February 1 is National Freedom Day

This Saturday is National Freedom Day, which commemorates President Abraham Lincoln's February 1, 1865 signing of a joint resolution which ultimately became the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ending slavery in the United States.

National Freedom Day began in 1949 but has changed in focus in recent years.  In 2010, President Obama first proclaimed the month of January as National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month, to culminate in National Freedom Day on the 1st of February.  In this year's proclamation, President Obama sheds light on the tragic fact that millions of people worldwide remain victims of "modern-day slavery" and calls for international action and solutions to fight human trafficking and "restore to all people the most basic rights of freedom, dignity, and justice." 

The law library is currently featuring a National Freedom Day display which highlights resources in the library's collection that discuss human trafficking, as well as the history of the 13th Amendment in the United States. Included are the following titles:

What God Hath Wrought: The Embodiment of Freedom in the Thirteenth Amendment / George H. Hoemann

The Quest For Freedom: A Legal History of the Thirteenth Amendment / by G. Sidney Buchanan, coauthored by Patty Bass, et al.

Crimes Against Humanity / Adam Jones

Women’s Rights, Human Rights: International Feminist Perspectives / edited by Julie Peters and Andrea Wolper

The Reconstruction Amendments’ Debates: The Legislative History and Contemporary Debates in Congress on the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments

For more information on human trafficking crimes in the U.S., click here for a summary of federal anti-trafficking laws from the Department of State.  Additional information is available from the Department of Justice. The United States Attorney's Office for South Dakota also discusses the prosecution of human trafficking crimes, as outlined in the Office's Annual Report.  If you are interested in the prosecution of human trafficking crimes across the nation, the Human Trafficking Law Project at the University of Michigan Law School maintains a database of human trafficking cases within the United States. 

House Passes 2014 Farm Bill - Library Display

Today, the United States House of Representatives passed the $1 trillion Farm Bill as agreed upon by House and Senate agriculture committee leaders on Monday. The five-year bill will cut approximately $23 billion in federal spending. The Senate is expected to vote on the bill next week. The Conference Committee Report containing the text of the bill can be read here.

According to the Washington Post, the Bill will cut about $19 billion from farm programs, with an end to direct payment programs to farmers and landowners. Another $8 billion will be cut from the food stamp program, known as Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or SNAP. Agriculture Department conservation programs will be consolidated into 13 programs from 23 programs. The House Committee on Agriculture states that the bill will strengthen crop insurance and create a permanent livestock disaster assistance program. It also will authorize colleges and universities to grow industrial hemp for research purposes in states that permit growth and cultivation of the plant, as set out Section 7606 of the bill. In addition, the bill retains mandatory "Country of Origin Labeling" for meat, fish, shellfish, "perishable agricultural commodities," peanuts, pecans, ginseng and macadamia nuts.

The McKusick Law Library has displayed several of its resources on the history of previous Farm Bills and issues in agricultural policy, including:

Food, Agriculture, and Environmental Law/BY Mary Jane Angelo, Jason J. Czarnezki, and William S. Eubanks II.
Chapter 1: A Brief History of U.S. Agricultural Policy and the Farm Bill, Chapter 2: An Overview of the Modern Farm Bill, Chapter 4: Agricultural Irrigation - by USD School of Law Professor Emeritus John H. Davidson

Plowshares & Pork Barrels: The Political Economy of Agriculture/BY E.C. Pasour, Jr. and Randal R. Rucker. (Chapter 13: Subsidized Food Programs and Chapter 15: Crop Insurance, Market Stabilization, and Risk Management)

Agricultural Policy and the Environment/Edited BY Roger E. Meiners and Bruce Yandle

Paying the Farm Bill: U.S. Agricultural Policy and the Transition to Sustainable Agriculture/BY Paul Faeth, Robert Repetto, Kim Kroll, Qi Dai, and Glenn Helmers.

Also included on the display are the following law journal and law review articles available from HeinOnline on issues related to the 2014 Farm Bill:

Amy L. Dorsch, Food Stamps in America: How an Octogenarian Program Can Still Meet the Country's Needs, 52 U. Louisville L. Rev. 199 (2013).

Neil D. Hamilton, Harvesting the Law: Personal Reflections on Thirty Years of Change in Agricultural Legislation, 46 Creighton L. Rev. 563 (2013).

David Ryan Quintanilla, A Bitter Policy Shoved Down Our Throats: How a Once Admirable and Necessary Agricultural Program Has Resulted in Major Profits for Big Business and Major Frustration for Others, 15 The Scholar 341 (2013).

Today is Data Privacy Day - New Display

Today, January 28, is Data Privacy Day, which is recognized internationally to commemorate the signing of Convention 108, the first legally binding international treaty dealing with data privacy and protection. According to the National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA), Data Privacy Day represents an "effort to empower and educate people to protect their privacy, control their digital footprint, and make the protection of privacy and data a great priority in their lives."

Interested in what you can do to increase the security and privacy of your own personal data? The NCSA maintains a webpage with links to explanations of privacy settings for many commonly used applications, including Facebook, Gmail, Pandora, Pinterest, and more. Pinterest itself has a board dedicated to Data Privacy Day 2014, which provides links to other resources on data privacy, including a Privacy IQ quiz.

An issue related to data privacy is that of identify theft. In an effort to thwart identity theft, Congress has recently taken action to limit access to the Social Security Administration's "Death Master File" which contains personal information, including social security numbers, of those that have passed away. This type of data has been used to file fraudulent tax returns. Click here for a full article from NPR. 

The ABA Journal also recently reported on the proposed Data Security Act of 2014, which was introduced in the wake of the security breaches at Target, and would strengthen requirements placed on retailers.

To commemorate Data Privacy Day, the law library is featuring a display with additional resources related to data privacy, information security, identity theft, and the law. Included in the display are the following titles in the library's collection:

Internet Law and Practice (also available via WestlawNext)

Law of Computer Technology / Raymond T. Nimmer (also available via WestlawNext)

Privacy in the Information Age / Harry Henderson

Internet and Online Privacy: A Legal and Business Guide / Andrew Frackman, Rebecca C. Martin, and Claudia Ray

Cybercrime: The Investigation, Prosecution, and Defense of a Computer-Related Crime / edited by Ralph D. Clifford

Identity Theft: How to Protect Your Name, Your Credit, and Your Vital Information / Silver Lake Editors (Silver Lake Publishing)

The Digital Person: Technology and Privacy in the Information Age / Daniel J. Solove

Internet Law in a Nutshell / Michael L. Rustad

International Guide to Privacy / Jody R. Westby

State of the Judiciary, Project Rural Practice, ALPS Attorney Match

On January 15, 2014, Chief Justice Gilbertson addressed a joint session of the South Dakota Legislature for his annual State of the Judiciary message. In contrast to past messages in which he outlined problems faced by the South Dakota Unified Judicial System (UJS), this year Justice Gilbertson discussed the programs instituted to correct these problems. These programs include the Criminal Justice Initiative (alternative sentencing for non-violent felons with addictions and the Veterans Court), the Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative, the Rural Attorney Recruitment Initiative, and the UJS's new paperless filing system, the Odyssey Case Management System.

With particular relevance to law students, the Chief Justice updated legislators on the Rural Attorney Recruitment Program, established by last year's House Bill 1096. This program is intended to reverse the trend of lawyers migrating to the larger cities in South Dakota and leaving rural counties without legal services. To read more about this program, visit the Project Rural Practice blog. The most recent blog post, by former State Bar President Patrick Goetzinger, highlights the ALPS Attorney Match program, a free online service to link attorneys to one another. As stated by Attorney Goetzinger,
"[w]hether for the purposes of forming a mentorship or transitioning a practice, ALPS Attorney Match is a solution to many of the challenges, geographic and otherwise, we encounter to connect with one another and pave the way for attorneys to not only survive, but thrive in our rural communities."

In related news, the South Dakota Law Review will present its Rural Practice Symposium March 20-21 at the University of South Dakota School of Law in Vermillion, South Dakota.

Resources from the McKusick Law Library on practicing law in rural areas include:

Practicing Law in Small Town America/By Richard L. Hermann

Becoming a Rural Lawyer: A Personal Guide to Establishing a Small Town Practice/By Bruce M. Cameron

FEATURE POST: Law Professor Tom Simmons Reviews New Title, History of the Common Law

Professor Tom Simmons is contributing to the collection development effort of the USD Law Library.  Under a recently adopted program, Professors make recommendations for titles to be added to the Law Library collection.  Consistent with the Collection Development Policy of the Law Library, titles recommended for acquisition by the faculty are given priority consideration.  If  the recommended title is acquired, the faculty member provides a brief review of the title for publication on the Law Library Blog.

Below Professor Simmons provides the first review under the new program.  Thank you Professor Simmons!

Langbein, John H., Lerner, Renee L. and Smith, Bruce P., History of the Common Law: TheDevelopment of Anglo-American Legal Institutions, Copyright 2000 by Aspen Publishers.

Professor Langbein, Yale Law School’s Sterling Professor of Law and Legal History, is best known for his influential work on trust, probate, pension and investment law, but he also written extensively on the development of criminal procedure and the common law, including Torture and the Law of Proof: Europe and England in the Ancient Regime (1977). 

Professor Langbein, along with his co-author/editors, Professor Lerner and Dean Smith, authored and edited History of the Common Law as a textbook for an introductory law school course in Anglo-American legal history. Its authors made use of previously unpublished materials from Professors Langbein, Goebel, and Dawson as well as judicial decisions stretching back to the thirteenth century and recent scholarship as well.   It is a book with few competitors for law school classes on its subject and was, in fact, the first law school teaching book to be produced in full color.  The textbook makes use of gorgeous illustrations, from medieval illuminated manuscripts to contemporary photographs. 

The book underscores the emergence of the jury system, the conflict between law and equity, and the development of the legal profession, from serjeants and barristers in the medieval world, to twenty-first century transnational megafirms and other contemporary American legal institutions and doctrines. 

Its scope, if anything, despite its more than 1100 pages, may be over-ambitious.  The text assumes, for example, a working knowledge of English history which many students may lack.  The introduction acknowledges this choice by the authors: “To keep the book manageable for a one-semester course, we have had to exclude or provide only skeletal coverage of many strands of legal historical inquiry that are full of interest, such as the history of legal doctrine and legal theory, constitutional and political history, and many of the social and economic dimensions.” 

 Thomas E. Simmons

Assistant Professor
University of South Dakota
School of Law

Percentage of Women Partners in Law Firms Continues to Rise

The ABA Journal has reported that Miller Nash, a Portland, Oregon firm, recently named seven new partners, all of whom are women.  See the ABA Journal article here and the firm's press release here.

According to a recent press release from the National Association for Law Placement, Inc. (NALP), representation by women at the partner level in law firms rose in 2013, and has gradually increased since the organization began compiling data in the 1990s.  However, the percentage of women at the associate level has declined each year since 2010.  According to the NALP press release, the "net result is very small net gains in the representation of women."

If you are interested in further information about women's status in the legal profession, the ABA Commission on Women in the Profession maintains a webpage containing links to numerous articles, reports, research studies, and initiatives, organized by topic.  Topics vary from Advancement, Retention and Attrition to Compensation, Work/Life Balance, Networking, and more.

The McKusick Law Library also has print and electronic resources available regarding women in the legal profession. The following books, among others, are available in our collection:

The Unfinished Agenda: Women and the Legal Profession / American Bar Association Commission on Women in the Profession

Ending the Gauntlet: Removing Barriers to Women’s Success in the Law / by Lauren Stiller Rikleen

Databook on Women in Law School and in the Legal Profession / Law School Admission Council; editors-in-chief Gita Z. Wilder and Bruce Weingartner

Students and faculty with access to HeinOnline may also want to explore issues of the Women Lawyers Journal, a publication of the National Association of Women Lawyers, available in the Law Journal Library.

Needing Some Help With Your New Year's Resolutions?

Now that we are a full three weeks into January, many of us are struggling to keeping up with our new year's resolutions.  While many resolve to get more exercise or quit a bad habit, another common new year's resolution is to read more books.  With this resolution, the law library can definitely help!

If you are looking for suggestions of titles to supplement your study of the law, check out this blog post from the FindLaw Legal Lifestyle & Career Blog, which highlights ten books recommended by distinguished and well-known attorneys.  The ten books -- five legal, five fiction -- are part of a larger list published by the ABA Journal, titled "30 Lawyers, 30 Books." 

The McKusick Law Library has several of the recommended legal titles in our collection:

The Legal Analyst: A Toolkit for Thinking About the Law / by Ward Farnsworth (Recommended by Eugene Volokh, Professor of Constitutional Law at UCLA Law School)

Simple Justice: The History of Brown v. Board of Education and Black America's Struggle for Equality / by Richard Kluger (Recommended by Adam Liptak, legal journalist for The New York Times)

Justice for All: Earl Warren and the Nation He Made / by Jim Newton (Recommended by Erwin Chemerinsky, Dean of the University of California at Irvine School of Law)

The Trial / by Franz Kafka (Recommended by Thane Rosenbaum, founding director of the Forum on Law, Culture, and Society at Fordham Law School)

Justice Accused: Antislavery and the Judicial Process / by Robert M. Cover (Recommended by Judith Resnik, Yale Law School Professor)

The Man to See / by Evan Thomas (A biography of Edward Bennett Williams, legendary trial lawyer, recommended by Abbe David Lowell, partner with Chadbourne & Parke in Washington, D.C.)

My Life in Court / by Louis Nizer (Recommended by Roy Black, partner with Black, Srebnick, Kornspan & Stumpf in Miami)

Welcome Back to a New Semester

The McKusick Law Library would like to welcome back the law students to a new and exciting semester at USD Law.  Students will note some new changes to the layout of the library that occurred over the Winter Break.  Shelving units have been removed on the main floor and the upper floor of the library.  As a result, the law library is pleased to offer expanded open seating areas on the main floor and a reading lounge area on the upper floor.  The library encourages our students (and all library visitors) to utilize the seating for study, research, and reflection.

As a note to our students:  Please be aware that the new seating on the upper level is not intended as a dining area.  Also, as a reminder, any food and drink stored in student carrels is for personal use only and should be in covered containers.

National Mentoring Month

Did you know that January is National Mentoring Month?  Created in 2002 by the Harvard School of Public Health and MENTOR: The National Mentoring Partnership, National Mentoring Month provides an opportunity to acknowledge the important role of mentorship in our communities and the need for mentors nationwide. 

The President's proclamation of National Mentoring Month focuses on the great need for mentors for America's youth, and the resulting benefits to mentees, including self-confidence, goal achievement, and strength of character.

However, in recent years, the legal profession has also begun to formally and informally adopt mentorship as a model to support attorney development and success.  In 2013, the NALP (National Association for Law Placement, Inc.) Foundation and Beyond the Bar, a division of Thomson Reuters, published the results of a comprehensive study on lawyer mentoring programs, titled "The State of Mentoring in the Legal Profession."  For more information about the study, see this post on the Thomson Reuters blog.  For further information on legal mentoring, the National Legal Mentoring Consortium offers a reference library with information on books, articles and videos about legal mentorship, as well as links to legal mentoring programs across the country.

The McKusick Law Library also has several titles available which discuss mentorship in the legal profession, and generally:

Opportunity Maker: Strategies for Inspiring Your Legal Career Through Creative Networking and Business Development / by Ari L. Kaplan

Raise the Bar: Real World Solutions for a Troubled Profession / Lawrence J. Fox, editor; foreword by Brad D. Brian

Excellence in the Workplace: Legal & Life Skills in a Nutshell/ by Kay Kavanagh and Paula Nailon

It’s Harder in Heels: Essays By Women Lawyers Achieving Work-Life Nalance / Jacquelyn Hersch Slotkin & Samantha Slotkin Goodman, editors and contributors

Ending the Gauntlet: Removing Barriers to Women’s Success in the Law / by Lauren Stiller Rikleen

Mentoring: The Most Obvious Yet Overlooked Key to Achieving More in Life Than You Dreamed Possible: A Success Guide For Mentors and Protégés / by Floyd Wickman and Terri Sjodin