UHLC Nota Bene

Carolina Academic Press has recently published Mastering Art Law by Herbert Lazerow . Art law, as the book points out, is not a cohesive topic like Contracts or Torts but instead focuses on the legal issues faced by the art industry. The author explores the issues of freedom of expression, copyright, publicity and privacy rights, defamation trademarks, title, authenticity of the work, moral rights to a work of art, and tax matters. There is a chapter covering museum law and the author discusses issues pertaining to artifacts as well as restricting international movement of artwork. Each chapter features a "roadmap" section that summarizes what you will learn after reading the chapter and each chapter is concluded with a "checkpoints" section that summarizes the main points. There is an extensive table of cases, table  of constitutions, statutes, regulations, rulings, and treatises, and table of secondary sources. The law library currently has this title , which i...

Each semester the law library presents a series of presentations on legal research topics. These presentations are held at 12 noon on Tuesdays and Wednesdays in Room 1 BLB. We will be offering the following sessions during the Spring 2015 semester: 1. Researching Texas Administrative Law Tuesday, 2/3, Wednesday, 2/4 Emily Lawson, Reference and Research Librarian 2.Researching Oil & Gas Law Tuesday, 2/10, Wednesday, 2/11 Chris Dykes, Reference and Research Librarian 3. Texas Legislative History Research Tuesday, 2/17, Wednesday, 2/18 Robert Clark, Reference and Research Librarian 4. Resources for Legal Practice Tuesday, 2/24, Wednesday, 2/25 Katy Badeaux, Reference and Research Librarian 5. International and Foreign Law Research Tuesday, 3/3, Wednesday, 3/4 Dan Donahue, International and Foreign Law Librarian Click here for more information about this semester's brown bag presentations.

This past week UN investigators called for the establishment of a war crimes tribunal to investigate crimes against humanity committed in the Central African Republic (CAR).   The establishment of tribunals to investigate serious crimes in a particular theater of war is not a new concept, and legal and historical researchers investigating the history of major war crimes tribunals may be interested in the following resources: The first such international tribunal was established following the end of World War II.   The International Military Tribunal for the Trial of German Major War Criminals, more popularly known as the Nuremberg Trials, was established in 1945 to prosecute the captured leadership of the Nazi party.   Researchers looking for the records of this tribunal can obtain the official records from the Library of Congress, various trial documents from the Yale Law School’s Avalon Project, and trial transcripts from the Hathi Trust. In 1993, the Internati...

This week the Texas Senate voted to replace its traditional 2/3 Rule with a 3/5 Rule.   The names of these rules both reflect the numbers of senators needed to overcome the Senate’s traditional blocker bill to consider new legislation; this parliamentary maneuver is intended to promote compromise by requiring more than a 50% plus one majority to enact legislation.   Given that the Texas Senate consists of 31 members, this change reduces the number of senators necessary to support a bill from 21 to 19. The Texas Senate rules are published online , and should soon be updated to reflect this week’s changes.   Another excellent source of Texas legislative materials is the Legislative Reference Library of Texas ; its discussion of the Texas 2/3 Rule may be found here , and its collection of other resources on legislative parliamentary procedure may be found here .

This week, the Texas Legislature’s biennial legislative session began, kicking off a five-month period where Texas law may be proposed, discussed, debated, passed, and vetoed. Already 926 bills have been filed in the House, and 317 in the Senate. You can search bills and track their progress through use of the Texas Legislature Online  . You may perform a bill search   by specifying author/sponsor, subjects, committee, and actions. For example, by specifying “water” as a subject, I can find ten bills already filed relating to the regulation of water in the state. To track the status of these bills during the legislative session you can create an account through the Texas Legislature Online , and add bills of interest to your alert list. Then, any time an action is taken on the bill, you will be notified by email.   Here are a few bills that are already attracting attention: Consolidating Health Agencies HB 550 & SB 219 : The Sunset Advisory ...

Next week, when Governor-Elect Greg Abbott is sworn in as the 48 th Governor of the State of Texas his inauguration will mark the first time in fifteen years that Texas will have a new chief executive.  In December 2000, Rick Perry assumed the office of governor after George W. Bush’s resignation following his election to the U.S. Presidency.  Since taking office, Governor Perry has presided over eight legislative sessions, vetoed 335 bills, and issued 80 executive orders.  Thanks to Texas’ colorful history, it also had numerous presidents during the Spanish Texas period (1691-1821), the Mexican Texas period after Mexico gained its independence from Spain (1821-1835), interim leaders during the Texas Revolution, followed by  five presidents serving as leaders of the Republic of Texas (1836-1846). After annexation into the United States, James Pickney Henderson became the first governor of the State of Texas in 1846. Through the Texas Legislative Reference ...

In his 2014 Year-End Report on the Federal Judiciary , Chief Justice Roberts revealed that the Supreme Court is currently in the process of creating its own electronic filing system, which may be available as soon as next year.   The system will provide the public with free access to Supreme Court filings.   Some of you may know that other federal courts use the Case Management/Electronic Case Files (CM/ECF) system, which provides the public with access to court filings through the Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER) website .   However, Supreme Court filings such as petitions, briefs, and motions are not available through PACER, and while the Supreme Court’s website currently provides access to items such as recent dockets and orders, it does not provide access to all case filings.   This is a much-needed free resource and I look forward to using the new system!

A recent Houston Chronicle article highlights the difficulty many with criminal convictions have with finding work.  It explains that one obstacle they face is that Texas law often prevents them from obtaining occupational licenses that would allow them to pursue over 100 different jobs such as barbers, nurses, interior designers, plumbers, and dog trainers.  According to the article, the Texas Legislature may address the issue in the upcoming legislative session, as support for reform in this area grows.      However, these are not the only restrictions that people with criminal records face.  They must also navigate other “collateral consequences” of their conviction in many other areas of life such as education, housing, and voting.  As the number of collateral consequences has grown, it has become increasingly difficult to keep track of all the actual consequences of criminal conviction.  To address this problem, Congress include...