications). Data.gov strives to make government more transparent and is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in Government. The openness derived from Data.gov will strengthen our Nation's democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in Government.

Users may also suggest other data and materials to be added to this page and the searchable database.

And don't forget that you can subscribe to receive automatic updates from USA.gov via email or via RSS feed.

Law Library of Congress on Sonia Sotomayor

The Law Library of Congress launched a new website on Supreme Court Nominee, Sonia Sotomayor, listing articles and books, congressional documents, cases, and other web resources about Ms. Sotomayor, as part of their find legal resources section. To add to the list, also check out Pace Honorary Degree Recipient Sonia Sotomayor's profile on Pace Law School website.

StateScape Billfinder

StateScape Billfinder is a policy tracking and analysis website that allows you to quickly find any state or federal bills. As the creators describe themselves,

StateScape serves organizations seeking a competitive edge in government relations by providing the fastest and most accurate legislative and regulatory information and analysis service on the market.

Further,

Bill Finder helps you find any bill eligible for consideration in the current calendar year using either keywords and phrases or bill numbers.

StateScape provides:

• Legislative and regulatory monitoring
• Coverage of all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, hundreds of localities and the federal government
• Issue analysis and political intelligence
• Real time updates and e-mail alerts
• Report formatting possibilities
• Links to customized reports with real time updates
• Customized web pages and direct data feeds

Among the search options is a quick search, legis track, and Bill finder. If you had an experience with this website, feel free to share your opinions.

EU dailies in 10 Languages

Via Crossroads magazine, as part of the news section, an article titled New Portal to Translate EU Dailies Into 10 Languages, features a new website attempting to have all citizens of EU to read the same thing.

A new website launched Tuesday (26 May) aims to get EU citizens across the 27 member states talking and reading about the same issues, something that to date has been hindered by language barriers. With EUR 3m of European Commission funds a year and a team of 10 journalists, www.presseurop.eu is part of the EU’s drive to create a ‘European public sphere.’

Among the languages are: Czech, Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, and Spanish. Especially for those who are into international comparative research, staying on the top of the current news might be helpful.

Wonder About Your Power Usage?

Via Law.com Legal Technology, an article titled Green Gadgets to Exorcise Power Phantoms, the author Joseph Howie writes about the phantom power usage, which he describes as power being used/drawn even when devices are supposedly off. He mentions few examples of energy waste (listed bellow). He continues saying that the first step to energy savings is to be able to measure how much energy is being consumed; therefore he lists few tools/gadgets that can help you measure, calculate and project power usage.

There are 168 hours in a week, but most devices are used no more than 50 hours, so it's easy to see how a significant percentage of a law firm's electrical usage can be wasted by having devices drawing power all the time.

Instances when power is used without knowing:

• computers can be configured to blank their screens when they're not being used, but the computer can still draw substantial power;
• printers and copiers can take several watts of power just to be ready to print;
• servers can draw a substantial amount of energy even when users are not accessing them. In fact, the cost of running a server can be a significant percentage of its original cost. Older servers may be very inefficient, costing hundreds of dollars a year to operate;
• cell phone chargers can draw power even when the phone isn't connected, or when it is connected but fully charged;
• coffee makers that can make coffee in an instant may do so by always keeping the water warm and ready to brew.

Tools/Gadgets (read the full article for descriptions):
Kill A Watt
The Energy Detective
Smart Strip Power Strip
Energy Orb
Solio Charger
Wagan Tech

A large office might find it relatively easy to cut a kilowatt per hour for the entire year, resulting in saving almost a thousand dollars of electricity, four and a half tons of coal and about 10 tons of CO_²!

Computer-Literate vs. Research-Literate

Via Chronicle of Higher Education, in an article titled Not Enough Time In the Library, the author Todd Gilman points out an interesting fact; being computer-literate doesn't mean and/or guarantee being research-literate. Todd discusses the existence and importance of technological tools, such are smart classrooms, interactive whiteboards, Web 2.0 tools, social networking tools, citation tools, and many others. But he states that those are only to convey substantive content. He says,

Research education is not tools education. Research education involves getting students to understand how information is organized physically in libraries, as well as electronically in library catalogs and in powerful, sometimes highly specialized commercial databases. It means teaching students to search effectively online to identify the most relevant and highest-quality books, articles, microform sets, databases, even free Web resources.

Read the full story to see some of his tips and hints on how to augment students' research skills. Though Todd is a librarian for English literature at Yale Memorial Library, his suggestions might be useful to legal researchers as well.

How We Operate: An Inside Look at the Appellate Division, First Department

An article by David B. Saxe, associate justice of the Appellate Division, First Department, describes the working of the Division which covers New York County for the working bar and willbe of interest to those who soon hope to be among the working bar. A good look behind the scenes.

NY Shield Law Extended to Bloggers?

The NY Times City Blog reports on a bill introduced by Democratic state senators Thomas Duane and Linda Rosenthal that would extend the state shield law for journalists to include "journalist bloggers." The current shield law protects journalists from having to disclose confidential sources or information in state court. S8746 proposes to amend Civil Rights Law 79-h to include those who write a web log in the definition of a professional journalist, and adds a new section defining the term web log:

"Web log" shall mean a website or webpage that contains an online journal containing news, comments and offers hyperlinks provided by the professional journalist or newscaster.

Blogger Insurance

Today's Wall Street Journal has an article about bloggers' liability entitled Bloggers, Beware: What You Write Can Get You Sued . The article discusses the case of Shellee Hale, from Bellevue Washington, who was sued for comments she made in "chat-room posts." The article also includes information about insurance coverage options for bloggers.

Pace Law Library on Facebook

Pace Law Library has now a Facebook presence. Become a fan! Find out about our library and what we offer. Participate in our discussions. See our twitter updates. And, of course, let us know what would you like to see on our Facebook page. See you there!

Pace Law Library's Facebook Page

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Government Information Online

Gail Whittemore, Pace Law Library Special Collections and Reference Librarian, has compiled a guide to finding government information online. This guide contains links to federal government information on Congress and federal legislation, the President, Cabinet Departments, the federal courts and their decisions, and federal agencies.

Take Professor Obama's Constitutional Law Exam

The Constitutional Law Professors blog has this post with President (then Professor) Obama's 1996 constitutional law exam along with feedback.

The exam consists of two questions. The first deals with equal protection and substantive due process, and the second requires students to argue both sides of an affirmative action question and discuss theories of racial justice.

The exam is open-book, with six hours allotted. But in his instructions, Prof. Obama says

The exam is designed, however, to be completed in approximately three hours. Feel free to use the extra three hours as you wish (anxiously flipping through the casebook for that one last citation, or heading over to the gym for a good workout - your choice)."

Can Supreme Court Be Influenced By Blogging?

Social Media Law Student blog has a nice post titled "Can Blogs Influence the Supreme Court?" by Josh Camson. In this post, Josh reviews an article by Stanford Law student, Rachel C. Lee, titled Ex Parte Blogging: The Legal Ethics of Supreme Court Advocacy in the Internet Era.

Lawyers have been arguing their cases before the Supreme Court for over two centuries, while the phenomenon of legal blogs is perhaps a decade old. Yet legal blogs cannot be dismissed as merely a sideshow novelty—they are already capable of having a substantial impact on Supreme Court litigation.

Rachel based her argument on the 2008 decision in Kennedy v. Louisiana, 554 U.S. __, 129 S.Ct. 1, 171 L.Ed. 2d 932 (2008) and continues on saying that events surrounding this decision ...

[d]emonstrate that blogs can both highlight errors in Court decisions and generate new arguments relevant to ongoing litigation. In addition, legal blogs create the opportunity for Supreme Court advocates to engage in ex parte blogging—posting persuasive material about a pending case in the hopes of directly influencing the Court’s decisions.

Attorneys for parties and amici in cases before the Court already sometimes post arguments online about their cases shortly after oral argument—potentially a crucial time in the Court’s decision-making process—and evidence suggests that the Justices and their clerks may well encounter some of these posts online. Yet no one has analyzed the ethical implications of this practice, or what its effects might be on different groups appearing before the Court. This Note examines the relationship between ex parte blogging and the traditional concepts of prejudicial publicity and ex parte communications.

Any thoughts? Feel free to share!

Tips To Write An Email

Email is one of the common ways to communicate with others; we write to our friends, family, colleagues, professors, supervisors, acquaintances, neighbors, teammates, classmates, roommates, employers, employees, or even people we don't know at all. Here are some tips to draft an email that someone else will actually read. You can read the full stories including all the tips at the links bellow.

Some tips:

• Delete Redundancies
• Use numbers and specifics instead of adverbs and adjectives
• Add missing context
• Focus on the strongest argument
• Delete off-topic material
• Kill your favorites
• Delete anything written in the heat of emotion
• Shorten
• Toss useless words
• Last things first
• Don't BCC
• Format
• Paragraphs
• Subject line is important - "Re: re: re:" - no good!
• Be sensitive to language and culture
• Set the right tone
• Never try to resolve a dispute over an email
• Always allow room to be corrected

To read the full lists, via the (new) legal writer, Harvard Business Publishing, and slaw.ca, click on the following links that lead you to the full posts.
How To Revise Email
How To Revise Email So That People Will Read It
How To Revise Email (Revised)
Email Survival Tips For The Busy Professional

Pace Law School Commencement (2003)

Sonia Sotomayor was the commencement speaker at the Law School graduation in 2003. Listen to her speech here

Library Of Congress On The U.S. Constitution

The Library of Congress has launched a new site dedicated to the Constitution of the U.S., titled United States: The Constitution. Documents are available in PDF format and include citations. Check it out yourself!

The website offers the following:

• Constitutional Interpretation
• Executive Privilege
• Military Tribunals
• National Security Whistleblowers
• Presidential Inherent Powers
• Presidential Signing Statements
• Second Amendment
• States Secrets Privilege
• War Powers
• War Powers Resolutions
• Additional Constitutional Resources

Congratulations Pace Law School Graduates!

CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL PACE LAW SCHOOL GRADUATES!

The Pace Law School Thirty-First Annual Commencement took place today, May 17 2009, at 10 am in White Plains, New York.

The Library congratulates to all graduating students and wishes you all the best on your next endeavors. You did it! Don't forget that as Pace Alumni, you can always use the library and contact any of us librarians in the future. See our previous post Law Library Services For Alumni.

Be Aware Of Wikipedia!

Via WisBlawg, a post titled Student's Wikipedia Hoax Fools Journalists, Bloggers, writes about an example of unreliability of Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia. I think it is safe to say that everyone of us, at least once, received the warning to verify information found online against a reputable source. We all heard the advice to always make sure information found online is reliable and authenticated.

This story goes:

When Dublin university student Shane Fitzgerald posted a poetic but phony quote on Wikipedia, he said he was testing how our globalized, increasingly Internet-dependent media was upholding accuracy and accountability in an age of instant news.

His report card: Wikipedia passed. Journalism flunked.

The sociology major's made-up quote -- which he added to the Wikipedia page of Maurice Jarre hours after the French composer's death March 28 -- flew straight on to dozens of U.S. blogs and newspaper Web sites in Britain, Australia and India.

Just to make sure, it is fine to use Wikipedia for a quick look up to gain a general idea of a topic, but to cite to Wikipedia or completely rely on the information found within, without verifying the reliability against a reputable source, well - that is just a gamble! So, let's warn ourselves once again! And I'll take advantage now to mention the Pace Law Library Research Assistants Guide that contains a section on evaluating Internet Resources. Take a look!

Overcharging For Legal Research?

Via Law.com, an article titled Lawsuit Claims Chadbourne Overcharged for Computerized Legal Research, discusses - what some believe to be the widely spread common practice of many law firms - overcharging for legal research. Do really law firms overcharge? Do law firms pay flat fee? Do they have to pay for hidden cost that are posed by the legal databases' providers? How should law firms bill their clients for the time spent on legal research and for the expense incurred when conducting legal research?

A California plaintiffs attorney has filed a lawsuit against a New York-based law firm on behalf of a former client of the firm for what she claims is a hidden but widespread practice within the legal profession: law firms secretly profiting off legal research fees by overcharging clients. Follow: Waggoner v. Chadbourne & Parke, No. BC408693 (Los Angeles Co., Calif., Super. Ct.).

Consumer protection attorney, Patricia Meyer at Patricia A Meyer & Associates, said that many similar law suites are being filed or just about to. She believes this is "unfair business practice" within the legal profession and continues on saying:

I know I'm not the most popular person in town right now, but that's okay. This is something that needs to be corrected.

Any thoughts? Feel free to share your comments!

Cite To The Internet or Not?!

Via Slaw.ca, in a post titled Link Rot In Court Decision the bellow mentioned article is featured. With the growth of the Internet and the use of information available on the Internet, the citation to the Internet has also increased. That is true for the legal world and legal citation as well. The question of citing or not citing to the Internet in legal documents is being heavily debated. There is an article available through SSRN that discusses link rot in court decisions by Tina Ching (Reference Librarian, Seattle Univ. Law Library) in The Next Generation of Legal Citations: A Survey of Internet Citations in the Opinions of the Washington Supreme Court and Washington Appellate Courts, 1999-2005 , 9 J. App. Prac. & Process 387 (2007), available at SSRN.

The article abstract reads as follows:

As more legal research is conducted online, it is reasonable to conclude that there will be a corresponding increase in citations to the Internet by judges in their opinions. With the widespread public use of the Internet to access information along with the constant changes and impermanence of websites, citing to the Internet should be an issue of increasing concern to the legal community across the country. This paper surveys the types of Internet sources the Washington state Supreme Court and Appellate Court justices are citing. It discusses the interrelated issues of link rot and the impermanence of web pages, citation format, authentication and preservation of online electronic legal information.

Summer Access to Lexis, Loislaw, and Westlaw

This post is to follow up on our previous two posts (by Cynthia) about Lexis and Westlaw summer access. This time, let's give it a summary and complete the list by adding Loislaw.

Lexis
Access to Lexis is limited beginning June 1 unless you register for summer access. Summer access is limited to academic purposes, which include:

• class preparation and assignments
• research associated with moot court or law review/law journal
• research associated with pursuing a grant or scholarship
• service as a research assistant to a professor (either paid or unpaid)
• an unpaid internship, externship or clinic position for school credit
• clerkship for credit
• bar review

Loislaw
Loislaw provides one low, all inclusive flat rate; no hidden charges for hyperlinking, downloading or printing; and free training and 24/7 technical support. Loislaw does not pose any summer access restrictions on students or non-students.

If you are not graduating this summer, as a student click here to get the authorization code, so you can register for an account with Loislaw, if you have not already done so. The password is listed on TWEN, under Law Library on Twen - Passwords.

If you are graduating and will no longer be a student, Loislaw is also available for free through the New York State Bar Association website if you are a member.


Westlaw
For those who are not graduating this summer, if you are participating in what qualifies as an educational program, you may extend your Westlaw password for the summer. Educational programs qualifies as:

• You are taking summer law school classes
• You are on law review
• You are working on a project for a professor
• You are participating in moot court
• You are doing an unpaid non-profit public interest internship/externship or pro bono work required for graduation.

Important - the following is NOT considered an educational purpose and are therefore prohibited:

• Working for law firms, government organizations, entities serving the District of Columbia, corporations, paid or for-profit internships, externships, public interest, non-graduation required pro bono
• Personal use, practice and preparation for the bar exam.

Contact us with any further questions!

Congratulations to the Pace Law School Environmental Program

New York Times, May 13, 2009

Law Library Services for Alumni

Congratulations to our soon-to-be-alumni, the class of 2009. Pace Law alumni are welcome to use the Library after graduation, and a brochure outlining our services for alumni is available here. Among them are

• Access to public access version of Lexis
• Access to other electronic databases, including BNA
• Access to the reference librarians via phone or email.

We also have a research guide detailing free and low cost resources for legal research. You can get an alumni ID card by stopping at Circulation for an alumni information card, and taking this card to the Pace One Card office for a photo ID.

Mobile Access to the Pace Library Catalog

The Pace Library catalog has an interface appropriate for use with cell phones, including IPhones, Blackberries, or any mobile phone with web access. It allows you to search the Library catalog--for instance, you can check for the availability of reserve materials (especially useful during exams). No downloading required, just click here and search.

Westlaw Summer Access

If you are not graduating this summer and are participating in a qualified program defined as an educational purpose, Westlaw allows you to extend your password for full use of Westlaw this summer. You must fit into one of the following categories:

• You are taking summer law school classes
• You are on law review
• You are working on a project for a professor
• You are participating in moot court
• You are doing an unpaid non-profit public interest internship/externship or pro bono work required for graduation.

The following categories are NOT considered an educational purpose and are therefore prohibited:

• Working for law firms, government organizations, entities serving the District of Columbia, corporations, paid or for-profit internships, externships, public interest, non-graduation required pro bono
• Personal use, practice and preparation for the bar exam.

Click here or the link above to extend your password.

GovFresh--Government 2.0

GovFresh is a live feed of official news from U.S. Government Twitter, YouTube, RSS, Facebook, Flickr accounts and more, all in one place.

Right now it includes the White House, Supreme Court, Congress, a number of Cabinet departments, along with some agencies (including the EPA), the Army, and the RNC and DNC.

Keep It 'Light' While 'Lawyering'

Via Legal Technology Blog, an article titled Nutmeg Lawyer Adds Spice to the Blawgosphere is about Adrian Baron, an attorney in New Britain, Conn., who writes rather amusing blog The Nutmeg Lawyer, a blawg discussing the trials & tribulations of law practice. Baron is a general practitioner and partner of Podorowsky, Thompson & Baron. He handles everything from criminal defense to real estate to family law and immigration. He really gets to experience the legal practice and he likes to blog about it. His blog has been highlighted by many other blawgs, including the ABA Journal Blog.

Baron says,

There are a lot of funny things going on in the legal world. I could've just as easily done a scholarly blog, but I don't want to do homework every night.

While you are in law school, try not to turn into a complete jackass. Not only will you alienate your friends and family but you will eventually alienate those you will contact in your professional life. Jackass law students often turn into jackass lawyers. They are difficult to deal with and we tend to make fun of them in courthouse backrooms and on golf course fairways.

Take a look at his blog and some of the stories he has shared and enjoy!

Adequate Search Terms Are Important

Via Legal Technology Blog, a great post titled Wake-Up Call on Slipshod Search Terms, discusses the important of proper search terms. U.S. Magistrate Judge Andrew. J. Peck recently issued,

a self-styled "wake-up call" to members of the bar in the Southern District. Instead of attorneys designing keywords without adequate information "by the seat of their pants," Peck appealed for keyword formulations based on careful thought, quality control, testing and cooperation.

Further, Magistrate Judge Peck, in an order of William A. Gross Constr. Assoc., Inc. v. Am. Mfr. Mut. Ins. Co., 256 F.D.R. 134, 2009 WL 724954 (S.D.N.Y. March 19, 2009) endorsed

Magistrate Judge Grimm's description of the proper procedure for devising search keywords. He emphasized in a footnote that what is required is more than a lawyer's guesses, without any quality control testing to ensure the search results are minimally overinclusive or underinclusive for responsive e-mails.

A plug for the Pace Law Library, take a moment to listen to the law library podcast Food for Thought: Generating Search Terms.

Lexis Summer Access

Access to Lexis is limited beginning June 1 unless you register for summer access. Summer access is limited to academic purposes, which include

• class preparation and assignments
• research associated with moot court or law review/law journal
• research associated with pursuing a grant or scholarship
• service as a research assistant to a professor (either paid or unpaid)
• an unpaid internship, externship or clinic position for school credit
• clerkship for credit
• bar review

Academic purposes do not include research conducted for a law firm, corporation or other entity (other than a professor or law school) that is paying the student to conduct said research, or that is passing along the costs of said research to a third party. These are deemed commercial purposes.

Library of Congress Photos on Flicker

Library of Congress offers its collection of historical photographs via Flicker. Access the Library of Congress' photostream. You do not need a flicker account to view the images. Read more about the Library of Congress Photos on Flicker. Enjoy!

We invite you to tag and comment on the photos, and we also welcome identifying information—many of these old photos came to us with scanty descriptions!

More on Kindle DX

To follow up on our previous post about Kindle DX, this time the TechnoLawyer Blog has their analysis of the new Kindle DX. Take a look at what TechnoLawyer identified as the killer features, notable features, and the rest that one should know about this new device. And, of course, feel free to share your comments!

Kindle DX Introduced at Pace University

Today, May 6, 2009, Amazon introduced the new Kindle DX at the Michael Schimmel Center for the Arts at the Pace University in lower Manhattan, announcing it is tailored for textbooks and newspapers. Read the full Amazon Live Blogging via New York Times.

What do you think? Would you like to say 'good bye' to the heavy backpack filled with big and expensive books? Instead you could stroll around with a much lighter Kindle DX that would hold all your books. Would reading on the screen be as effective as reading a regular book? Is the DX too big compared to Kindle 2? What are your thoughts on Kindle DX? Share your comments!

Lexis ASPIRE Program

From a Lexis press release:

The LexisNexis ASPIRE (Associates Serving Public Interests Research) program allows qualified graduates to access a specified menu of LexisNexis services during the deferral period. To be eligible for LexisNexis access via this program, you must have accepted an Associate position at a law firm, but 1) are experiencing a deferred fall 2009 start date, and 2) be taking on public interest work during your deferral period.

Register at the link above. Once your eligibility is confirmed and you begin your public interest position, Lexis will permit you to use your student ID to access a specific menu of the resources available on Lexis.

Center for Democracy & Technology and CRS Reports

The New York Times has this article today on the efforts of the Center for Democracy & Technology to make public the work of the Congressional Research Service (CRS), a division of the Library of Congress. CRS produces reports for Congress, and these reports are, by law, for the use of Congress only. Several members of Congress have made these reports accessible on their websites and a commercial vendor (Penny Hill Press) has many reports available for a fee. Several senators, among them Patrick Leahy, John McCain, and Joe Lieberman, have introduced legislation to make the reports public, as recently as last week.

The Center for Democracy & Technology created OpenCRS, a website that provides access to the reports along with an index to them.

Watch NY Court of Appeals Arguments Live

Starting today, May 5 2009, anyone can watch live the arguments before the New York Court of Appeals. You can access the webcasts directly from the N.Y. Court of Appeals website. The website indicates what time the oral argument is scheduled to begin. The court's decisions are available here the day of their release to the general public. The N.Y. Court of Appeals website provides a calendar with scheduled oral arguments. You can also purchase a video tape of an oral argument. The N.Y. Court of Appeals hosts lecture series that are now also available via webcasts on the main page. Additional selected oral arguments, lecture series, or webcasts in capital cases are available here.

May Issue of D-Brief

Reference Librarian and Head of Circulation Vicky Gannon writes about some new Library resources—BNA Electronic Publications, Loislaw, and our updated research guides, including our Guide for 1Ls and Free and Low Cost Resources for Legal Research. There is also important information for our soon-to-be alumni.

Vicky includes a recipe for rice pudding that has caused a bit of controversy on the Library staff because it contains neither nutmeg nor raisins.

This is our last issue for this academic year. Good luck on exams, and we’ll be back in August.

Google Charts Public Data in Search Results

TechCrunch reports that Google is now presenting public data from searches as a chart. For instance, if you search unemployment rates in New York, the first result will be formatted as a chart, with options to chart umemployment rates in other states.

THOMAS Launches RSS Feed and Email Subscriptions

The Library of Congress THOMAS database was launched to make federal legislative information freely available to the public. Since its launch in 1995, THOMAS has grown exponentially. It now offers RSS feed and email subscriptions.

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is a technology that allows organizations to deliver news to a desktop computer or other Internet device. By subscribing to RSS feeds, users can easily stay up-to-date with areas of the Library's site that are of interest. The Law Library of Congress now offers RSS feeds for use in an RSS reader or RSS-enabled Web browser. Library feeds consist of headline, brief summary, and a link that leads back to the Library's Web site for more information. Available feeds cover: THOMAS: Daily Digest, Law Library News and Events, Law Library Webcasts, Current Legal Topics, and the Global Legal Monitor.

Click here to view the list of available subscriptions, and to read more about RSS Feed as well as email subscription.

Pace Environmental Notes -- April 2009

Here is this month's Pace Environmental Notes.

Pace Law Connection for New Supreme Court Justice?

Two of the candidates touted as possible replacements for retiring Supreme Court Justice David Souter were commencement speakers at Pace Law School, and both were awarded honorary Doctor of Laws degrees. In 2000, Seth Waxman, former U.S. Solicitor General spoke and in 2003 Sonia Sotomayor, Circuit Judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals, Second Circuit. I am a 2003 alumna of Pace Law School, and recall that Judge Sotomayor's speech was one of the highlights of commencement. She brought her elderly mother with her and spoke sincerely and movingly about her life and her journey to her appointment as a Second Circuit judge. Her honorary degree citation read, in part

If ever there were a role model of aspiration, discipline, commitment, intellectual prowess and integrity, it is you, Sonia Sotomayor. The nation, in general, and the people of the Second Judicial Circuit, in particular, benefit from your solid judicial experience. Even in our postmodern, deconstructionist society when the reality of impartiality seems, at times, illusory, you have proven that you maintain the rule of law, uphold the U,S, Constitution, and administer justice impartially and fairly according to law, Your progressively stellar career is evidence of your hard work and intelligence as well as your dedication to public service.

Will Judge Sotomayor soon be Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor? Stay tuned.

Justice Scalia, Privacy, and the Fordham Dossier

Above the Law reports on Justice Scalia's reaction to the 15 page dossier on him compiled by the students in Fordham Law Prof. Joel Reidenberg's privacy seminar. Reidenberg usually has his students compile information about him available from free, public sources. This year, after remarks made by Justice Scalia on the issue of privacy, Reidenberg decided to use Scalia as the focus of the students' assignment. Read the postings on this topic and Justice Scalia's response here.