Category Archives: Book Review

Librarians review books in the Brooklyn Law Library collection.

Thurgood Marshall and Legal History

Thurgood MarshallThe BLS Library recently added to its collection Thurgood Marshall: Race, Rights, and the Struggle for a More Perfect Union by Charles L. Zelden (Call #KF8745.M34 Z45 2013). This 232 page biography, accompanied by primary sources that present Marshall in his own words, will help students learn what Marshall did (and did not do) during his life, why those actions were important, and what effects his efforts had on the larger course of American history. The book has content as follows: Introduction: The Struggle for a More Perfect Union; Chapter 1 – The Education of Thurgood Marshall; Chapter 2 – “Thurgood’s Coming”; Chapter 3 – Social Engineer Lawyer; Chapter 4 – Going for the “Whole Hog”; Chapter 5 – All Deliberate Speed Means S-L-O-W; Chapter 6 – “I AM the Establishment”; Chapter 7 – Not Only the Robe Was Black; Chapter 8 – How Do You Feel About Writing Dissents?; Postscript: Thurgood Marshall, Activist Judge; and an Appendix of Documents.

Today, August 30, 2014 marks the anniversary of the confirmation by the Senate in 1967 of Thurgood Marshall (1908-1993) as a Supreme Court justice. As the Court’s 96th justice and its first African American justice serving from 1967 to 1991, he was one of the most influential legal actors of his time. Before being appointed to the Supreme Court by President Lyndon Johnson, Marshall was a lawyer for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Federal Judge (1961-1965), and Solicitor General of the United States (1965-1966). He won twenty-nine of thirty-two cases before the Supreme Court including the landmark case of Brown v. Board of Education, which ruled that segregated public schools were unconstitutional. Marshall spent his career fighting racial segregation and legal inequality, and his time on the court establishing a record for supporting the “voiceless American.”

Marshall was an outspoken liberal on a court dominated by conservatives. In his twenty-four year tenure, he voted to uphold gender and racial affirmative action policies in every case in which they were challenged. He dissented in every case in which the Supreme Court failed to overturn a death sentence and opposed all efforts to narrow or burden the right of women to obtain abortions. No justice has been more forceful in opposing government regulation of speech or private sexual conduct. Nor has any justice been more egalitarian in terms of advancing a view of the Constitution that imposes positive duties on government to provide important benefits to people such as education, legal services, and access to courts regardless of their ability to pay for them. The legacy of change that he left behind continues to affect American society today.

BLIP Clinic Fights Off Patent Troll

The recent success of Brooklyn Law School’s BLIP clinic in bringing about the dismissal of the patent infringement case of 911 Notify LLC v. Carshield Services Inc. filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware demonstrates how law students help real clients. The BLIP students represented a California-based startup called CarShield in defending a patent infringement lawsuit filed in January of this year. The complaint came with no prior notice, no warning and no demand letter. The plaintiff, a shell company called 911 Notify, appeared to be a classic patent troll. Since 2013, it had filed more than 35 patent infringement suits, including some against such companies as Ford Motor Co., Lowe’s Home Centers and BMW North America. The defendant determined that what the plaintiff really wanted was a settlement of over $250,000 to make the lawsuit go away.

CarShield, which makes a car-connection device to monitor and alert owners and emergency contacts in case of accident, breakdown or theft, had no intention of paying. Through the Patent Troll Defense Network, a group set up by the App Developers Alliance and law schools to help app developers and small businesses, they found the Brooklyn Law Incubator and Policy (BLIP) clinic. With BLIP’s help, six months after being served with the complaint, 911 Notify dropped the lawsuit. BLIP was able to fend off the plaintiff thanks to Brooklyn Law School students and their lawyer-adviser.

Brooklyn Law School Professor Jonathan Askin, Founder and Director of BLIP, showed his students the CarShield case and they agreed to take it on. Professor Askin said “They felt it was so egregious and a part of a systemic problem faced by startups. They knew a lot of companies couldn’t afford to litigate, but they would if they had support.”

Patent trolls win by offering to settle cases for less than the cost of the legal defense. With the help of the BLIP law school clinic, the cost of legal defense dropped to zero. In April, the students filed a motion to dismiss, arguing that the case should not have been filed in Delaware because the startup is based in California and had never sold its products in Delaware. By July, all briefs had been filed and the team of students was preparing for oral argument. On July 24, the day after CarShield formally requested the court schedule oral argument, 911 Notify officially dropped the lawsuit, without prejudice.

Patent TrollsBrooklyn Law School Law Library has ordered a book on the subject of patent trolls, Patent Trolls: Predatory Litigation and the Smothering of Innovation by William J. Watkins Jr. and William F. Shughart II. It describes how patent trolls use overbroad patents to threaten litigation and bring infringement suits against inventors. Also known as non-practicing entities (NPEs), patent trolls typically do not produce products or services but are in the business of litigation. They wait for someone to create a process or product that has some relationship to the patent held by the troll, and then they pounce with threats and lawsuits. The authors call attention to this problem and the challenges it poses to maintaining a robust rate of technological progress. After describing recent trends and efforts to “tame the trolls,” the book focuses on ground zero in patent litigation—the Eastern District of Texas, where a combination of factors makes this the lawsuit venue of choice for strategically minded patent trolls. It also examines a more fundamental problem: an outmoded patent system that is wholly ill suited for the modern economy. Finally, the book examines proposals for reforming the U.S. patent system, which was created to spur innovation but today is having the opposite effect.

The Magna Carta Tour: Brooklyn Law School

Almost 800 years ago, on June 15, 2015, King John puts his royal seal on the Magna Carta, or the “Great Charter” following a revolt by the English nobility against his rule. To commemorate the 800th anniversary of that event, the American Bar Association and the Library of Congress will debut a special traveling exhibit of the sealing of Magna Carta on August 8 at the ABA’s Annual Meeting Expo in Boston.

The ABA Standing Committee on the Law Library of Congress will unveil Magna Carta: Enduring Legacy 1215-2015 which will feature 16 banners, 13 of which reflect spectacular images of Magna Carta and precious manuscripts, books and other documents from the Library of Congress’s rare book collections. The exhibit also incorporates a video, produced by the Library of Congress, showing the Law Librarian and the exhibit curator handling the materials and explaining their significance.

The principles found in Magna Carta played a fundamental role in establishing the supremacy of the law in our constitutional, democratic society, including concepts embraced by the Founding Fathers in the Bill of Rights. The importance of Magna Carta to American laws and freedoms will be highlighted at the Annual Meeting as Chief Justice of the United States John G. Roberts Jr. speaks to the ABA House of Delegates on the subject Aug. 11 at 11 a.m. The exhibit will give people a better understanding of Magna Carta and its relevance to the modern-day rule of law.

After Boston, the exhibit will travel to public buildings such as courthouses, law schools, universities and public libraries around the United States, including Brooklyn Law School from September 14-28, 2015, hosted by the Brooklyn Law School.

The current schedule for the exhibit includes other stops including:

  • Indianapolis at the Indiana Statehouse, Sept. 29-October 10r
  • Ann Arbor at the University of Michigan Law School, October 1-21
  • Houston, at the ABA Midyear Meeting, February 6-8, 2015
  • Atlanta, at the Georgia Bar Center, Spring 2015
  • Salt Lake City, April 3-20, 2015r
  • Washington, D.C, at the ABA Section of International Law Spring Meeting, April 29-May 2, 2015
  • Philadelphia, at the ABA Tort Trial and Insurance Practice Section Meeting, April 29-May 3, 2015
  • London, England, at the ABA London Sessions, June 11-14, 2015
  • Chicago, at the ABA Annual Meeting, July 31 – August 2, 2015
  • San Diego, at the ABA Midyear Meeting, February 5-7, 2016

Magna CartaThe BLS Library has two books on the subject of the Magna Carta that are well worth reading. From the perspective of the English is Magna Carta by J.C. Holt (Call # JN147 .H64 1992) which sets the events of 1215 and the Charter itself in the context of the law, politics and administration of England and Europe in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The book has a chapter on justice and jurisdiction that provides a fresh approach to the legal provisions of the Charter that were to prove so enduring, along with appendices on matters as varied as vernacular translations of the Charter and grants of liberties in perpetuity.

MC TTThe second book is Magna Carta: Text and Commentary by A. E. Dick Howard (Call #KD3946 .H69 1998). This edition is geared towards the American perspective in which the author places the charter in context of the extraordinary surge of constitutionalism in the aftermath of the Cold War. The book is a cogent introduction to Magna Carta that students everywhere can readily appreciate.

Death Penalty Ruled Unconstitutional

Death PenaltyAfter the recent July 16, 2014 Order Declaring California’s Death Penalty System Unconstitutional by the United States District Court for the Central District Of California in the case of Jones v. Chappell, users at the Brooklyn Law School Library may want to review the second edition of The Death Penalty in the United States: A Complete Guide to Federal and State Laws by Louis J. Palmer Jr. (Call #KF9725 .P35 2014). According to the publisher, the new edition includes 13 new chapters. Areas covered by some of the new chapters include Capital felon’s defense team; Habeas corpus, coram nobis and section 1983 proceedings; the Innocence protection act and post-conviction DNA testing; Challenging the death sentence under racial justice acts; Inhabited American territories and capital punishment; and the Costs of capital punishment.

The opinion by the federal district judge will be the talk of the death penalty community in the near future and is likely to be appealed to the Ninth Circuit (and perhaps the Supreme Court). The opinion 29-page opinion starts and ends as follows:

On April 7, 1995, Petitioner Ernest Dewayne Jones was condemned to death by the State of California. Nearly two decades later, Mr. Jones remains on California’s Death Row, awaiting his execution, but with complete uncertainty as to when, or even whether, it will ever come. Mr. Jones is not alone. Since 1978, when the current death penalty system was adopted by California voters, over 900 people have been sentenced to death for their crimes. Of them, only 13 have been executed. For the rest, the dysfunctional administration of California’s death penalty system has resulted, and will continue to result, in an inordinate and unpredictable period of delay preceding their actual execution. Indeed, for most, systemic delay has made their execution so unlikely that the death sentence carefully and deliberately imposed by the jury has been quietly transformed into one no rational jury or legislature could ever impose: life in prison, with the remote possibility of death. As for the random few for whom execution does become a reality, they will have languished for so long on Death Row that their execution will serve no retributive or deterrent purpose and will be arbitrary.

That is the reality of the death penalty in California today and the system that has been created to administer it to Mr. Jones and the hundreds of other individuals currently on Death Row. Allowing this system to continue to threaten Mr. Jones with the slight possibility of death, almost a generation after he was first sentenced, violates the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment….

When an individual is condemned to death in California, the sentence carries with it an implicit promise from the State that it will actually be carried out. That promise is made to the citizens of the State, who are investing significant resources in furtherance of a punishment that they believe is necessary to achieving justice. It is made to jurors who, in exercise of their civic responsibility, are asked to hear about and see evidence of undeniably horrific crimes, and then participate in the agonizing deliberations over whether the perpetrators of those horrific crimes should be put to death. It is made to victims and their loved ones, for whom just punishment might provide some semblance of moral and emotional closure from an otherwise unimaginable loss. And it is made to the hundreds of individuals on Death Row, as a statement their crimes are so heinous they have forfeited their right to life.

Goal: the Regulation of International Sports

nicubunu_Soccer_ballAs the eyes of the world turn to Brazil on Thursday, each nation will cheer on its team in pursuit of the FIFA World Cup. If you are curious about the law and rules governing FIFA or international sports and sporting events, the library has several resources to help satisfy your curiosity. Listed below are a few recent sources.

Career Guidance for New Lawyers

The 57 titles in the Brooklyn Law Library April New Books List cover a wide range of topics from constitutional law, global internet law, the legalization of marijuana, marriage equality and practice and procedure in asset forfeiture. There are several items that should interest graduating law students and aspiring lawyers.

Anatomy of a TrialAnatomy of a Trial: A Handbook for Young Lawyers by Paul Mark Sandler (Call # KF8915 .S24 2014) is designed for young trial lawyers eager to gain an appreciation of how to handle real problems encountered during jury trials. The second edition examines key phases of jury trials (voir dire, opening statements, direct and cross-examination, and closing arguments) in the light of two particular cases, one criminal and the other civil. The criminal case involves highly complex subjects and law campaign finance, national politics, and Hollywood fundraising, among others and necessitates simplifying and storytelling for the jury. The civil case illustrates the reality that most cases hinge on the credibility of witnesses, and also showcases the critical importance of experts in trials of a technical nature. This new edition also includes an all-new third case, a non-jury civil trial.

Entertainment Careers for LawyersEntertainment by William D. Henslee (Call # KF299.E5 H46 2014) discusses entertainment law, a popular area of study for law students and a desired career path for practitioners. Yet the glamor of working with actors, production companies, musicians, writers, and others to create works of art comes with long hours, hard work, and fierce competition for jobs. This Third Edition will dispel many of the myths surrounding the practice and help lawyers and law students gain an understanding of the realities of entertainment law. The book will help readers gain an overview of the substantive law areas included in entertainment law, from intellectual property and litigation to contract negotiations and estate planning; understand the pros and cons of specializing in entertainment law; learn about the career trajectories available in four major entertainment genres: music, theater, film, and television; land a first job as an entertainment lawyer as a law student; and understand the day-to-day realities of working as an entertainment lawyer.

AdvocacyIntroduction to Advocacy: Research, Writing and Argument by Harvard Law School Board of Student Advisors (Call # KF281.A2 I57 2013) is a clear, concise and accessible introduction to legal research and writing. The Eighth Edition includes examples and helpful tips about effective writing as well as warnings about common mistakes students should avoid. In addition, there is a new chapter on rule synthesis. The book also includes a new, full-length memorandum and two updated briefs.

SurvivalLaw Firm Job Survival Manual: From First Interview to Partnership by Nancy B. Rapoport (Call # KF297 .R37 2014) will help new lawyers run the gauntlet of their legal careers faster and smarter. Written with humor and sensitivity, this concise handbook demystifies the etiquette and ethics of the law firm environment while providing essential survival skills. The book spans law careers from summer job interviews through the first year of partnership.

StorytellingStorytelling for Lawyers by Philip Meyer (Call # K181 .M49 2014) offers a narrative tool kit that supplements the analytical skills traditionally emphasized in law school and practical tips for practicing attorneys to help craft their own legal stories. Good lawyers have an ability to tell stories, whether arguing a murder case or a complex financial securities case, explaining a chain of events to judges and juries so that they understand them. The best lawyers are also able to construct narratives that have an emotional impact on their intended audiences. The author begins with a pragmatic theory of the narrative foundations of litigation practice and applies it to a range of practical illustrative examples: briefs, judicial opinions and oral arguments. Intended for legal practitioners, teachers, law students, and even interdisciplinary academics, the book offers a basic yet comprehensive explanation of the central role of narrative in litigation.

Adventure and the Law

Brooklyn Law School Library’s March New Books List has 61 titles covering a wide range of subjects including Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan; felon disenfranchisement; trade secrets; appellate procedure; law and war; and taxation.

Thrill-seekers and those who like their Adventure and the Lawadventure from an easy chair may be drawn to one title, Adventure and the Law by Cecil C. Kuhne III (Call #KF1290.S66 K84 2014). The author, a member of Fulbright & Jaworski LLP’s litigation section since 1993 in Dallas, TX examines adventures on land, water, and everywhere in between. It tells how all sorts of exciting ventures can change from thrilling to threatening and what happens when these instances go to the courtroom. In the book which the American Bar Association’s Tort Trial and Insurance Practice Section sponsored, the author tells of 16 riveting cases surrounding extreme activities such as mountain biking, water skiing, snowboarding, bungee jumping, car racing, skydiving from recreational to extreme, and reveals how real-life adventures can take a turn for the unexpected.

Episode 089: Conversation with Prof. Andrew Napolitano

Episode 089: Conversation with Prof. Andrew Napolitano.mp3

This podcast features an interview with Brooklyn Law School Visiting Professor of Law  Andrew Napolitano who teaches courses on Constitutional Interpretation and Individual Rights and First Amendment Law. Professor Napolitano discusses his role in the upcoming Evening with United States Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia scheduled for Friday, March 21, 2014 from 5:30 pm to 7:00 pm at the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Howard Gilman Opera House.

In the conversation, Judge Napolitano discusses the format of the upcoming event where he will question Justice Scalia on issues of human freedom and the U.S. Constitution. Following that will be questions from the audience on a range of topics that Justice Scalia has covered both in his judicial opinions and dissents as well as the books that he has authored. Books in the collection of the BLS Library include:

Constitutional ChaosJudge Napolitano talks about two of his books that are in the BLS Library collection. The earliest is Constitutional Chaos: What Happens When the Government Breaks Its Own Laws (Call # HV9950 .N34 2004) written after he left the New Jersey Superior Court where he served as a trial judge from 1987 to 1995. The book speaks from his experiences and investigation about how government agencies will often arrest without warrant, spy without legal authority, imprison without charge, and kill without cause.

The other title is The Constitution in Exile: How the Federal Government Has Seized Power by Rewriting the Supreme Law of the Land (Call # KF5050 .N37 2006). The book explains how the federal government has manipulated the Constitution to take power from the states and the people. He closes the interview by discussing The Second Constitutional Convention: How the American People Can Take Back Their Government by Richard E. Labunski (Call #KF4555.L33 2000) which looks at Article V of the U.S. Constitution that authorizes the American people to call for a new constitutional convention.

Copyright Law and Hyperlinks

The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), Europe’s highest court, ruled that website owners can hyperlink to “freely accessible” copyrighted material without seeking rights holders’ permission. The decision in Svensson and Others v Retriever Sverige AB arises out of a case from Sweden’s Court of Appeal that is of interest to Internet users as it deals with the mechanism holding the web together. The dispute involved Retriever Sverige AB, an Internet-based subscription service that indexes links to articles found elsewhere online for free. It posted links to articles published on a newspaper’s website. The articles were written by Swedish journalists. Retriever took the position that it did not have to compensate the journalists for linking to their articles and that embedding the links within its site did not constitute to copyright infringement. The journalists, on the other hand, felt that Retriever, by linking to their articles, had “communicated” their works to the public without permission. The journalists took their case to the Stockholm District Court where they lost their case in 2010 and decided to take the case to appeal. From there the Svea Court of Appeal sought advice from the EU Court.

The CJEU wrote: “In the circumstances of this case, it must be observed that making available the works concerned by means of a clickable link, such as that in the main proceedings, does not lead to the works in question being communicated to a new public. The public targeted by the initial communication consisted of all potential visitors to the site concerned, since, given that access to the works on that site was not subject to any restrictive measures, all Internet users could therefore have free access to them. Therefore, since there is no new public, the authorization of the copyright holders is not required for a communication to the public such as that in the main proceedings.”

The ruling makes clear that while publishing a link to freely available content does not amount to infringement, there are circumstances where that would not be the case. “Where a clickable link makes it possible for users of the site on which that link appears to circumvent restrictions put in place by the site on which the protected work appears in order to restrict public access to that work to the latter site’s subscribers only, and the link accordingly constitutes an intervention without which those users would not be able to access the works transmitted, all those users must be deemed to be a new public,” the Court wrote. The decision is good news for those who want to embed a YouTube video in a blog or Facebook page, and bad news for those who feel that embedding should result in the payment of a licensing fee.

Peer to PeerThe Brooklyn Law School Library has in its collection Peer-to-Peer File Sharing and Secondary Liability in Copyright Law by Alain Strowel (Call #K1420.5 .P44 2009). Chapter 3, titled Secondary Liability for Copyright Infringement with Regard to Hyperlinks,  states:

“Without hyperlinks, the World Wide Web would not be so compelling. Hyperlinks are, in a way, the threads with which the Web is spun. Instead of users getting tangled in information overload, they find what they are looking for by following links for further reference. Without these links, and without the search engines based on hyperlinking, the information posted online would lose much of its value as it would not be easy to find.

Despite their clear utility, hyperlinks can raise legal liability issues in certain circumstances.”

Practice Ready Law Students

The Brooklyn Law School Library’s January New Books List is now available thanks to Cataloging Librarian Jeff Gabel. The 73 titles on the list cover a wide range of subjects including female circumcision; the invisible web; western films; the Bible and law; the death penalty; hedge funds; and taxation. Two of the titles deal with the role of law schools in preparing students for the practice of law.

Teaching Law PracticeThe first of these, Teaching Law Practice: Preparing the Next Generation of Lawyers edited by Charles Cercone (Call # KF279.T43 2013), argues that law schools have a peculiar responsibility and opportunity to help accelerate the change in the packaging, pricing, and delivery of affordable legal products and services to corporate and individual clients in sustainable law firm models. Schools with practice preparation as their mission can help the profession study and improve the ways in which lawyers identify clients and their needs, and then find effective and efficient ways to serve them. The book collects some of the practice-preparation efforts of the faculty at Thomas M. Cooley Law School. The essays in the book demonstrate how faculty can prepare graduates to practice law and meet new challenges that all lawyers must face.

The Marble and the SculptorThe second book, The Marble and the Sculptor: From Law School to Law Practice by Keith Robert Lee (Call # KF297 .L444 2013), provides an understanding of what is expected of new attorneys and a framework for becoming a successful—both as a lawyer and in life. With advice on everything from choosing classes that matter in law school to the importance of writing well, attracting clients, and avoiding five basic mistakes in your first job at a law firm, the book can help young lawyers regardless of law school or area of practice.

Earlier this month, BLS Library’s Kathy Darvil, Access Services/Reference Librarian and Adjunct Assistant Professor of Law Reference participated in the Law Library Association of Greater New York’s 75th Anniversary Education Conference. The panel, called Collaborating to Produce Practice Ready Graduates, consisted of Prof. Darvil, Susan McKenna, Elaine Egan, Linda-Jean Schneider, and Yasmin Harker. Prof. Darvil’s presentation Preparing Practice Ready Graduates: Specialized Legal Research Courses is available at this link.