SDCPLL March-April 2006 Newsletter

Law Week 2006 The Library has several events planned to celebrate this year's Law Week. The theme is "Liberty Under Law: Separate Branches, Balanced Powers." To celebrate the occasion, all library locations will be having a variety of programs for anyone to attend. Kicking off Law Week on Saturday, April 29th, Small Claims Court Advisor Jay Sacks, will do a one hour presentation at the Main Library about "Small Claims Court and Consumer Litigation." The program will begin at noon. Since seating is limited, please call 619-531-3900 to reserve a place. All locations will be having open houses on Law Day, May 1st. Library tours, give-a-ways, contests and light refreshments will be available. In addition, our East County Branch will have a legal clinic. This annual tradition is sponsored by the Foothills Bar Association. Please check our website for hours. On Wednesday, May 3rd at noon at the Main Library, KOGO News Radio 600 reporter, Phil Farrar will be the headliner at a Brown Bag lunch, "Covering the Courts." Phil has covered many major trials for KOGO, including the David Westerfield trial. Bring your lunch and enjoy the discussion. Again, please call to register since seating is limited. For our library attorney members, MCLE credit will be available. Also, on Wednesday,May 3rd, the Library will be participating in a Legal Resources Knowledge Fair from 10am - 3pm at all four San Diego Superior Courts. On Thursday, May 4th, Superior Court Judge William J. Howatt, Jr. will discuss the "History of the San Diego Bench & Bar" at a Brown Bag lunch at the Main Library at noon. Bring your lunch and listen to Judge Howatt give an entertaining look at San Diego legal history. Please call to register as seating is limited. For our library attorney members, MCLE credit will be available. On Friday evening, May 5th, there will be an invitation only reception sponsored by LoisLaw for members and other invited guests. Closing out the schedule of Law Week events, the Library will have an information table with the SDCBA Free Law Day Clinic at Kobey's Swap Meet at the I-Pay Center from 8am - 3pm on Saturday, May 6th. For more information and details, check our website.

Supreme Court FRAP Rule Addition Allows Citing Unpublished Cases The United States Supreme Court adopted a new rule, FRAP 32.1 on April 12th allowing unpublished cases to be cited in the federal courts beginning in 2007, unless Congress passes legislation countermanding that decision by Dec. 1st, 2006. This ruling will override the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals rule which does not allow citation of unpublished cases. The opinion does say that courts may give different weight to published and unpublished cases in making a ruling and writing the opinion. This, of course, does not change the policy of the California courts where California Rule of Court 977 states that unpublished cases may not be cited in court cases. Eventually, this decision may impact California courts, but not in the near future.

SDCBA Book Drive for Children and Teens During the month of May, the San Diego County Bar Association is collecting gently used and new books for women, children and teens living in shelters throughout San Diego County. Once again, all four locations of the Law Library will serve as collection points. Please bring in your donations and join with the Bar Association and the Law Library in helping support this worthy cause.

New Book Shelf at the Main Library To assist library users and make them aware of new books added to the collection, we will begin displaying new books and other new materials near the Main Library Reference Desk. During the month they will be displayed, you can check out any title that circulates. We hope this visual look at what's new at the library will assist patrons and make them aware of what's been added to our collection. In addition, a new book list will be available each month. Some of the new titles added in the last month include: Williamson, John Harvey, 1937- THE ATTORNEY'S HANDBOOK ON SMALL BUSINESS REORGANIZATION UNDER CHAPTER 11 / JOHN H. WILLIAMSON. 6th ed. Lakewood, Colo. : Argyle Pub. Co., 2006. KF1544 .W55 2006. All Locations. CALIFORNIA TRUST AND PROBATE LITIGATION / PLANNED AND EDITED BY DOMINIC J. CAMPISI, THOMAS W. LATHAM ; AUTHORS, DAVID W. BAER ... [ET AL.] ; PROJECT MANAGER, JANETTE TOM. [2005 ed.]. Oakland, Calif. : Continuing Education of the Bar--California, c2005- KFC205 .C35 2005. All Locations. DISSOLUTION STRATEGIES : FROM INTAKE TO JUDGMENT / AUTHORS, JANET L. FRANKEL ...[ET AL.]. Oakland, Calif. : Continuing Education of the Bar--California, 2005- KFC126.Z9 D57. All Locations. Sullivan, June M. HIPAA : A PRACTICAL GUIDE TO THE PRIVACY AND SECURITY OF HEALTH DATA / JUNE M. SULLIVAN. Chicago, Ill. : American Bar Association, Health Law Section, c2004. KF1262 .S85 2004. Main Library Only. TRIAL ATTORNEY'S EVIDENCE CODE NOTEBOOK. Oakland, Calif. : California Continuing Education of the Bar, c2006. KFC1030 .T74 2006. All Locations.

Welcome to our new Reference Librarian, Isabel Eustaquio Welcome to our new Reference Librarian, Isabel Eustaquio. Isabel has worked at SDCPLL as a part-time Reference Librarian and is rejoining the SDCPLL as a full-time Reference Librarian after a six month hiatus. Isabel Eustaquio grew up in Argentina so she is a native Spanish speaker. After Law School, she clerked for an Illinois Appellate Court Justice in Chicago . She moved to San Diego to work for the University of San Diego Law School where she taught Lawyering Skills for four years. Previously, Isabel worked as a Westlaw representative and has also practiced employment law. Isabel is an avid volleyball player and can usually be found playing two on two beach volleyball over the weekend.

Links of the Month Wikipedia Whether you're looking for background facts relevant to a legal matter, helping your child with homework, or just intellectually curious, try this free online encyclopedia. Started in 2001, Wikipedia has over 3 million articles in 125 different languages, including over 1 million in English. It is highly rated and popular - among the top 25 "most visited" reference websites according to some experts. Virtually any subject area is covered and articles are well-detailed with occasional hyperlinks. For a sample, try searching "iPod." Among the various technical and other details about iPod, you'll find a brief discussion of its related patent disputes. (Caveat: Wikipedia does allow users to "edit" entries and is not clear about the details. But, only 10 edits out of 100,000 requests have been made since 2001.) Military OneSouce Our second link of the month salutes Military OneSource. Are you a member of the military looking for information tailored to your needs? Are you closely related to someone in the service? Military OneSource contains links and referral information in English and Spanish on topics of importance to those in the Armed Forces. The Web site's Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) state that Military OneSource "provides information ranging from everyday concerns to deployment-related issues." (The FAQs can be accessed via the "members only" sign-in page.) In addition, Military OneSource provides referrals for individual counseling.

Online Resource of the Month - California Brief Access The newest edition to the Law Library's online resources is public access to California Supreme Court and Appellate Court briefs. Online coverage begins in 1990 for Supreme Court briefs and in 1996 for Appellate briefs. The Main Law Library also has briefs in hard copy from earlier years. As an official depository for California appellate briefs, SDCPLL is one of only three county law libraries able to offer free public access to our patrons. The State Law Library in Sacramento is the fourth depository library for California briefs and also provides this online service. Access to the online briefs library is available at all four law library locations. Just go to any of our Patron Access computers and click on "California Briefs" on the desktop. You can then search by either party name or docket number. Enter the information and select Supreme Court, Appellate Court (if you do not know the district) or the Appellate Court district. Any briefs in the system matching your criteria will display. Click on the link to display the brief in full. For printing information, check the "Accessing California Briefs" handout available at any of our four locations. Printing is $.20 per page. Any of our reference staff will be happy to assist you in using this service.

Reference Question of the Month This call came in to the Reference Desk at the Main Library a few weeks ago, "How do I terminate a registered domestic partnership?" The answer is that there are two ways to go about doing it. First, a Notice of Termination of a Domestic Partnership with the California Secretary of State's office or doing the equivalent of a divorce through the Superior Court. Which method is used depends on each individual situation. Factors include the length of the domestic partnership, whether or not there are children and value of community property. More information may be located on the California Secretary of States website and their brochure, "Terminating a California Registered Domestic Partnership." Also, Rule 5.28 of the California Rules of Court discusses dissolution of a domestic partnership. In addition, Nolo Press has information on on termination of domestic partnerships in Chapter 23 of How to Do Your Own Divorce in California (2006 edition. All four of our locations own this title. Ask for it at the Reference Desk.

News From the North After months in the making and weeks of waiting, the printer solution for North County has finally arrived! On Monday, February 27th, Stephanie Schweter, our IT manager, installed the second of two new Konica-Minolta copiers and the new and improved pay-for-print station at the North County branch. Patrons can now send print jobs from any one of the four networked patron stations to one centrally located printer. The print release station is self-service and accepts coins and dollar bills, in addition to the library's new value stored copy card. The reusable copy card, which has an initial cost of 55 cents, can also be used in the new Konica-Minolta copiers and pay-for-print stations at all branches of the San Diego County Public Law Library. So far patron response has been positive! In addition to the four networked patron stations, North County also has a stand alone computer attached to a separate printer. The stand alone can be used to view CD's from our CD-ROM collection and for word processing. Patrons can also listen to our new MCLE CDs if you bring your own mini-jack headphones. The North County branch also replaced the fax machine which had been donated to the library ten years ago. Patrons no longer have to wait for staff to send faxes one page at a time. The cost of sending a fax to a number within the county or receiving faxes is $1.00 per page. Faxes sent outside the county are $2.00 a page.

We hope you've enjoyed our newsletter! If you are a guest and would like to subscribe, please click here. We're hard at work on the next edition. In the meantime, please see us online at www.sdcpll.org or visit us at one of our four locations. For more information, or to send comments about this newsletter, contact Sheila Corman, Reference Librarian.