UHLC Nota Bene

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, the ideal holiday to celebrate by sharing historical legal information with family and loved ones: out of all holidays, on Thanksgiving there is the best chance that said family and loved ones will be too full to run away from the table quickly when the topic of historical legal research comes up.   Even better, if one’s captive audience falls asleep one can blame it on the turkey .   The following resources may be useful for either legal research or topical dinner conversation: Most of the popular characterization of the “First Thanksgiving” in 1621 is due to records written by two colonial governors: Of Plymouth Plantation by William Bradford and Mourt’s Relation by Edward Winslow.   These documents were lost and only rediscovered in the 19 th Century, when they became the basis for associating Thanksgiving Day with the feast shared by the Plymouth Colony and the Wampanoag Indians.   During the Revolutionary War, the Continent...

The internet may be young, but the list of once great web resources that are no longer is far too long. It is always exciting then to find a long-running, self-maintained website that is still updated with content both useful and interesting. Even better if that resource is also perfect for a legal audience. Since 1996 Doug Linder, the Elmer N. Powell Peer Professor of Law at University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law, has created, cultivated, and updated his Famous Trials website . Originally started to serve as a text for Professor Linder’s Famous Trials Seminar course, the site has grown over time to include trials from the Trial of Socrates to George Zimmerman, and many of the world’s most famous trials in between. Each trial begins with a narrative of the case, written to be both engaging and informative. Then, a true treasure trove of material awaits the researcher. Depending on the case, you may original photos and documents, trial transcripts, images of evidence,...

A recent press release from the Library of Congress indicates that starting November 19, the popular Thomas.gov website will redirect users to the new Congress.gov platform.   Thomas.gov will be accessible from the Congress.gov website through late 2014.   The new Congress.gov website, the planned replacement for Thomas.gov for finding legislative information, was released as a beta version in 2012 with limited content.   Although not all of the Thomas.gov content has been transferred over, during the last year they have continued to add additional content, including the text of legislation back to 1993 and the Congressional Record back to 1995.   For a list of content and coverage dates, see the Congress.gov and Thomas.gov comparison chart . In addition to providing the text of legislation, the website also contains important information about each piece of legislation such as bill summary and status, the text of various versions of the bill, a list of acti...

Voters statewide on November 5 approved Proposition 9 that amends the Texas State Constitution to provide the State Commission on Judicial Conduct with more options on sanctions against judges for ethical rule violations (see Tex Parte blog for more details). Prior to the amendment, the commission could only issue public censure or removal of judge after a formal proceeding, but now in addition to these sanctions, less severe punishments are available. These include public admonition, warning, reprimand or requiring the judge to undergo additional training or eduction. Senate Joint Resolution (SJR) 42 , which allowed the voters to decide on expanding these sanctions was passed by the Texas State Legislature earlier this year and is available on the Texas Legislature Online's website . This website has the history of the bill's progress through the legislature, the full text of the different versions of the bill, bill analysis, and committee reports.

The Tax Management Portfolios (which the law library has access to through the Bloomberg BNA Tax and Accounting Center database, and most of which are available in our print collection) need no introduction to those whose area of interest is tax law. However, Bloomberg BNA also publishes a set of corporate practice series portfolios, available through the Bloomberg BNA Corporate Law Resource Center . These are mini-treatises, each focusing a corporate law related topic such as corporate governance, compliance/regulations, mergers & acquisitions, corporate finance, corporate legal departments, financial reporting, and forms of business. The Corporate Law Resource Center can be accessed by logging on to the law library's VPN , clicking "Bloomberg BNA Databases A-Z" from the drop-down menu under legal databases on the law library's website , and then by clicking "Corporate Law Resource Center" from the list. The portfolios then can be accessed by utilizi...

With increasing numbers of foreign governments officially objecting to now-widely publicized U.S. espionage activities, the topic of the legality of these activities has been raised both by the target governments and by the many news organizations reporting on the issue.   For those interested in better understanding this controversy by learning more about international laws concerning espionage, here are some legal resources that may be useful. The following is a list of multinational treaties relevant to spies and espionage: Brussels Declaration concerning the Laws and Customs of War (1874) .   Although never ratified by the nations that drafted it, this declaration is one of the earliest modern examples of an international attempt to codify the laws of war.   Articles 19-22 address the identification and treatment of spies during wartime.   These articles served mainly to distinguish active spies from soldiers and former spies, and provided no protecti...