Friday, May 15, 2009
Free Case Law - and a History Lesson

Law.com this week published my article, Get Your Free Case Law on the Web. No sooner did it appear than I received an e-mail from a reader questioning how several of the sites discussed in the article could claim to have U.S. Supreme Court cases from before there was a Supreme Court. In fact, they claimed to have Supreme Court cases dating back to 1754 -- even before the American Revolution.

I'll admit, I felt like an idiot for not questioning this myself when I wrote the article. And when I e-mailed several of these sites to put the question to them, I heard back from only one, and the person who responded was not immediately sure of the answer.

Hoping to find the answer for myself, I first turned to one of the sites, Public.Resource.Org, to see this supposed 1754 Supreme Court case. I went to its Supreme Court library and made my way to Volume 1, Page 1 of the U.S. Reports. Sure enough, it is from September 1754. But while it is from a supreme court, it is not the Supreme Court. Rather, it is the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

I then turned to Google in search of a history of the U.S. Reports case law series. I found it easily, courtesy of Wikipedia. Here was the answer I was looking for:
None of the decisions appearing in the first volume and most of the second volume of United States Reports are actually decisions of the United States Supreme Court. Instead, they are decisions from various Pennsylvania courts, dating from the colonial period and the first decade after Independence. Alexander Dallas, a Philadelphia, Pennsylvania lawyer and journalist, had been in the business of reporting these cases for newspapers and periodicals. He subsequently began compiling his case reports in a bound volume, which he called “Reports of cases ruled and adjudged in the courts of Pennsylvania, before and since the Revolution”. This would come to be known as the first volume of "Dallas Reports."

When the United States Supreme Court, along with the rest of the new Federal Government, moved in 1791 to the nation’s temporary capital in Philadelphia, Dallas was appointed the Supreme Court’s first unofficial and unpaid Supreme Court Reporter. (Court reporters in that age received no salary, but were expected to profit from the publication and sale of their compiled decisions.) Dallas continued to collect and publish Pennsylvania decisions in a second volume of his Reports, and when the Supreme Court began hearing cases, he added those cases to his reports, starting towards the end of the second volume, “2 Dallas Reports,” with West v. Barnes (1791). Dallas would go on to publish a total of 4 volumes of decisions during his tenure as Reporter.

When the Supreme Court moved to Washington, D.C. in 1800, Dallas remained in Philadelphia, and William Cranch took over as unofficial reporter of decisions. In 1817 Congress made the Reporter of Decisions an official, salaried position, although the publication of the Reports remained a private enterprise for the reporter's personal gain. The reports themselves were the subject of an early copyright case, Wheaton v. Peters, in which former reporter Henry Wheaton sued then-current reporter Richard Peters for reprinting cases from "Wheaton's Reports" in abridged form.

In 1874, the U.S. government began to fund the reports' publication, creating the United States Reports. The earlier private reports were retroactively numbered volumes 1-90 of the U.S. Reports, starting from the first volume of Dallas Reports. As a result, decisions appearing in these early reports have dual citation forms; one for the volume number of the United States Reports, and one for the set of nominate reports. For example, the complete citation to McCulloch v. Maryland is 17 U.S. (4 Wheat.) 316 (1819).
Maybe I learned that back in the first year of law school. If so, I've long since forgotten. Now I know and this time, I doubt I'll forget. But what we do know is that when these sites claim to have Supreme Court cases back to 1754, what they mean is that they have the full series of U.S. Reports.

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posted by Robert Ambrogi @ 7:36 AM, , links to this post

Wednesday, January 21, 2009
The Supreme Court on Twitter?

There is now a Twitter feed for news from the U.S. Supreme Court. The blog Law Tech Review suggests that this feed comes directly from the court, which uses it to disseminate information about its latest activities. But I strongly doubt that the feed is from the court. If it is from the court, then why does it provide links to Supreme Court opinions posted at the Legal Information Institute instead of the opinions posted on the court's own official site? And why does it link to only some but not all of the opinions issued so far this term? And why would the nation's highest court choose to follow on Twitter only five feeds -- The White House, the House, the Senate and two feeds owned by a man who appears to be equally consumed by U.S. politics and Christian fundamentalism? No, even though this feed bears the name of the Supreme Court, I don't think the court is its source.

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posted by Robert Ambrogi @ 1:41 PM, , links to this post

Monday, October 01, 2007
First Monday: Supreme Court Resources

In honor of this first Monday in October, I have rounded up links to my previously posted items and columns that cover resources related to researching and tracking the Supreme Court.

Column:
Blog posts:

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posted by Robert Ambrogi @ 3:26 PM, , links to this post

Monday, July 02, 2007
Podcast Double Header: Supreme Court Review and Pet Food Litigation

I've been so busy lately, I've neglected to plug the most recent episodes of my own podcast. So here is two weeks' worth of Lawyer2Lawyer:
Download or listen to either program from the links above. (For downloading, free registration is required with the Legal Talk Network.)

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posted by Robert Ambrogi @ 9:48 PM, , links to this post

Sunday, March 11, 2007
LII discontinues older RSS feed

As I mentioned in this 2005 article, The Power of RSS, Cornell's Legal Information Institute has two RSS feeds for Supreme Court decisions, one for today's decisions and another for recent decisions. But if you are using the RSS version 0.91 feed I linked to in that article, you'll need to update your subscription. You can find the current feeds at this subscription page.

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posted by Robert Ambrogi @ 5:19 PM, , links to this post

Monday, February 26, 2007
Lawyer2Lawyer: Punitives and the Supreme Court

This week on our legal-affairs podcast Lawyer2Lawyer, we discuss the implications of the Supreme Court's punitive damages decision, Philip Morris USA v. Williams for big business and big tobacco. Joining my cohost J. Craig Williams and I are Michael Gerhardt, professor of law at UNC School of Law; J. David Prince, professor of law at the William Mitchell College of Law and co-author of Products Liability Prof Blog; and Mark Gottlieb, executive director of the Public Health Advocacy Institute at Northeastern University School of Law in Boston.

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posted by Robert Ambrogi @ 2:00 PM, , links to this post

Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Justia Does FindLaw One Better

Way back in July and August 2005, I wrote a series of posts here about what I called the aging core of FindLaw. In the first post of the series, I started with this:
"FindLaw's core is showing its age. Started in 1994 as an index of legal resources on the Internet, FindLaw used that index as the foundation on which to build a range of resources for legal professionals, businesses and consumers. But in recent years, FindLaw has let its index go to seed, failing to weed out dead URLs, update site descriptions or add new resources as they come along. The deterioration of FindLaw's index is so extreme as to call into question its usefulness as a primary resource for legal professionals."
As I noted then, FindLaw's downturn seemed to coincide with its 2001 purchase by Thomson West. What I did not mention then was that with that purchase came the departure of FindLaw's co-founder Tim Stanley. From my earlier reporting about FindLaw, I knew Stanley to be creative and energetic. I could only wonder whether his leaving contributed to FindLaw's downturn. (In fairness to FindLaw, it responded quickly to my series and continues to make substantial revisions and enhancements to its ever-growing site.)

Meanwhile, Stanley started a little company called Justia. At first, Justia's main focus was "legal marketing solutions" -- creating law firm Web sites and blogs and providing search engine optimization. At the same time, Stanley and his staff worked on public-interest side projects such as the Stanford Copyright and Fair Use Center and RecallWarnings.com. Later came Justia's Supreme Court Center, pulling together a searchable collection of Supreme Court cases along with Supreme Court resources from all over the Web.

Justia continued to add innovative features, such as BlawgSearch for searching law-related blogs and Blawgs.fm for searching law-related podcasts. Just last week, he launched Federal District Court Filings & Dockets, for searching and browsing federal dockets. Along the way, Justia added collections of links to Web legal resources arranged by legal practice areas and to legal research and law practice resources arranged under cases and codes, courts, states, law schools, legal forms and the like.

All of which seems to be bringing Justia back full circle to where FindLaw was when Stanley left -- when FindLaw was still the premier portal for legal research. Look at Justia's front page today and one is reminded of the FindLaw of old. More to the point, Justia today is becoming every bit as valuable as a legal portal as FindLaw once was. In fact, I would say it is one of the best free legal-research sites on the Web.

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posted by Robert Ambrogi @ 6:15 PM, , links to this post

Wednesday, February 07, 2007
Supreme Court site adds special-master reports

The Supreme Court last week began publishing special master reports on its Web site. Its announcement said:
"Special Master reports are now being posted on the Supreme Court's Web site. On the 'Docket' page of the Web site you will find a link titled 'Special Master Reports.' The Court will add reports as they are issued in the future. In addition, the Court plans to post past reports as well.

Please contact the Public Information Office (202-479-3211) if you have any questions."
As Lyle Denniston explains at SCOTUSBlog, the court appoints special masters to conduct preliminary reviews of original cases that the court allows to be filed and to make recommendations for deciding those cases.

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posted by Robert Ambrogi @ 8:15 AM, , links to this post

Friday, January 19, 2007
ABC legal reporter launches blog

Jan Crawford Greenburg, a correspondent for ABC News who covers the Supreme Court and provides legal analysis, launched a blog today, Legalities. Her new book, Supreme Conflict, hits bookstores Tuesday.

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posted by Robert Ambrogi @ 11:42 PM, , links to this post

Tuesday, December 12, 2006
A Supreme (Court) Resource

LawMemo has long been a superior site for labor and employment law resources, but now it becomes a supreme site -- literally -- with the addition of Supreme Court Times. Covering all Supreme Court cases, this new feature compiles information and commentary into a resource that houses virtually everything you might want to know about a case.

The front page lists all cases on the court's docket. Each case is linked to its own omnibus page. This page includes a plain-English summary of the case, the questions presented, and links to blog commentary, the lower-court opinions, the oral argument transcript, all briefs, the decision when issued, counsel for each party, and outside resources. As if all that is not enough, the site's editor, Ross Runkel, says he will also add links to "whatever else we can think of." In short, a supreme site for the Supreme Court.

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posted by Robert Ambrogi @ 9:37 PM, , links to this post

Monday, September 04, 2006
SCOTUSblog launches a podcast

The Supreme Court blog SCOTUSblog last week released its first podcast, featuring Tom Goldstein discussing Practice Pointers on the Cert Criteria. Says Goldstein of the podcasts:
"Today, we're introducing a new feature to the blog: podcasts. Every week or two, we will record and post a 5-7 minute segment on a topic that seems amenable to a recording. A principal use of podcasts will be to have guests appear on the blog."

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posted by Robert Ambrogi @ 9:21 PM, , links to this post

Sunday, July 16, 2006
Podcast: Supreme Court year in review

The most recent installment of the legal affairs podcast Coast to Coast reviews the just-completed Supreme Court term. We have two veteran court watchers as guests: Tony Mauro, Supreme Court reporter for Legal Times and American Lawyer Media, and Rex S. Heinke, head of the national appellate and litigation strategy group of Akin Gump Straus Hauer and Feld. I have more details in my post at Legal Blog Watch.

To listen to this podcast:

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posted by Robert Ambrogi @ 10:07 PM, , links to this post

Friday, May 26, 2006
Podcast discusses SCOTUS eBay ruling

The recent Supreme Court ruling in eBay v. MercExchange, setting the standard for injunctive relief in patent cases, is the topic of this week's legal affairs podcast Coast to Coast. Joining my co-host J. Craig Williams and me are two prominent patent lawyers, Rachel Krevans, partner at the law firm of Morrison & Foerster in San Francisco, and Dennis Crouch, patent attorney at the law firm of McDonnell Boehnen Hulbert & Berghoff in Chicago and author of the blog Patently-O.

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posted by Robert Ambrogi @ 10:30 PM, , links to this post

Sunday, April 30, 2006
The Supreme Court zeitgeist

What is the Web saying about the Supreme Court? Find out at The Supreme Court Zeitgeist, a site that tracks news stories, blog entries, Web links and books and magazines related to the Supreme Court.

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posted by Robert Ambrogi @ 10:18 PM, , links to this post

Tuesday, March 14, 2006
Today: Supreme Court chat with Tony Mauro

Veteran Supreme Court correspondent Tony Mauro, who covers the court for Legal Times, will chat live today at 1 p.m. Eastern time, answering questions about the court. Questions may be submitted in advance by e-mail or live during the chat. More here: Supreme Court Chat With Tony Mauro.

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posted by Robert Ambrogi @ 11:21 AM, , links to this post

Saturday, March 04, 2006
Goldstein, SCOTUSblog, going to Akin Gump

Tom Goldstein, a lawyer who methodically established himself over less than a decade as a leading Supreme Court advocate, is leaving the firm he founded, Goldstein & Howe, to join Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, Law Blog reports. With him will go the popular Supreme Court blog, SCOTUSblog.

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posted by Robert Ambrogi @ 9:21 PM, , links to this post

Thursday, March 02, 2006
In Supreme Court, Peter v. Goliath

The Boston Globe's Sacha Pfeiffer tells the story of how Peter D. Enrich, "a mild-mannered, 55-year-old philosophy teacher-turned-law professor," found himself in the Supreme Court yesterday taking on DaimlerChrysler, the state of Ohio and others: "Professor leads small group in battle with legal giants."

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posted by Robert Ambrogi @ 8:52 AM, , links to this post

Thursday, December 08, 2005
Audiocast: Military recruiting at law schools

Coast to Coast this week looks at military recruiting at law schools and the case argued earlier this week before the Supreme Court, Rumsfeld v. FAIR. Our guest today was Lara Schwartz, chief legislative counsel for Human Rights Campaign, an organization devoted to promoting lesbian, gay bisexual and transgender equal rights.

Coast to Coast is the weekly legal news podcast cohosted by J. Craig Williams and me. An archive of all past shows is available here. All shows are available to listen to in Windows Media format or to download in MP3 format. The show's RSS feed is available here.

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posted by Robert Ambrogi @ 8:14 PM, , links to this post

Thursday, December 01, 2005
Audiocast: Abortion and the Supreme Court

Shortly after the Supreme Court heard oral arguments yesterday in Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood, we recorded the Coast to Coast program, Supreme Court and the Abortion Issue. Our guests to discuss the case and its implications were Neil S. Siegel, associate professor of law at Duke Law and former law clerk to Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Mathew D. Staver, president and general counsel of the anti-abortion group Liberty Counsel.

Coast to Coast is the weekly legal news podcast cohosted by J. Craig Williams and me. An archive of all past shows is available here. All shows are available to listen to in Windows Media format or to download in MP3 format. The show's RSS feed is available here.

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posted by Robert Ambrogi @ 6:23 PM, , links to this post

Wednesday, November 30, 2005
Abortion oral arguments to stream today on C-SPAN

C-SPAN has announced that it will broadcast audio recordings of today's oral arguments in Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood of Northern New England. The arguments will be broadcast through www.c-span.org as well as over C-SPAN cable and radio. The broadcast will begin today at approximately 12:15 p.m. ET or as soon as the Supreme Court releases the recording.

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posted by Robert Ambrogi @ 10:39 AM, , links to this post

Monday, November 21, 2005
Top 10 Supreme Court patent cases

Bill Heinze reports on Harold C. Wegner's latest list of the top 10 patent cases likely to come before the Supreme Court. The entire paper is available through IPcentral.info.

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posted by Robert Ambrogi @ 3:32 PM, , links to this post

Wednesday, November 16, 2005
Harvard Law Review looks at high court

The November 2005 Harvard Law Review looks at the Supreme Court's 2004 term.

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posted by Robert Ambrogi @ 5:04 PM, , links to this post

Wednesday, November 02, 2005
Liberal law clerks support Alito

Two days ago, the blog Blue Mass. Group published an interview with Katherine Pringle, a former Alito clerk and now a progressive New York Democrat who says she is please with Alito's nomination. The blog quotes her describing Alito as "very thoughtful, very careful, very respectful of Supreme Court precedent. He has a strong conservative intellectual approach to things, but he is respectful, honest, and straightforward." Today, the Los Angeles Times has more from Pringle, along with comments from another Democratic fomer clerk, Jeff Wasserstein, who told the paper, "Judge Alito was not interested in the ideology of his clerks. He didn't decide cases based on ideology, and his record was not extremely conservative."

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posted by Robert Ambrogi @ 8:11 AM, , links to this post

Tuesday, November 01, 2005
Podcast tackles the Alito nomination

Our weekly legal news podcast Coast to Coast this week considers the nomination of Judge Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court. Joining J. Craig Williams and me to discuss the nominee and his likely impact on the court are:
You can listen to and find descriptions of all of our programs here. The program is produced by the Legal Talk Network.

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posted by Robert Ambrogi @ 7:58 PM, , links to this post

Tuesday, October 18, 2005
Where to find the Miers questionnaire

The Senate Judiciary Committee today released four documents providing additional background on Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers, including a 57-page Judiciary Committee questionnaire and a 1989 Texans United for Life survey in which Miers reveals her views on abortion. Also released were a financial disclosure form dated Oct. 17, 2005, and a financial statement outlining Miers' net worth.

All four documents are available in PDF format through two sources:
In the Texans United survey, Miers indicated she would:

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posted by Robert Ambrogi @ 3:15 PM, , links to this post

Tuesday, October 04, 2005
Tom Mighell for Supreme Court?

Yesterday marked the first Monday in October, and you know what that means -- Blawg Review #26, Supreme Court edition, by Tom Mighell.

Why not Tom for the Supreme Court? He has the key qualifications -- he's a lawyer and he's from Texas. The court could use a justice with some Web savvy.

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posted by Robert Ambrogi @ 1:56 PM, , links to this post

Monday, October 03, 2005
Author in the court - Stephen Breyer

As attention turns today to Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers, The Boston Globe has an interesting interview with Justice Stephen Breyer, who talks about his new book, "Active Liberty: Interpreting Our Democratic Constitution."

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posted by Robert Ambrogi @ 9:49 AM, , links to this post

Wednesday, September 28, 2005
C2C: In search of pro bono and a Supreme Court preview

This week's Coast to Coast, the legal news podcast cohosted by J. Craig Williams and me, features two distinct segments, each with great guests:
Listen to this week's program here or see the complete collection of past programs here.

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posted by Robert Ambrogi @ 11:11 AM, , links to this post

Friday, September 16, 2005
John Roberts v. One French Fry

Citing the lessons of Benjamin Cardozo, William Brennan and the french fry case, Village Voice columnist Nat Hentoff explains why the next Supreme Court justice should be U.S. District Judge Jack Weinstein, not John Roberts.

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posted by Robert Ambrogi @ 4:39 PM, , links to this post

Tuesday, September 06, 2005
Podcast on Rehnquist, Roberts and the Supreme Court

The latest installment of Coast to Coast, the weekly legal news podcast cohosted by J. Craig Williams and I, is now available. Recorded earlier today, the program, titled Roberts' Rocky Road, brings together a formidable panel of guests to discuss the Roberts nomination and the future of the Supreme Court. Joining Craig and I were:
You can find all the Coast to Coast programs on the Legal Talk Network. We welcome your feedback on the program and your suggestions for topics to cover in future shows.

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posted by Robert Ambrogi @ 7:45 PM, , links to this post

Friday, August 12, 2005
Supreme Court nominees who were not confirmed

Of 154 nominations to the Supreme Court between 1789 and 2004, 34 did not win Senate confirmation, according to a March 21 report, Supreme Court Nominations Not Confirmed, 1789-2004, written by Congressional Research Service analyst Henry B. Hogue. The 34 nominations represent 29 individuals -- some nominated more than once. Of those 29, five were later nominated again and confirmed.

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posted by Robert Ambrogi @ 9:42 AM, , links to this post

Tuesday, August 09, 2005
Report: Roberts may be most media savvy justice

If his investment portfolio is any indication, Supreme Court nominee John Roberts may turn out to be the most media savvy justice on the Supreme Court, according to Broadcasting & Cable, which reports that media companies make up 15 to 40 percent of his $3 million in stock investments.
"A review of Roberts' recently filed financial-disclosure statement shows that, while much of his money is in mutual funds, six of the 29 individual stocks he owns are in media. The report doesn't detail the holdings, listing only broad ranges. But Roberts owns between $100,000 and $250,000 worth of Time Warner, XM Satellite Radio and Microsoft. He holds smaller stakes in Disney, Scientific-Atlanta and Blockbuster Entertainment."

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posted by Robert Ambrogi @ 11:01 AM, , links to this post

Tuesday, July 19, 2005
Supreme Court Watch launches podcast

Alliance for Justice yesterday launched a Supreme Court Watch podcast as part of its larger Supreme Court Watch Web site. The podcast focuses on discussion of the future of the Supreme Court. AFJ also has a blog, Insider Scoop, devoted to the Supreme Court vacancy. AFJ is a national organization advocating for a "moderate, consensus nomination" and for preserving "the integrity and independence of the Supreme Court."

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posted by Robert Ambrogi @ 11:33 AM, , links to this post

Friday, July 01, 2005
Round-up of resources on vacancies and the Supreme Court

As the question of the day becomes who will succeed Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, here are three useful sites to turn to for background:
For more information about the Supreme Court in general, here is a round-up of resources:

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posted by Robert Ambrogi @ 3:03 PM, , links to this post


Justice O'Connor to retire

The first woman Supreme Court justice says she will step down as soon as her successor is named.

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posted by Robert Ambrogi @ 11:05 AM, , links to this post

Thursday, March 24, 2005
Web site helps teach about landmark Supreme Court cases

If you are ever invited into a local classroom to speak about the Supreme Court's role in our nation's history, you may first want to visit Landmark Supreme Court Cases, a site developed to support educators in teaching about landmark Supreme Court cases. Focusing on cases such as Marbury v. Madison, Plessy v. Ferguson, Brown v. Board of Education, and Miranda v. Arizona, the site suggests several strategies for teaching about them -- case studies, moot court activities, role plays and the like. For each case, it provides various resources and activities for teachers to use in conjunction with the various strategies. This is not high-level stuff, but useful for organizing lessons.

The site was developed by the Supreme Court Historical Society in collaboration with Street Law.

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posted by Robert Ambrogi @ 4:12 PM, , links to this post

Tuesday, February 08, 2005
New and improved SCOTUSBlog

The former SCOTUSBlog is now the new and improved SCOTUSBlog. Written by the Washington, D.C., firm Goldstein & Howe, and with contributions from long-time Supreme Court reporter Lyle Denniston, this is the only blog devoted to tracking litigation before the Supreme Court.

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posted by Robert Ambrogi @ 1:57 PM, , links to this post

Thursday, January 13, 2005
An RSS feed for Supreme Court opinions

Yesterday's decision in United States v. Booker is a dramatic reminder to lawyers of the importance of staying current with the Supreme Court. Since 1993, one of the best ways to keep on top of the court's opinions has been the liibulletin, a Legal Information Institute e-mail service distributing syllabi of Supreme Court decisions within hours of their release. But less well known are the LII's RSS feeds for the court's decisions. It has two: one for Supreme Court decisions issued today and another, longer listing of the court's recent decisions.

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posted by Robert Ambrogi @ 10:25 PM, , links to this post

Friday, November 19, 2004
Bates participants reflect on landmark case

Looking back in an interview with the First Amendment Center, John R. Bates, the plaintiff in the Supreme Court case that opened the door to attorney advertsing, says: “It is the nature of the First Amendment that there is going to be speech in every medium of communication that some people don’t like.”

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posted by Robert Ambrogi @ 11:55 PM, , links to this post

Monday, June 28, 2004
Supreme Court OKs challenges to Guantanamo detainment

A Supreme Court decision of major importance today in Rasul v. Bush, allowing Guantanamo detainees to challenge the legality of their detentions.

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posted by Robert Ambrogi @ 11:56 AM, , links to this post

Thursday, March 04, 2004
As Blackmun papers go public, new Web site serves as finding aid

The papers of Supreme Court Associate Justice Harry A. Blackmun opened to the public today at the Library of Congress. Although the papers are not available over the Web, the library launched a searchable finding aid to the complete Blackmun collection. At the time he donated the papers to the library, Blackmun stipulated that they not be opened to the public until five years after his death.

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posted by Robert Ambrogi @ 2:57 PM, , links to this post

Monday, March 01, 2004
A site for Supreme Court records and briefs

The Curiae Project provides Supreme Court records and briefs. It selects cases to include on the site based on rankings developed from citation data in historical and constitutional texts. The Curiae Project is located at the Yale Lillian Goldman Law Library and developed in cooperation with the Library of Congress, the U.S. Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court Historical Society.

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posted by Robert Ambrogi @ 9:50 PM, , links to this post

Monday, January 26, 2004
Post 'livid' over Times' access to Blackmun papers

As Supreme Court scholars await the March 4 release of the late Justice Harry Blackmun's papers, Supreme Court reporter Tony Mauro writes in Legal Times about the decision by Blackmun's daughter Sally, to give exclusive pre-release access to the papers to reporters Linda Greenhouse of the New York Times and Nina Totenberg of National Public Radio. Mauro says editors at The Washington Post were "livid" over the favored treatment given to the Times. [via Romanesko]

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posted by Robert Ambrogi @ 10:00 PM, , links to this post

Wednesday, August 13, 2003
Medill site offers journalist's view of Supreme Court

On the Docket, a project of Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism, offers a journalist's perspective on the Supreme Court. The site lists pending and prior-term cases, with a story on each case, additional feature stories on selected cases, links to Web sites relevant to the cases, information provided by attorneys and parties in the cases, the dates for scheduled oral arguments, the questions presented to the court, names of the attorneys in the cases, and citations for the lower court opinions. Coverage dates back to the 1998-99 term. On the Docket is edited by Jack C. Doppelt, an associate professor and director of Medill's Global Journalism program, and a graduate of the University of Chicago Law School.

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posted by Robert Ambrogi @ 4:27 PM, , links to this post

Wednesday, July 16, 2003
Debevoise associate proves herself a Supreme predicter

FantasyCourt.Com -- the Web site where lawyers compete to predict the outcome of Supreme Court cases -- today announced the winner of its 2002-2003 challenge. Kristin Kiehn, an associate with Debevoise & Plimpton in New York, will receive $2,500 for coming in first out of 516 participants. She correctly predicted the outcome in 47 of 79 Supreme Court cases and the split of justices in 16 of 79 cases. A news release said that Kiehn correctly predicted some of the year's most important cases, including Grutter v. Bollinger, the University of Michigan affirmative action case, and Lawrence v. Texas, the challenge to Texas' same-sex sodomy law. FantasyCourt.com is the creation of Robert J. Scott, a principal of Lawfinders Associates.

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posted by Robert Ambrogi @ 1:35 PM, , links to this post

Tuesday, July 15, 2003
Oyez Project adds MP3s of Supreme Court arguments

The Oyez Project has provided streaming audio of Supreme Court arguments since 1996, but it recently took a leap forward by adding Supreme Court audio in MP3 format. The first set of releases, which can be found here, includes 51 cases. They are release under a Creative Commons license that allows listeners to download, share and create derivative works using these audio files.

The OYEZ Project continues to provide streaming access to more than 2,000 hours of Supreme Court audio. It includes all audio recorded in the court since 1995 and selective audio before then. The project's aim is to create a complete collection of all audio since 1955.

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posted by Robert Ambrogi @ 4:55 PM, , links to this post

Friday, May 23, 2003
The Supreme Court now and the Supreme Court then

beSpacific posts an announcement from Thomas R. Bruce, co-director of Cornell Law School's Legal Information Institute, that it is now offering Supreme Court decisions delivered via an RSS feed.

Bruce writes: "As part of some extensive (and ongoing) renovation of our Supreme Court collection, we've added RSS feeds that offer summaries of recent decisions. There are two: If you prefer to look back at what the Supreme Court did in the past rather than at what it did today, the May 23 Scout Report looks at the Web site of The Supreme Court Historical Society. This fascinating site looks at the history of the Supreme Court through features such as Supreme Court Decisions and Women's Rights, which explores how the court has reviewed laws that discriminate by sex, and FDR & the Court-Packing Controversy, a Flash documentary about FDR's 1937 attempt to enlarge the court.

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posted by Robert Ambrogi @ 9:55 PM, , links to this post

Tuesday, January 14, 2003
Handicapping the Supreme Court

Think you can predict how the Supreme Court will decide the cases that come before it this term? If so, go for the $2,500 grand prize at FantasyCourt.Com. Compete against lawyers from across the U.S. to predict the outcome of the court's cases this term. The lawyer with the most points when the Supreme Court recesses in June wins $2,500.

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posted by Robert Ambrogi @ 10:52 PM, , links to this post