Thursday, October 30, 2008

Privacy Foundation Seminar 10/24

Privacy & Legal Ethics: Ethical Concerns for Lawyers Counseling Privacy Data Breaches

www.privacyfoundation.org

On Friday October 24, 2008, Professor John Soma, Executive Director of the Privacy Foundation, hosted an enlightening seminar addressing the topic of ethical concerns for lawyers counseling clients and employers on privacy data breaches. The highly qualified panelists included Assistant Dean of Student Affairs Dan Vigil; Andy Holleman, Chief Privacy Officer for Qwest in Denver; Al Maslowski-Yerges of Novacoast; attorney Cecil Morris; and Chief Deputy District Attorney and General Counsel for Denver, Dick Reeve. The written materials compared the statutory approaches to security breach notification in California and Colorado. The Colorado Rules of Professional Conduct, Rules 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.6, and 1.13 were included, as well as recommended preparations for notification of security breaches for use by corporate counsel.

C.R.S. §6-1-716(1)(d)(I) defines “ personal information” as a Colorado resident’s first name or first initial and last name in combination with any one or more of the following data elements that relate to the resident, when the data elements are not encrypted, redacted, or secured by any other method rendering the name or the element unreadable or unusable:
(A) Social security number;
(B)Driver’s license number or identification card number;
(C) Account number or credit or debit card number, in combination with any required security code, access code, or password that would permit access to a resident’s financial account.
(II) “Personal information” does not include publicly available information that is lawfully made available to the general public from federal, state, or local government records or widely distributed media.

As technology continues to evolve, the protection of personal information becomes more difficult and more important than ever. Please consider attending the next Privacy Foundation Seminar, and learn what issues are arising in the context of our ever expanding information based world.

by Catharine Cott, Reference Librarian

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Find Colorado Legal Forms Online

Find Colorado Legal Forms online using the library’s website. Under “Research” on the left frame, click Web Research Links > Colorado Resources > Legal Forms.
Colorado Legal Forms online categories include:
  • Adoption
  • Annulment (Declaration of Invalidity of Marriage)
  • Bail Bonds
  • Bankruptcy Forms (Official)
  • Bradford Legal Forms
  • Business Forms
  • Confidential Intermediary
  • County – Civil Money
  • Discontinue Sex Offender Registration
  • Eviction/Forcible Entry and Detainer (FED)
  • Family/Divorce
  • Garnishments
  • General – Including Indigency, Motion to Set Aside, Stipulation...
  • Income and Estate Tax Forms
  • Juvenile Dependency and Neglect/Delinquency
  • Juvenile Expungements
  • Name Change
  • Probate
  • Protection Orders
See also our subject guide on Selected Legal Forms (Research > More > Subject Guides > Court Rules and Practice).
Researchers may also find Colorado legal forms by clicking on Web Research Links > Legal Forms > Colorado > State.

Update 2/4/09: The Colorado Judicial Branch has been reorganized since this article was written and our website revised in accordance. Please see our Legal Forms page as well as the Judicial Branch's Self-Help Center and Forms & Instructions.

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

New! HeinOnline brings you the UN

Research UN Treaties through HeinOnline: United Nations Law Collection

HeinOnline now offers its search capabilities for United Nations treaties and many UN documents:

  • United Nations Treaty Series collection and Treaty Handbook
  • International Court of Justice reports
  • UN Commission on International Trade Law
  • UN Yearbooks
  • all UN publications and more. 
You can quickly search by United Nations Treaty Series (U.N.T.S.) citation, by popular name, by a party, by country, by subject, and several other ways. A search can be as easy as choosing the “Search” tab, then “Field Search” and entering terms, names, etc., or choose Advanced Search if you have more information. You will search up to 20 different titles.
Using HeinOnline to locate your UN materials provides an added bonus: Hein will tell you how many law review articles cite this document and provide links to those articles. How’s that for getting a jump on your research?

Monday, October 27, 2008

Kimm Walton's books at the library

Kimm Walton presented today in room 165 on "Guerilla Tactics for Getting the Legal Job of Your Dreams." The library has the following books by Ms. Walton:


You can request other books by Ms. Walton, including The Best of the Job Goddess and Strategies and Tactics for the MPRE, through Prospector.

Monday, October 20, 2008

Library Web Survey

Please help us. We are conducting this survey to measure library service quality. Your participation in this survey will allow us to improve library services by better understanding your expectations.

Please answer all the items. The survey will take approximately 10-15 minutes to complete. We would appreciate it if you would complete the online survey right now, or within the next few days. Thank you for your participation.

If you have any questions, please contact Stacey Bowers, Outreach and Access Services Librarian, University of Denver, Westminster Law Library.

This survey was approved by the University of Denver’s Institutional Review Board for the Protection of Human Subjects in Research on September 8, 2008.

Thursday, October 16, 2008

What else can you do with a law degree?

Law school stress cartoon by Stu Rees


If you find yourself wondering whether practicing law is the right career path for you, you're not alone. Occasionally, students reach graduation and realize "Well, that was interesting but I don't think practicing law is right for me. What now?"


Here are some of the other professions you could pursue with a JD:

  • Academic administration
  • Law librarian (firm, corporate, public, court, academic) or freelance legal research specialist
  • Non-profit management
  • Corporations
    • regulation specialist/trainer
    • Civil Rights-related positions, such as ADA, Affirmative action or Civil Rights coordinators/specialists
  • Alternative Dispute Resolution
  • Banking & finance - brokerages, pension funds, insurance companies
  • Court administration
For an extensive list of fields & position titles, see JD preferred!


From the law library collection:

Update 10/28/08: Also check out Explore Career Options Within the Law from The Complete Lawyer.

NEW DU Law Librarian Fellows Program

"The Library and Information Science Program in the Morgridge College of Education at the University of Denver and its partners, the Westminster Law Library and the Sturm College of Law, will recruit and educate ten new law librarians, known as the Law Librarian Fellows (LLF), thanks to a grant of $999,360 from the Federal Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS)... the law librarianship students will participate actively as members of the Rural and Small Practice Attorney Library Support Center (Support Center) at DU. They will be assigned a list of clients and provide legal reference, document retrieval, and other services under the guidance of WLL law librarians. Clients will include rural attorneys, academic and public libraries with legal collections, rural government agencies, and non-governmental legal organizations serving low-income individuals and families."

Program summary by Patty Wellinger. Read her article on law librarianship and the new fellow program.

Press release: $999,360 in federal aid received from Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program

Monday, October 13, 2008

Gigablast: Search with Attitude

Gigablast (www.gigablast.com) is a ten-billion-page search engine that accommodates a huge quantity of users, workloads, and transactions. Customize Gigablast to retrieve web pages, images, video, or directory queries based on freshness by clicking last day, last month, last week, last year, custom, or off links. For more information, click Fresh Results link.
Try a simple search on Gigablast’s front page template (who is Ruth Bader Ginsburg) or click Advanced Search to set up a query. Other links include Help, Eco-Friendly, and Privacy Enhanced. Gigablast retrievals show key themes and related topics in GigaBits displays.
Most Gigablast search results include the following information at the end of retrieval abstracts:
  • Archived Copy: a direct link to Gigablast’s cached copy of the web page.
  • Stripped: an image-free copy of the page.
  • Older Copies: a hard-coded link to The WayBack Machine’s copy of that site’s information.
  • Indexed Date: when Gigablast’s spiders last crawled the page.
Gigablast is listed in the law library's Web Research Links under Non-Legal > Search Engines > Search Engines > Gigablast.

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Law Librarianship: A Career Alternative for JD's

Interested in using your law degree in an alternative career? Law librarians work in diverse and challenging environments, and have a variety of educational backgrounds. Several of the Westminster Law Library staff have JD's and some practiced law before switching to law librarianship.


About 30% of AALL* members have a law degree. Academic law libraries are more likely to require a JD than are other employers, especially if you are interested in public services positions. A legal bibliography class or practical experience through working and volunteering in a law library can give you great experience.


The AALL website provides information on scholarships and grants, job postings, a salary survey, and a writing competition for library school students. There are also numerous regional and local chapters affiliated with AALL, including the Colorado Association of Law Libraries (CoALL). CoALL, our state chapter, provides networking and educational opportunities in the Denver metro area. CoALL includes individuals from academic, firm, court, and agency law libraries through Colorado.


While many programs are free to anyone, student membership in CoALL is only $5 per year. This includes discounted rates on fee-based programs and a quarterly newsletter. CoALL offers a yearly research workshop to summer law clerks called BRAG (Bridging the Research & Analysis Gap). CoALL also sponsors grants and scholarship opportunities for library school students.


For more information about educational requirements or the profession check out these resources or stop by the Law Library. The University of Denver School of Library & Information Science (SLIS) received a grant of nearly a million dollars to develop a law librarianship fellow program in conjunction with the Westminster Law Library. Applications are now being accepted for the Fall 2009 class.


*The American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) was founded in 1906 to promote and enhance the value of law libraries to the legal and public communities, to foster the profession of law librarianship, and to provide leadership in the field of legal information. Today, with over 4,800 members, the Association represents law librarians and related professionals who are affiliated with a wide range of institutions such as law firms; law schools; corporate legal departments; courts; and local, state and federal government agencies.

by Patty Wellinger, Reference Service Coordinator

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Colorado's New Landlord-Tenant Law

Colorado residents who live in leased housing now have basic legal rights for safe, habitable living conditions. See An Act Concerning Landlord and Tenant Relations (HB 08-1356).
Find provisions of this new tenant’s bill of rights in Colorado’s statutes at Title 38 (Property – Real and Personal), Article 12 (Tenants and Landlords), Part 5 (Obligation to Maintain Residential Premises – Unlawful Removal), Sections 501 through 511 as follows:
38-12-501 Legislative declaration – matter of statewide concern – purposes and policies.
38-12-502 Definitions.
38-12-503 Warranty of habitability.
38-12-504 Tenant’s maintenance of premises.
38-12-505 Uninhabitable residential premises.
38-12-506 Opt-out.
38-12-507 Breach of warranty of habitability – tenant’s remedies.
38-12-508 Landlord’s defenses to a claim of breach of warranty – limitations on claiming a breach.
38-12-509 Prohibition on retaliation.
38-12-510 Unlawful removal or exclusion.
38-12-511 Application.
According to Colo. Rev. Stat. § 38-12-501 (2008), this law was designed to:
  • Simplify, clarify, modernize, and revise the law governing the rental of dwelling units and the rights and obligations of landlords and tenants.
  • Encourage landlords and tenants to maintain and improve the quality of housing.
  • Make uniform the law with respect to the subject of this part 5 throughout Colorado.
See also:

by Sheila Green, Reference Librarian

Sunday, October 5, 2008

New category: Dicta

Hearsay has a new category called "Dicta." Dicta articles are legal news, entertainment, occasional snark, and in general things we think you ought to know. They occupy a space between Research Tips (which discuss research skills) and Announcements (about the library) by providing general information about legal resources and notices of new legal developments.

Saturday, October 4, 2008

RSS: Bring the news to you!

Notice: This post was written for our previous format in BlogFusion. You can still subscribe to Hearsay's RSS feed, but you will receive all of our posts instead of individual categories. (11/11/08)

You can read Hearsay by going to our blog's site, checking our Facebook page, and subscribing to our RSS feeds. Ever feel like you spend too much time clicking around checking your favorite blogs and news sites? RSS can streamline your news browsing and supply you with the most relevant items.

RSS = Really Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary

From w3schools.com: "RSS is a method that uses XML to distribute web content on one web site, to many other web sites. RSS allows fast browsing for news and updates."

How does that help you? Instead of you going to get your news from many sources, those sources send the news to you! When you sign up for an RSS reader, you select which RSS feeds go to your feedreader. Then you can browse the headlines on your topics from within the feedreader and click through to the articles that you find most interesting.
RSS readers can be desktop-based, email-based, web-based, or browser-based (see your browser's website for options).

For an excellent, straight-forward explanation of RSS, see: RSS in Plain English on Youtube.

Other resources:
Just look for the RSS buttons on your favorite sites!
RSS logos
Creative Commons images by Chesi - Fotos CC
Individual and various

by Esti Shay, Reference Librarian

Friday, October 3, 2008