Anyone who believes tobacco got its bad name only in the latter part of the 20th century should visit Coffin Nails: The Tobacco Controversy in the 19th Century, a fascinating history of the tobacco controversy drawn from the pages of Harper’s Weekly from 1857 to 1912. It shows that, as early as 1862, tobacco…
Sites offer access to uniform and model laws
The National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws is single minded in its purpose – to study and review state law to determine which areas of law should be uniform, and then, having targeted a topic, to draft and propose specific statutes. The conference can only propose, of course – no uniform law…
Cambloggers put their lenses where their words were
Combine a blogger with a cell-phone camera and you get a camblogger. But is there a camblawger?…
Company readies launch of searchable trial transcripts
A former Delaware trial lawyer is preparing to launch a Web-based service that will search trial transcripts the way other research sites search court opinions. Although not ready for full launch, the service, SocraticLaw, has opened a Web site and is expected to be ready for a partial launch soon.
SocraticLaw will use databases…
Site critiques Hollywood’s handling of lawyers
Do movies and television strengthen the public’s understanding of law and justice? Picturing Justice is a Web site devoted to discussing that question. It does so by publishing commentaries that focus on how law, lawyers and legal issues are treated in movies, on television and even in computer programs. Commentaries are written by staff…
A central source for child-support guidelines, cases
Support Guidelines.com offers a vehicle for researching child support laws nationwide. Its highlight is access to the full text of the child-support guidelines for all 50 states and the District of Columbia. It includes links to other Web resources for family law research, as well as to child support calculators available online. The site…
Ethics library combines codes, legal analysis
One of the best sources of legal ethics information on the Web is the American Legal Ethics Library, from Cornell Law School’s Legal Information Institute. This digital library contains the full text of or links to the professional-conduct codes of most U.S. states, as well as the ABA’s model code. In addition, major…
First the insurance, next the lawsuits
Crain’s Cleveland Business reports that auto insurer Progressive Corp. is issuing the first insurance policy for owners of Segway motorized scooters.
Progressive said owners of the Segway Human Transporter have a choice of three insurance packages: full coverage; liability only; or liability and comprehensive.…
[Offbeat] How much is Bill Gates worth?
“If you want to know what God thinks about money, just look at the people He gives it to.” So says an old Irish saying that serves as the motto of Bill Gates Personal Wealth Clock. Its purpose, plain and simple: to track the Microsoft chairman’s wealth at any given moment as well as…
LawPeriscope brings into focus the nation’s largest firms
When I first visited LawPeriscope, a site that profiles the nation’s 300 largest firms using the firms’ own Web sites, I was not impressed. Heck, I thought, anyone could pull together a bunch of links to someone else’s site. Then one day I found myself at one of those large firm sites, trying to…
Is that legal? new blawg asks
University of North Carolina law professor Eric L. Muller launched a blawg last month, called IsThatLegal?. Muller is author of Free to Die for Their Country: The Story of the Japanese American Draft Resisters in World War II.…
ADR Cyberweek starts today
As I noted earlier, ADR Cyberweek begins today. They have announced an intriguing slate of special events, including a mediation conducted live online and discussions about the state of online dispute resolution.…