INTERNET LEGAL RESEARCH WEEKLY
March 22, 2009
Tom Mighell

Welcome to Issue #331 of the Internet Legal Research Weekly, a newsletter that delivers relevant and timely legal research information, and other fun stuff, to your inbox every Sunday. If you like what you read, please forward this newsletter to anyone you think might be interested, and encourage him or her to do the same! To subscribe, all you have to do is visit Inter Alia and fill out the subscription form -- it's free!

And away we go.....

News Update -- from the Inter Alia Weblog

Blawgs of the Week
This week on Inter Alia, I began to feature law-related blogs from big firms. Big firm blogs tend to be a little different, in that they cover broader topics; I find that blogs from smaller firms tend to cover the same topics, but from a regional or state-wide basis. Here's what I posted on this past week:

  • Alston & Bird is publishing the Climate Change and Carbon Management Blog, which focuses on emerging issues associated with greenhouse gas emissions. They're talking about clean tech, the Endangered Species Act, carbon capture, and energy policy, among other subjects.
  • The next Alston & Bird blog is the timely Financial Markets Crisis Blog, which as you might imagine is a service of the firm's Financial Markets Crisis Task Force. They are discussing derivatives, failures and bailouts, foreclosure relief, short sales, and structured finance, among other things.
  • Another Alston & Bird publication is the Securities Litigation Blog. It's brought to you by the firm's Securities Litigation group, and they're discussing issues such as corporate governance, disclosure, SEC enforcement actions, and more.
  • Moving along to our next big firm blog entry, we have the Consumer Advertising Law Blog, published by Arnold & Porter. The editors are Randy Shaheen, Amy Mudge, and Robert Pitofsky; they and other authors are covering advertising issues related to kids, financial services, food and drink, and telemarketing, among others.
  • Our next big firm blog comes from Baker & Daniels Benefits and Executive Compensation Group. The Benefits Biz Blog features entries on retirement plan reform, participant disclosure regulations, distributed annuities, 403(b) rollovers, and the like.

Help Desk

A tip for Outlook users today...

Did you know that you can color-code your email, so messages that are important to you stand out in your Inbox? Here's how:

From your Inbox, click Tools, then Organize. The "Ways to Organize Inbox" pane appears above. Click on Using Colors. If you want to color-code messages sent from particular people (your boss, spouse, important clients, etc.) select Color Messages from, then enter the person's name, and select the color. Once you click Apply Color, all emails from that person will appear in that color.

If you want to color messages sent only to you, select a color for that, too. Click Turn On, and from now on all messages sent only to you will appear in that color.

To get rid of the color coding, click on the Automatic Formatting button in the upper right corner. Select the relevant color coding (usually the person's name) and select Delete, and then OK.

Do you have a question about searching the Internet or your computer in general? Drop me an e-mail at tom(at)inter-alia(dot)net – I’ll post your question (don’t worry, I won’t use your real name) and try to get an answer for you!

Legally Relevant – Sites on the Internet

Colorado -- Official State Web Portal
I like to visit the state web sites from time to time, to check up on whether they are serving their citizens with new or interesting tools. What immediately grabs me about the Colorado state home page is how the state government is using Internet technologies to keep their residents updated. There are RSS feeds providing the latest state information, as well as a Twitter feed, for anyone who wants to consume information using that tool. The page is organized with easy to use tabs, that easily direct you to Services, Information, and answers to "How Do I?" There's a great Maps page that uses Google Maps to show where various state agencies, parks, drivers license offices, counties, and more are located.

Constitutional Court of South Africa
If you need to conduct research on South African law, this might be one place you should start. In addition to basic information about the court, the Constitution, your rights, and the judges on the court, visitors can search for and learn about judgments of the court all the way back to 1995. There's also a listing of recent and forthcoming hearings scheduled before the court.

Autocheck ($$)
Autocheck provides an easy way to learn the history of any automobile. Its National Vehicle Database has information on more than 500 million vehicles, with a great deal of information on each. You can learn whether the car has been in an accident, the extent of damage, whether it was reported stolen, or even whether it has been used as a taxi or fleet car. You can get unlimited reports for 60 days for $24.99, or a single report for $14.99.

A Guide to Singapore Legal System and Legal Research
The next few weeks I'll be featuring a few of the great GlobaLex legal research guides -- hosted by the NYU Law School Law Library, these guides are among the best ways to conduct Internet research on foreign countries. The Singapore guide is published by Tzi Yong Sam Sim, and it was most recently updated in July 2008. You can learn about the history and formation of Singapore's legal system, as well as the best ways to research Singapore law.

GovLoans
Now that no one is loaning money but the federal government, you might check out GovLoans.gov if you are in the market for a loan. The site is designed to direct you to loan information that best meets your needs, with loans from the U.S. Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Education, Housing and Urban Development, Veterans Affairs, and Small Business Administration. Just click on the area you want to search -- Agriculture, Business, Disaster Relief, Education, Housing, and Veteran, and you'll find a list of the loans available to you.

Finally, some fun and useful sites to help start off your week:

If you use GMail, they've got a great new feature you might want to check out -- an Undo Send button, that will allow you to grab the message before it goes out. It won't pull back an email that's already gone -- but it gives you 5 precious seconds to think better of that email and press the panic button.

In Factory Balls, you have to drag a drop a ball over the tools to produce the desired effect (on the box) for each level. Can somebody please tell me how to get past Level 7?

Well, that’s it for Issue #331 – I hope you liked it! If you did, pass this along to anyone you think might be interested, and encourage him or her to subscribe. Also, feel free to drop me an e-mail any time if you have questions, or if you have websites or other topics you want included in a future issue.

Tom Mighell

Now available: The Lawyer's Guide to Collaboration Tools and Technologies: Smart Ways to Work Together, by Dennis Kennedy and Tom Mighell

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Questions? New websites? Just want to talk? Send me an e-mail at tom(at)inter-alia(dot)net.