The authors of the blog, Above the Law, have published their annual Best Holiday Gifts For Lawyers. The suggested gifts range from the practical, like a subscription to the meal service, Blue Apron, to the fanciful, like the Disappearing Civil Liberties coffee mug.
Happy Shopping!
This book offers a way of getting beyond merely how to think like a lawyer. It combines legal theory, philosophy of knowledge, and doctrine with an appreciation of real-life judgment calls that multi-disciplinary lawyers are called upon to make. The book is of interest to scholars of legal education, legal language, and reasoning as well as professors who teach both doctrine and thinking and writing skills to 1Ls and for anyone interested in seeking a perspective on “thinking like a lawyer” beyond the litigation field. Law students considering a career in transactional law are well advised to read it right away. Law students should read the book after the 1L year. Lawyers and academics should read it at any time, and judges right away.
Free access to the book is available here.
As students prepare to resume their legal studies and begin their scholarship for another semester under the tutelage of their BLS professors, I want to recommend a new book that discusses the contributions to the legal profession of a group of selected scholars and professors over three centuries.
The book is: Three Centuries of Shaping American Law by Stephen B. Presser, West Academic Publishing, St. Paul, MN, 2017.
The author says that he hopes this volume will serve as an “introduction to the law for prospective lawyers and beginning students in J.D. and LL.M. programs.”
The book is composed of short biographical essays covering a representative number of legal scholars who have also been law professors. The work explores the nature of the American legal system, and how American law professors have had a profound effect on American law and life.
While the author covers law professors from William Blackstone to Barack Obama, here are a few of the giants of those that are included:
An article in a recent issue of The New Yorker features Brooklyn Law School alum Carrie Goldberg, Class of 2007, as a leader in the crusade against non-consensual pornography, also called “revenge porn.” A founder of the Brooklyn firm C.A. Goldberg, PLLC, she is at the forefront of a movement to use both new and existing laws to penalize individuals who share compromising photos and videos of others without their consent. From her practice not far from the Law School, Goldberg assists clients like Norma, whose story of harassment by a former partner who shared explicit photos of her on the internet is chronicled in the article. Author Margaret Talbot calls Goldberg “a new kind of privacy champion,” detailing Goldberg’s many accomplishments in this new field, from successful prosecutions of revenge porn perpetrators to a major role in an activist campaign to get social media platforms and search engines to ban revenge porn. The article notes Goldberg’s recent hire of a fellow Brooklyn Law School graduate, Lindsay Lieberman, Class of 2011. Earlier this year, Goldberg spoke at the White House to members of the Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault about sexual assault in k-12 with the crew at SurvJustice, a national not-for-profit organization that increases the prospect of justice for survivors by holding both perpetrators and enablers of sexual violence accountable.
The Brooklyn Law School Library collection included Hate Crimes in Cyberspace by Danielle Keats Citron (Call No. HV6773.15.C92 C57 2014). The book covers the subject of trolling or aggressive, foul-mouthed posts designed to elicit angry responses in a site’s comments. The author exposes the startling extent of personal cyber-attacks and proposes practical, lawful ways to prevent and punish online harassment. Persistent online attacks disproportionately target women and frequently include detailed fantasies of rape as well as reputation-ruining lies and sexually explicit photographs. And if dealing with a single attacker’s “revenge porn” were not enough, harassing posts that make their way onto social media sites often feed on one another, turning lone instigators into cyber-mobs. The book rejects the view of the Internet as an anarchic Wild West, where those who venture online must be thick-skinned enough to endure all manner of verbal assault in the name of free speech protection, no matter how distasteful or abusive. Cyber-harassment is a matter of civil rights law, Citron contends, and legal precedents as well as social norms of decency and civility must be leveraged to stop it.
BLS Reference Desk
Whether artificial intelligence will one day displace human lawyers has become so important that, this past April, Vanderbilt Law School hosted the first legal conference on the topic, “Watson, Esq.: Will Your Next Lawyer Be a Machine”. Speakers included Richard Susskind, author of “Tomorrow’s Lawyers” and “The Future of the Professions,” and Andrew Arruda, whose firm ROSS Intelligence helped build ROSS (which does not stand for anything), the world’s first artificially intelligent attorney, on top of IBM Watson. Designed by students at the University of Toronto, ROSS is meant for use by lawyers. Asking it a legal question will yeild an “instant answer with citations and suggested readings from a variety of content sources.” ROSS reads and understands language, postulates hypotheses when asked questions, researches, and then generates responses (along with references and citations) to back up its conclusions. It learns from experience, gaining speed and knowledge the more users interact with it.
A recent Washington Post news piece reports that the law firm Baker & Hostetler announced that it is employing ROSS to handle its bankruptcy practice of nearly 50 lawyers. CEO and co-founder Andrew Arruda, says that other firms have also signed licenses with ROSS and expects more announcements soon. Although still in the prototype stage, ROSS shows great promise as an innovative legal research tool. Tasks that ROSS can do include:
At this week’s CALIcon 16 being held at the Georgia State University College of Law, BLS Reference Librarian Harold O’Grady and Technology Educator Lloyd Carew-Reid will present a session, The Future of Artificial Intelligence in Legal Education, Research and Practice. Also participating will be:
This week the NY Times published an intriguing article on the resolution of a four year legal battle over ownership of personal property, silver Torah ornaments called rimonim, used in worship services in the nation’s oldest existing synagogue, Touro Synagogue in Newport, RI. Judge John J. McConnell, Jr of the US District Court for the District of Rhode Island issued a 106 page opinion in favor of Congregation Jeshuat Israel, worshippers at the 252-year-old Touro Synagogue in Newport who have been battling Shearith Israel in New York City for control of the temple and the right to sell a pair of historic ceremonial ornaments worth millions of dollars. The suite was originally filed in Rhode Island Superior Court, Newport County, in November 2012 and later removed to federal court. Judge McConnell’s opinion begins;
Bricks and mortar of a temple, and silver and gold of religious ornaments, may appear to be at the center of the dispute between the two parties in this case, but such a conclusion would be myopic. The central issue here is the legacy of some of the earliest Jewish settlers in North America, who desired to make Newport a permanent haven for public Jewish worship. Fidelity to their purpose guides the Court in resolving the matters now before it.
Touro Synagogue was established in 1763. During and after the Revolutionary War, most of the Newport’s Jewish residents moved away, many of them to New York. By the 1820s, no Jews were left in Newport, and Congregation Shearith Israel became Touro’s trustee. The two congregations began to feud when the Touro congregation tried in 2012 to sell the bells made by a noted 18th-century silversmith, Myer Myers to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston for $7.4 million to improve the synagogue’s fiscal health. The New York congregation protested and Congregation Jeshuat Israel filed the lawsuit. Since, the museum withdrew the offer leaving the dispute to be decided by the federal court.
Touro Synagogue has become a national historic site drawing visitors from all over the world every year. Its most famous visitor was the nation’s first president George Washington who in 1790, stopped at Touro. After his visit he sent the congregants a letter saying the government of the United States “gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance.” It is considered an important pledge of the new nation’s commitment to religious liberty. A search of Brooklyn Law School Library’s ProQuest Congressional database, available to members of the BLS community, will lead to 107 H. Con. Res. 62 dated July 17, 2001. The title of the resolution is “Expressing the Sense of Congress That the George Washington Letter to Touro Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island, Which Is on Display at the B’nai B’rith Klutznick National Jewish Museum in Washington, DC, Is One of the Most Significant Early Statements Buttressing the Nascent American Constitutional Guarantee of Religious Freedom”.
For more information or to enroll online, visit www.americanbar.org/abalawstudents or call the ABA Service Center at 800-285-2221.
Students at Brooklyn Law School are focused on their upcoming exams. Soon enough they will be in the legal work force and will need to exercise best practices in records management. The BLS Library has in its most recent New Books List a useful resource on that very topic: The Lawyer’s Guide to Records Management and Retention by George C. Cunningham (Call # KF320.R42 C86 2014). Although most lawyers know how important timely access to the right information is to their work, many have little knowledge in filing systems, databases and other information management tools. This book is designed to help lawyers develop an effective strategy for coping with the daily barrage of email, data and documents.
The second edition of this ABA Book Publishing guide is a comprehensive 442 page resource that helps lawyers create and maintain an effective and well-organized records management and retention system at their firms, including administration and storage of client files and administrative records in all types of media. It shows how to reduce costs, access information quickly and accurately, and use staff and technology resources more economically and efficiently. Special sections address issues facing new lawyers, solo practitioners, and small firms. The accompanying CD-ROM features useful checklists, forms, guidelines, and more such as how to:
On Wednesday, November 19, 2014, from 9am to 3pm, Brooklyn Law School will host, in its Subotnick Center on the 10th Floor, the second annual Small Business Legal Academy (SBLA) bringing together corporate law firms, civil legal services organizations, financial services consultants, City and State agencies and other service providers to strengthen New York City’s vibrant and diverse small-business community. During the one-day event, small businesses in need of consulting services will be able to learn about starting and managing a business or nonprofit, and uncover solutions to the legal and financial challenges facing their organizations. The SBLA is a comprehensive one-stop shop for small business. The first annual event was held last year at Harlem’s Apollo Theater, where over 200 entrepreneurs received free legal counsel from volunteer attorneys representing nearly 35 top NYC law firms.
This year’s SBLA is expecting nearly 100 attorneys to volunteer in addition to the legal service providers, financial consultants, and City and State agencies that will be providing free services to the fledgling businesses and aspiring entrepreneurs who may otherwise not have the means to receive expert counsel. SBLA is sponsored by the Association of Pro Bono Counsel (APBCo) together with nearly a dozen non-profit public interest law firms and Brooklyn Law School’s Center for Urban Business Entrepreneurship (CUBE). Registration is available at this link and walk-ins are welcome.
The BLS Library recently added to its collection an E-book titled J.K. Lasser’s Small Business Taxes 2015: Your Complete Guide to a Better Bottom Line. Fully updated for 2014 tax returns and 2015 tax planning, this detailed guide provides concise, plain-English explanations of tax laws tailored to business owners who are experts in their field—not in taxes. A complete listing of available business expense deductions includes comprehensive information on dollar limits and record-keeping requirements, allowing business owners to quickly recognize the deductions for which they qualify and make tax-savvy business decisions year round. Sample forms and checklists allow small business owners to organize their preparation, and clear instruction on tax form navigation helps them get it right the first time. Small business owners have a full plate. Indeed, just keeping the business going is a more than full-time job. But when tax time rolls around, they still need to file—correctly, on time, and without making errors or leaving money on the table. This book simplifies the process, breaking down tax laws and the filing process. It has expert insight on every step of the process, from organizing paperwork to sending the check.
The raid of President Trump’s personal attorney’s law office raises questions of how the F.B.I and federal prosecutors will safeguard documents that fall under the attorney-client privilege. If you want to learn about the privilege, the library has several recently published sources to help you understand this central component of the attorney-client relationship.
Vincent Walkowiak & Oscar Rey Rodriguez, The Attorney-Client Privilege in Civil Litigation (6th ed. 2015).
This edition provides updated and expanded treatment of the attorney-client privilege and the work-product doctrine. New topics include application of the revised federal rules and case law governing waiver of privilege, the pitfalls of privilege preservation and waiver in bankruptcy proceedings and international contexts, and the intersection of privilege and attorney/client-hired media consultants.
David Lender, Privilege Issues in the Age of Electronic Discovery (BNA 2011).
Also available on Bloomberg Law.
This BNA portfolio explains how the nature and scope of the attorney-client privilege and work-product protection have been impacted by technology, generally, and electronic discovery in particular.
The portfolio begins with an introduction to the relevant privileges and protections, each of which developed prior to the computer age. The portfolio then describes in detail the far-reaching implications of technology on these fundamental tenets of the legal profession. Included in this discussion is an examination of privilege as it relates to the reasonable expectation of privacy and related ethical issues, waiver, privilege logs, the crime-fraud exception, experts, litigation hold notices, and litigation support databases.
Paul R. Rice, Attorney-Client Privilege in the United States (2011).
This two-volume treatise, available on Westlaw, provides essential information for advising clients on protecting the confidentiality of their internal communications. This database provides instant access to: the history, theory, and purpose of the privilege, a comprehensive examination of court interpretations, the procedures for asserting, establishing, resolving, and appealing privilege matters.
Jessica Kunz, Attorney-Client Privilege & Work Product Doctrine: Corporate Applications (BNA 2009).
This online treatise is organized into three parts. Part One, Introduction, traces the historical development of the attorney-client privilege and the work-product doctrine and explains in detail their purposes, availability to corporations, scope of protection, and relation to each other. Part Two, Attorney-Client Privilege, covers a myriad of topics, including client identity, waiver of privilege, exceptions to the privilege, choice of law, shareholder suits and special committees, among many others. Part Three, Work-Product Doctrine, covers such topics as scope, waiver issues, and exceptions to the doctrine, among many others.
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