ALR Student’s Corner: The Environmental Law Practice Guide — An Explosion of Environmental Exposition

Prior to exploring the Environmental Law Practice Guide, I often wondered—why would I use a treatise to research a legal topic when I can use online research tools such as Westlaw or LexisNexis? What possible benefits could there be in physically picking up a print version of something I can find online? So, I picked up Volume 1 of the treatise and flipped through it and had an instantaneous moment of clarity – this treatise had it all, and I simply could not believe it.

Treatises generally provide a neutral, yet broad scope on a specific legal topic, while simultaneously providing historical analysis, statutory authority, and some narrow topical depth. Some treatises also feature forms or useful practice tools. I expected this when I chose the Environmental Law Practice Guide. I also expected general information about each type of environmental law. Instead, I found oceans of information that would ordinarily take weeks or months to compile without the help of this multi-volume series.

Why on earth was I so excited over this treatise? Perhaps because I spent seven years of my former professional life as an environmental consultant for industrial manufacturing companies working on so many different environmental and legal issues that took teams of people to keep all of them straight. Each client had his own specific set of environmental issues: permit requirements; reporting requirements; waste disposal, health and safety issues; treatment, storage and disposal concerns; and on-and-on. In these eleven volumes, I found, not only the holy grail of information, the relevant and current law for each type of environmental issue, but also forms, definitions, acronyms, history, and requirements. A wave of jealousy hit me as I realized how “past me” would have completely benefited from this resource as a consultant, and how much time “future me” as an attorney would save (insert maniacal laugh).

To locate this resource, go to the “Treatise” section of the law library and find call number KF3375.Z95E58. This is an eleven-volume practice guide, which spans four Units covering both state and federal environmental law. The Units are: 1) Procedures, 2) Environmental Quality, 3) Regulated Substances and Waste Management, and 4) States. The Units are then broken down into forty-one Chapters, such as Hazardous Waste, Endangered Species, or Environmental Impact Statements. The Chapters are further broken down into Parts: Part A Legal Background; Part B Procedural Guide; Part C Forms; Part D Reference Guide. Each environmental topic or Chapter is laid out in the exact same manner, even though the contents of each Chapter are very different to one another. The entire organizational format is reflected in the General Table of Contents. The pocket part, or the “Publication Update,” which is updated several times per year, is located at the very front of the first volume and reflects the most current updates.

Additionally, there is a “How to Use This Publication” which is particularly helpful, because the resource has grown in size considerably as the area of law has grown to impact so many different types of transactions. The treatise also includes an Internet Directory after each topical chapter for free and useful internet sources narrowly tailored to the Chapter. Overall, this organization is ideal for each environmental topic because one client may have more than one issue and the legal background, procedural guide, forms, and references are all in the same location for easy and quick access.

In the last volume, I found something incredibly useful—an acronym table that lists and defines over 1,400 of the pesky environmental acronyms that seem to plague this field of law. The only critique I have about this treatise is the lack of visual rhetoric, photos, color, or graphics. But honestly, environmental attorneys, consultants, or “science-types” do not need the fluff and prefer to get to the statistics, science, answers, and the law, which this resource provides in abundance.

To put this treatise to the test, I conducted a brief research experience on a specific environmental topic: the definition of hazardous waste. This may seem like an easy topic to search, but under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, the definition of hazardous waste can be different depending on how the materials are used, re-used, recycled, or reclaimed. Locating this topic under Chapter 26, Hazardous Waste, was very simple. I used the search terms, “hazardous waste,” “RCRA,” and “solid waste,” which all lead directly to Chapter 26. The legal background defines the statutory authority and many cases that describe the various interpretations.

Overall, this treatise covers the entire field of environmental law and can be an invaluable tool for attorneys, regulators, corporate and facility managers, and environmental consultants—all who deal with these real environmental problems. Environmental Law Practice Guide may not be able to answer every environmental issue, but this treatise will certainly lead the researcher in the right direction, and not on a fishing expedition.

~ Kelly Johnson, Class of 2013 ~

Book Giveaway!

The Charlotte School of Law Library is launching a Book Giveaway! These are treatises, reporters, and state statutory items that will not move with us when we relocate the Law Library uptown. These materials will be available for free on a first come first served basis. We are going to offer these items in phases with the students and alumni having the first opportunity to make reservations.  In our second phase, we will give the faculty, staff, and Law Library attorney members the option to reserve materials.  Finally, any remaining materials will be offered to local libraries and other institutions.

The dates of these phases are:

•  April 15 to April 26: Open to Alumni and Students

• April  29 to May 10: Open to faculty, staff, and attorney members

• May 13 to May 31:  Open to local libraries or other institutions and individuals

You will need to provide the means to pack and transport the materials you wish to have. The Law Library will provide book trucks to move the books to your vehicle. We expect many of these items to go quickly.

Go to this website to view a list of the items and to access the form needed to reserve these items: https://sites.google.com/site/bookgiveawaycsl/

~Brooke Rideout~

The Digital Commons Law Network

Open Access has become one of the new hot topics in academic scholarship, especially in law schools. What is open access?  Well, open-access materials are digital, online, free of charge, and free from most copyright and licensing restrictions.

Did you know that in November of 2008, directors of some of the major law library players, such as the University of Chicago, Columbia University, Harvard, Stanford and Yale met in Durham at the Duke Law School to discuss open access in the legal environment?

As a result of this meeting, the “Durham Statement on Open Access to Legal Scholarship” was created, calling for law schools to no longer publish in print format, instead focusing only on electronic publication in stable, open digital formats.

Since then, libraries and academic institutions have begun a movement towards the use of “institutional repositories”, which provide open access to institutional research through archiving, promote the institution as well as the scholars through the visibility of these words, collect content within a single platform and location and store and preserve additional digital assets.

While institutional repositories are developed as databases, there is almost no capacity for the reader to browse.  Repositories don’t necessarily allow connections between their own materials, much less those created and housed at other institutions.

In response to this, the leading hosted institutional repository (IR) software platform, bepress, has created the Digital Commons Law Network, which draws together open access content from nearly 300 repositories that use the Digital Commons IR platform.  Anyone with an Internet connection can access this resource, with no pay-walls, embargoes or subscriptions.  This Network currently contains almost 650,000 works from 275 institutions, with over 113,000 of these works specifically devoted to the topic of law.

The Digital Commons Network brings together scholarship from hundreds of universities and colleges, providing open access to peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters, dissertations, working papers, conference proceedings, and other original scholarly work. This constantly growing body of publications is curated by university librarians and their supporting institutions, and represents thousands of disciplines and subject areas—from Architecture to Zoology.

The intuitive interface invites you to explore discipline-specific Commons, where you can view and follow popular authors, institutions, and publications in your field. And you’ll never run into pay walls or empty records, because only full-text, open-access research and scholarship are included in the network.

Check out this resource for yourself at http://network.bepress.com/, and explore all of the amazing resources that are available free to you, complete with search functionality and browse capacity.  

Be sure to check out our Open Access LibGuide for more information on the Open Access movement.

~Ashley Moye~

Spring Cleaning and Greenwashing

Trees are budding, flowers are blooming, and temperatures are (or should be) warming.  Spring has arrived.  It is time to open up the windows, breathe in fresh air, and feel the sunshine.

It is also time to take on your annual spring cleaning.

But before you break out the bleach and rubber gloves, you may want to reconsider the products you are using.  In a timely publication* by South Carolina Lawyer, the author calls attention to deceptive claims of environmentally-friendly products, including cleaning supplies.  Specifically, the article discusses the “greenwashing” phenomenon that was introduced more than 20 years ago and continues to gain momentum today.

The article explains that “greenwashing” refers to the use of vague or unsubstantiated claims that propagate a misleading environmentalist image.  Section 5 of the FTC Act** enables the FTC to regulate unfair or deceptive product claims, including greenwashing.  Thus, in 1992 the FTC published its first set of “Green Guides” to aid marketers in avoiding vague or unsubstantiated claims that tend to mislead “green” consumers.    

For instance, the FTC closely scrutinizes products with broad claims, such as “eco-friendly.”  The reason is because consumers may interpret such claims as indicating the product and its origins have no degree of negative environmental impact whatsoever.  As such, the Green Guides offer examples of how marketers may qualify or limit a claim to a specific aspect that can be substantiated.  For example, a label that simply states a product is “eco-friendly” may be deceptive, but a label that states a product is “eco-friendly: package made with recycled materials” is not deceptive, as it provides a clear and prominent limitation.   

As for more narrow or specific claims, the FTC also closely scrutinizes language that may create a false impression.  For example, a label that says a product has “30 percent less of chemical X” may be technically true if the percentage has decreased from three percent to two percent.  However, the FTC believes such a claim may mislead consumers and should be avoided.

So, for those of you interested in cleaning green this Spring, your best bet may or may not be with greenwashed products.  Below are links to various tips and DIY recipes for a healthier home and environment.   

Green Spring-Cleaning Tips:

• http://www.treehugger.com/htgg/how-to-go-green-spring-cleaning.html 
• http://tlc.howstuffworks.com/home/10-green-spring-cleaning-tips.htm
• http://www.sparkpeople.com/resource/wellness_articles.asp?id=1073

Recipes for Green Cleaning Products:

• http://www.gorgeouslygreen.com/2013/03/spring-clean-green/
• http://www.thedailygreen.com/green-homes/latest/green-cleaning-spring-cleaning-460303#slide-1
• http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/20-diy-green-cleaning-recipes-141129

Happy cleaning!

References:

*Elizabeth B. Partlow, Greenwashing: Deceptive Claims of Environmentally Friendly Products, South Carolina Lawyer, March 2013, at 40.  Available at http://www.ipubviewer.com/publication/?i=149058.    

**15 U.S.C. § 45 (2006 & Supp. 2011).

~Shannon Reid~

ALR Student’s Corner: North Carolina Trial Judges’ Bench Book

Do you need information regarding divorce or simple assault in North Carolina?  Need annotations to case law regarding a violation of a 50B order or defrauding an innkeeper?  Before you Google it or browse the North Carolina General Statutes, try looking first at the North Carolina Trial Judges’ Bench Book.

The Bench Book can be found in the Reference Carolinas section of the Charlotte School of Law Library.  It is contained in two large, white, three-ring binders with dark red lettering on the cover and spine.  The North Carolina Bench Book, as the name suggests, contains information on North Carolina law.  Volume one contains information on family law, and volume two contains information on judicial powers, duties, and conduct; criminal law and procedure; and civil trial and procedure.  The table of contents in each volume is specific to that volume, but also contains a basic outline of the other volume.  Each is broken down into chapters or subtopics of the main subject.  For example, the family law volume contains chapters on divorce, child custody, alimony, and equitable distribution.  Each chapter is also divided into sections which can be found in the table of contents at the beginning of each chapter. For example, the chapter on child custody is divided into sections such as venue, jurisdiction, and the definition of custody.  There is also an index at the end of each chapter and common forms which can be copied and filled out.  I feel the sections are efficiently organized because a researcher can identify a main issue and then navigate through its respective sections and subsections in a very precise manner.

The School of Government at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill publishes the Bench Book.  The School also publishes the North Carolina Crimes book, which our library also has.  The information contained in the Bench Book is updated on a rotating basis as needed.  The Library’s copy is from 2011.  In volume one, all the chapters but domestic violence and termination of parental rights were updated in the 2012 online version (available at http://www.sog.unc.edu).  Volume two is updated entirely through the 2011 print version.

Here is an example of how to use the Bench Book.

A client walks into your office and tells you that she is newly divorced and a mother with two young children.  While she and her ex-husband share joint physical custody, he is an alcoholic and, for this reason, she wants to be in control of major decisions affecting the kids.  After taking down some basic information, you assure her that you will research her situation and be in touch.  After she leaves, you decide to consult a copy of the Bench Book that you received as a gift for passing the bar.

The first step is to determine what volume applies to the given facts.  Since the situation involves a divorced couple and the major life decisions of two young children, volume one seems appropriate.  Flip to its table of contents and locate the page number for “Chapter 4 – Child Custody” since the client’s issue involves parental control over children.

Each of the Chapters has its own table of contents to help navigate through the various subsections.  For instance, “Chapter 4 – Child Custody” breaks down further into subtopics, like “definition of custody,” where you will find the definitions for both legal and physical custody.

The information here states that case law has held legal custody to include the decision-making process of parents and that a parent may have sole legal custody or joint legal custody.  Based on this information and the client’s request, you determine she is best served by pursuing an order for sole legal custody.  This same information could also have been found by searching the index at the end of the chapter.

The Bench Book is an all-in-one source for case law, statutory law, and forms in North Carolina.  You can find the same basic statutory information online at www.ncleg.net for free.  There is generally no free equivalent for case law materials; however, the law itself can occasionally be found on free legal websites such as http://www.scfamilylaw.com or by using Google Scholar.  The downside to both of these sources is their lack of annotations.  Finally, copies of forms can be found at the Mecklenburg County Self Serve Center or online at www.nccourts.org.

~ David Sherman, Class of 2013 ~

ALR Student’s Corner: Prosser on Torts

We speak often of legal luminaries at Charlotte School of Law.  All of them reside inside our library.  Their works, ideals, thoughts, and aspirations for our profession are all found on the shelves of our library waiting for your approval or disdain.  

One such great thinker is Dean William L. Prosser; his work Prosser on Torts stands high in the world of treatises [W. Page Keeton et al., Prosser and Keeton on the Law of Torts (5^th ed. 1984) (call number  KF1250 .P73 1984)].  If you want a complete and thorough understanding of the law of torts and its ramifications on society, pick up this amazing treatise by a true giant in our profession.

Prosser on Torts is laid out in a chapter format, starting with a thorough introduction into the law of torts, winding through the intentional torts, negligence, products liability, privacy, and ending with immunities.   Each of the 25 chapters contains a pithy review of the law accompanied by an often-time acerbic wit.  It is also a fundamental road map to our law and how it was shaped.  Don’t overlook the fact that this book, in earlier editions, contained our nation’s nascent ideas of privacy, well before Griswold and New York Times v. Sullivan.  Chapter 20, Privacy, provides an insightful and thorough examination of an area of law that would not come into fashion until 20 years after Prosser’s death.  Yet, his thoughts and words still led our formation of this emerging body of law.

As Prosser notes in his chapter on Privacy, “(p)rior to the year 1890, no English or American court had ever granted relief expressly based upon the invasion of (privacy).  Id. p. 849.  Prosser forwards his argument for recognition of a “right of privacy” by announcing what is now common knowledge among law students: the elements necessary to prove the four privacy torts.  It is in this treatise that we find our common understanding for the elementary constructs of privacy. “It is clear, however, that there must be something in the nature of prying or intrusion, and that mere noises which disturb a church congregation, or bad manners, harsh names, and insulting gestures in public are not enough.  It is clear also that the intrusion must be something which would be offensive or objectionable to a reasonable person.”  Yes, there he is, the root of our most favored of persons: the reasonable man.  We owe it to Prosser.

If you fail to pick up this treatise, you’ll also miss some great quotes that all your older attorney peers have committed to memory long ago.  “Assault and battery go together like ham and eggs.”  Classic Prosser.  “The thing speaks for itself, (referring to the doctrine of res ipsa) but what the hell is it saying.”  You simply can’t miss out on legal explanations like that.

Prosser on Torts is also a great research tool.   Each topic segment contains a list of Westlaw Reference Tools that can be used to find more authority on a given topic.  Id. at 7.  For instance, the Introduction lists “379k1” (Use and Occupation of Realty) as an example of a Digest Topic and Key Number.   Plugging these into Westlaw Classic or WestlawNext will produce a wealth of additional resources to expand your research.   Accompanying this example in Prosser is the following Terms and Connectors Boolean search string: topic(torts) & reasonabl* unreasonabl* /20 interfer! /20 interest*.  This search in Westlaw Classic returns over 450 federal and state cases and numerous secondary sources in the results.  To narrow these, a researcher merely has to restrict by source or jurisdiction or use the “Locate in Results” feature.

Another time saving research tool found in Prosser is the comprehensive appendix.  Appendix A provides a complete, albeit dated, detailed introduction to Westlaw Classic researching methods for specific torts-related searching.  This is a great resource to perfect Boolean searching.  Id. at 1082.  The Index also provides a useful tool when a general topic search is all that is required.  If you know a general topic, the Index will lead you to a treasure trove of sources within the chapters that will prove to be worthy for even the most stingy of research budgets.

Prosser on Torts proves that blind searching with Google or Bing may be “free and easy” but not necessarily free or easy.  Using a treatise to narrow and target your research will likely produce more relevant and efficient results.  The competitive job market demands that we reduce our hours of research and, at the same time, increase the relevancy of our search results.  Pick up and use Prosser on Torts and you may well be on your way to that sought after title of research guru.

~ Adam Thornton, L ‘14 ~

Comical and Criminal

You know that when the dedication in a book reads, “To Crime!” that it isn’t your ordinary law treatise. The Illustrated Guide to Criminal Law gives you all the information you could hope to know about criminal law, but in a different way.  The author uses humor and an illustrative comic style to inform his readers about every aspect of criminal law.  Some of the chapters included in this book are entitled, “Rehabilitation: For the Love of God, Why?” and “Responsibility and Depravity: The Axes of Evil.”

The author, Nathaniel Burney, graduated from Georgetown University, where he was an editor of the American Criminal Law Review.  During his time in law school he also found the time to work at the Supreme Court as a personal assistant to retired Chief Justice Warren Burger, and additionally played music in a band called The Ambulance Chasers.  After law school Burney joined the Manhattan DA’s office as a prosecutor in NYC.  He also spent some time in Special Narcotics and the Rackets Bureau.  Burney eventually returned to the defense side of things, where he focused on cases involving wiretaps, securities fraud, antitrust, and loitering.  Mr. Burney also teaches the “Hope for Hopeless Cases” series for West LegalEdCenter.

If you are looking for a book that discusses the complex issues of criminal law in a slightly different format, why not give The Illustrated Guide to Criminal Law a try?

~Brian Trippodo ~

Weed ‘em and Reap

With the school’s impending move looming on the horizon, the library has undertaken some significant weeding projects, where old and non-updated versions of materials are being withdrawn from the collection and discarded.  Much as when you’re moving to a new house, it’s always best to clear your clutter before you start anew.

Even though discarding books sometimes feels a little like death to librarians, weeding is a vital part of library collection management.  Think about it – your library takes in new books almost every day.  Can you imagine how quickly a collection could get out of hand if there weren’t policies and procedures in place to cull irrelevant and older materials?  No library has unlimited space available for their resources, and sometimes hard decisions have to be made.

Luckily, we’re part of a law school where new and updated materials are part of every day life, making it easy to determine what should be weeded and what’s out of date.  When the not so easy decisions rear their ugly heads, it behooves libraries to take into account feedback from other librarians and staff, their patron base, their collection development policy and their circulation statistics.

You would be amazed at the things you can unearth in the library when undertaking a weeding project.  And sometimes, you run across things so entertaining, you just have to share.

Awfullibrarybooks.net is a site run by Mary Kelly and Holly Hibner, public librarians in Michigan.  They state that their site is “a collection of library holdings that we find amusing and maybe questionable for libraries trying to maintain a current and relevant collection.”  And amusing they are.

For instance, Diet, Crime and Delinquency is a book that was published in 1981.  The back of the book states that this tome ““…demonstrates how ‘junk’ food diets, sugar starvation, vitamin deficiencies, lead pollution and food allergies can convert a normal brain into a criminal mind.”

But even books published recently can spark a need to weed.  Check out My Beautiful Mommy, published in 2007, in which Mommy picks her child up from school to take her along on a trip to the plastic surgeon.

The little girl asks Mommy about the trip and her Mommy tell her she is getting a tummy tuck and a nose job and why.

The girl worries that her Mommy will look different, but is corrected that Mommy will just be more beautiful. You have to see it to believe it, right?

One more, and then I’ll let you check the site out for yourself.  Macrame Accessories: Patterns and Ideas for Knotting was published in 1977, and features some of the grandest macrame phantasmagoria I’ve ever laid eyes on – with a little something for everyone.

Are you a shy hot pants wearer?

In need of a new vest for that moot court competition?

In the mood for a his and hers set?  This book has you covered.

The moral of the story is, weeding in libraries is a necessary survival skill.  Painful sometimes, as librarians, to physically let go of materials.  But gratifying both by making additional room in the collection for even better materials and by running across treasures like these.  I’m hoping we find something half as fun during our project…

~Ashley Moye~

ALR Student’s Corner: Police Misconduct Law and Litigation

The word “treatise” made me cringe my first semester of law school.  Coming from a business background, I had no idea what a treatise was other than a text recommended by my professor.  After receiving exposure to treatises through a practical exercise, their value as a free research tool became apparent to me.  This post will examine a criminal law treatise and is intended to help illustrate how using a treatise can easily enhance legal research or knowledge of a specific area of law.

Police officers play a prominent role in American society. They help ensure order by enforcing federal, state and local laws.  As a result, police officers are equipped with extreme power, but they pose a threat to society if their power is not restricted and monitored.  The problems created by police misconduct are of particular concern for individuals of a minority race, class or gender, but have the potential to affect any American as a result of a violation of our Constitutional Rights.  For example, the Federal Government’s “War on Drugs” has had a huge impact on civil liberties as police officers and judges have ignored the Bill of Rights to enforce narcotics laws.  The potential dangers of police misconduct are clear, but how is it handled in our judicial system? In order to create a greater understanding of this area of the law, a good starting place is the treatise, Police Misconduct: Law and Litigation (3^rd ed. 2012).

Locating the Treatise

In order to utilize the treatise, you must first physically find it in the library.  The book is located in the Treatise section in the northwest section of the Charlotte Law library.  Once you have identified the call number (KF1307 Av38p) from the Library catalog and located the treatise section of the library, proceed to the Torts / Products Liability shelf.  The book is about three-quarters of the way down the aisle on the left hand side, third shelf from the top.

Contents of the Treatise

Now that you know how to locate the book, we can explore its contents.   The book is contained in a single volume that was initially printed in 1977; two additional editions followed, the most recent in 2012.  The book contains a Table of Contents, Index, Sample Pleadings and Table of Cases which allows for practicing attorneys to quickly locate relevant subject areas.  This book provides an in-depth analysis of each step in the police misconduct proceedings process from actionable conduct to the charge of the jury.  There is discussion of each important litigation step supplemented by relevant case law.

Research Exercise

We now turn our attention to using the treatise as a secondary source.  For this exercise, imagine that you are a summer associate at a Criminal Law firm.  You are asked to take notes in a client consultation.  The client, a 22-year-old female, was Tasered after police responded to a noise complaint at her apartment.  She was charged with aiding and abetting alcohol to minors and resisting arrest.  After the meeting, your task is to find case law discussing the reasonableness of the use of a Taser.  The firm has access to Westlaw, but is charged for each search; so, to minimize costs, you must start your research with secondary sources at the CSL Law Library.  To start your research, you look for “Taser” in the index of Police Misconduct: Law and Litigation.  Unfortunately, the term is not listed in the table of contents (TOC) or the index.  Before turning to a different secondary source, you try “Excessive force” as a search term, and are then directed to various subparts of chapter 2.  Confused about where in chapter 2 to start, you reference the TOC and a section labeled, “Excessive Force and Physical Brutality.”  Having isolated the relevant portion of the book, you flip to the section and find a discussion on the use of Tasers by police officers (p. 115).  This section provides a good starting point for your research because the discussion of the law relating to the use of Tasers is current and, equally important, annotated to key federal authorities that can be used on Westlaw to create a custom digest.

Conclusion

Police Misconduct: Law and Litigation is a good resource for any criminal attorney dealing with police misconduct, because the treatise clearly and logically lays out the entire judicial process related to this kind of litigation.  A notable feature of the treatise that I found very helpful is the sample complaints section located in Appendix B.  However, the authors might have assisted researchers further by providing more charts and checklists throughout the book (like those found in Appendix A).  Charts help engage the reader and highlight key concepts in the text.

In order to supplement the materials in the treatise, a reader should visit The National Police Accountability Project website.  The website is free and updated by an organization of plaintiffs’ attorneys who work on police misconduct cases with the intent to end police abuse.

Citations

Michael Avery et al, Police Misconduct Law and Litigation (West Publ’g, 3^rd ed. 2012)

National Police Accountability Project, http://www.nlg-npap.org

 ~ Brian Dunaway, Class of 2014 ~

Top 8 Best Book Titles in the Charlotte School of Law Library

Now that final exams are over and you have time to relax over the holiday break, it’s the perfect time to pick up some pleasure reading from the Treatises section of the library!  Here are some of the most interesting and amusing titles in the collection.

8.   Taking Sports Seriously | by Jeffrey Standen

Because we all were making fun of them before…This book examines the biggest issues in sports today.

7.   Obscurity and Clarity in the Law | by Anne Wagner and Sophie Cacciaguidi-Fahy

Just the title sounds mystifying. Read this book to learn about legal language, drafting, and interpretation.

6.   Bong Hits 4 Jesus | by James C. Foster

For those interested in the first amendment and public schools, this book covers an Alaskan case involving high school students’ right to free speech.

5.   Law of Solid Waste, Pollution, Prevention, and Recycling | by Jeffrey M. Gaba and Donald W. Stever

Who knew there was so much to say about solid waste?  This treatise is perfect for environmental law gurus.

4.   The Likelihood of Confusion in Trademark Law | by Richard L. Kirkpatrick

How likely are you to get confused about trademark law?  Now there’s an entire volume that can end that confusion.

3.   Substantial Similarity in Copyright Law | Robert C. Osterberg and Eric C. Osterberg

It sounds like this volume belongs in the same series as the last book.  It includes key cases and court decisions on the subject.

2.   The Law & Harry Potter | edited by Jeffrey E. Thomas and Franklin G. Snyder

What exactly are the social consequences of considering house elves to be people?  This is the authoritative source on all things law in the world of Harry Potter.

1.   Is Eating People Wrong? | by Allan C. Hutchinson

Do we really have to ask that question?  Actually this book is a lively study on jurisprudence, exploring eight cases that shaped our legal system.

~Kirsten Hallman~