New Podcast: Prof. Berger On The Creeping Codification of the New Lex Mercatoria and Trans-Lex.org

The Pace Law Library and the Institute of International Commercial Law at Pace are proud to present another podcast. Damon Schwartz, Pace Law School and Vis Moot alum interviewed Dr. Klaus Peter Berger, a Professor of Law at the Center for Transnational Law (CENTRAL) at the University of Cologne, in Germany, about his new publication The Creeping Codification of The New Lex Mercatoria and his latest project - a free research and codification platform for transnational law Trans-Lex.org.

Enjoy this 26 minute long conversation about transnational and international commercial law. The podcast is available at the Pace Law Library Podcasts blog.

Video feeds from the House floor

The U.S. House of Representatives offers streaming video feeds of the House Floor Proceedings dating back to the beginning of the 111th Congress. The video archive is searchable by keyword and by date.

New On LLRX - The Government Domain: New & Free Regulations Trackers

Published on April 21, 2010, the new addition to the LLRX.com titled The Government Domain: New & Free Regulations Trackers, by Peggy Garvin, highlights few online resources that make the federal legislative information available in new ways. Those include the following:

• GovTrack.us
• OpenCongress.org
• RegInfo.gov
• Regulations.gov
• Federal Register
• OpenRegs.com
• FedThread.org
• Regulations Tracker from Justia
• Cornell e-Rulemaking Initiative

Library of Congress Acquires Twitter Archive

A press release from April 14, 2010, announced that the Library of Congress acquired the entire archives of Twitter tweets.

Have you ever sent out a “tweet” on the popular Twitter social media service? Congratulations: Your 140 characters or less will now be housed in the Library of Congress.That’s right. Every public tweet, ever, since Twitter’s inception in March 2006, will be archived digitally at the Library of Congress. That’s a LOT of tweets, by the way: Twitter processes more than 50 million tweets every day, with the total numbering in the billions.

The Archives include, for example, the first ever tweet, President's Obama tweet about winning the 2008 presidential elections, and many more.

[I]f you're looking for a place where important historical and other information in digital form should be preserved for the long haul, we're [the Library of Congress] are it!

World Constitutions on HeinOnline

One of the latest additions to HeinOnline is a collection titled World Constitutions Illustrated: Contemporary & Historical Documents & Resources. The initial release includes the current constitution for every country (193 countries) and substantial constitutional histories for the United Kingdom, France, Brazil, and Colombia. Below is a screen shot of the new online library. It appears that current subscribers, which includes Pace users, have an automatic access to this incredible collection. HeinOnline points out that this collection is expected to grow and users are encouraged to contribute.

According to the release, each country includes:

• The current constitution in its original language format, accompanies by at least one English translation
• Links to commentaries and other relevant sources such as the World Fact Book, Annual Human Rights Reports, Country Studies
• Direct links to specific chapters within the 800 classic constitutional books that discuss the country
• Links to scholarly articles that discuss the constitutional and political development of the country
• A bibliography of other select constitutional books about the constitutional development or the history of the government
• Links to online sources such as the Portals of the World and the official government website for the country

I only checked out one constitution - Czech Republic - and was impressed. It includes the current constitution in Czech language (with diacritical marks) and in English, as well as the 2002 versions, commentaries and relevant sources, selected scholarly articles and bibliographies, and external links related to Czech Republic.

Alexander Greenawalt On Radovan Karadzic

Alexander Greenawalt, Associate Professor of Law at Pace University School of Law, regularly contributes to the New York Times Microblog: Latest On Radovan Karadzic. Check out the latest post as the trial resumes. View the microblog here or subscribe directly via RSS feed.

New and Updated LibGuides

Check out our collection of research guides.

Among some of the recently added or updated guides are:

Criminal Justice Information and Assistance for Victims, Juveniles, the Incarcerated, and the Accused

Collection of information about governmental (federal, state, and local) and non-governmental agencies, organizations, and services that provide assistance within the criminal justice system.

Criminal Law Statutes of the United States

Guide providing the federal criminal law code as well as the criminal law statutes of the fifty states. It also lists criminal law procedure and evidence rules when applicable.

Feminist Legal Theory Research

Guide to print and online resources, both legal and interdisciplinary, for feminist legal theory research.

Legal Treatises by Subject

Legal Treatises provide well-organized, thorough and detailed explanations and analyses of individual legal topics.

Opening Statements and Closing Arguments: Making Your Case

Guide to opening statements and closing arguments.

Pace Online Health Law Library

A gateway to online resources, including federal, state, and international health law, health law topics, legal and medicinal journals and newsletters, legal and medicinal agencies and organizations, and relevant discussion groups.

United Kingdom Legal Research

A guide to finding legal materials for the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

United States Government Information Online

Most U.S. Government information is now available online, for free - a guide how to find it?

Overcriminalization: The Past, Present, and Future Expansion of the Criminal Law

Pace Law School Invites You To The Criminal Law Symposium that will be held on April 9, 2010 at 8:30 am - 6:30 pm at Pace Law School. The topic of the discussion is Overcriminalization: The Past, Present, and Future Expansion of the Criminal Law. Among the contributors and speakers are Prof. Luise E. Chiesa (Pace Law School), Prof. Paul H. Robinson (University of Pennsylvania School of Law), Prof. Jesus-Maria Silva Sanchez (Barcelona's Universidad Pompeu Fabra), and Prof. Douglas N. Husak (Rutgers New Brunswick). For more information, directions, contact information, schedule, and more, please click here.

A Quick Tech Tip For MacBook Users

Today I met a student who had written her appellate brief using Microsoft Word on a MacBook. The document looked perfect on the MacBook screen, but when she tried to open the document using one of the pcs in the lab, some of the formatting in the document (fonts, tabs, etc.) changed.
The solution to this probem was to use her MacBook to save the file in PDF format, which preserves the original formatting of the document, even if you later open the document using a pc. To do this on a MacBook, click on File, Print, and then click on the PDF button at the bottom of the print dialog box. Select the option to "save as PDF" and you are done!

Eighth John Jay Lecture: The Intellectual Context of the 'Age of Experiments in Government"

The Eighth John Jay Lecture: The Intellectual Context of the 'Age of Experiments in Government' features R. B. Bernstein, an author of The Founding Fathers Reconsidered. The lecture is scheduled on Thursday afternoon April 8, 2010 at 5 pm in the Robert Fleming Court Room at Pace Law School in White Plains and will be followed by a reception.

A Distinguished Adjunct Professor at New York Law School, R. B. Bernstein has written books on the Founders and Constitutional history including: Are We to Be a Nation? The Making of the Constitution (Harvard, 1987); Amending America: If We Love the Constitution So Much, Why Do We Keep Trying to Change It? (Times Books/Random House, 1993); Thomas Jefferson (Oxford, 2003); and The Founding Fathers Reconsidered (Oxford, 2009), which has recently been named a finalist for the George Washington Book Prize.

The latest book is available for purchase in Pace campus bookstore before the lecture. The lecture and reception is free and open to members of the public, so please come and join us.

The Art of Persuasion Through Legal Citations

Check out this great article appearing in the latest issue of the Florida Bar Journal on the proper -- and effective -- use of citations and writing appellate briefs.