When Andrew asked me if I would write a post for Shakespeare’s birthday, I enthusiastically agreed. I had just been rewatching Kenneth Branagh’s film, Henry V and as a dedicated Anglophile thought, this will be easy! I subsequently realized that as a writer for the Law Library’s blog I would need to write about Shakespeare and the law – …
Last week, in the course of researching a Global Legal Monitor article about the possibility of New Zealand introducing a law requiring plain packaging of cigarettes, I discovered that the New Zealand Legislation website has recently been updated! Such things are quite exciting to some of us here at the Law Library, as you may …
The Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS) recently formed a new technical committee, the OASIS LegalDocumentML (LegalDocML) Technical Committee, to begin moving forward specifications for a common legal document standard for parliamentary, legislative and judicial documents. The specification will be based upon the Akoma Ntoso-UN project’s XML schema, which Andrew Weber mentioned …
Earlier this week, the American Bar Association’s Standing Committee on the Law Library of Congress paid a visit to Capitol Hill. The Committee is composed of legal professionals from across the United States and “serves as the voice of the legal profession concerning the Law Library of Congress (LLC)“. The Standing Committee is the second-oldest …
In a post last year, I looked at some of the United Kingdom’s weird laws. I started to research a “part two” to that post, but ended up finding so much interesting (and yes, shockingly legal) information relating to the Loch Ness monster (commonly and affectionately referred to as “Nessie”) that I decided to dedicate an entire post to her …
This week’s interview is with Tariq Ahmad, a Legal Analyst in the Global Legal Research Center of the Law Library of Congress. Describe your background My family is originally from Pakistan. My father and mother moved to the U.S. before I was born so my father could complete his Ph.D. Soon after I was born, …
In recognition of Law Day 2012, the Law Library of Congress will host Richard Dreyfuss for a discussion focused on The Dreyfuss Initiative, a nonprofit corporation that aims to revitalize civics education in public schools. The program will begin at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, May 1 in the Coolidge Auditorium, located on the ground floor …
The following is a guest post by James Martin, Senior Legal Information Analyst at the Law Library of Congress. This year most U.S. taxpayers have two additional days to file their Federal income tax returns. This extension was granted because April 15 fell on a Sunday, a non-business day, and April 16, Emancipation Day, is …
The following is a guest post by Dante Figueroa, Senior Legal Information Analyst at the Law Library of Congress. On March 28 and 29, 2012, I had the opportunity to attend a seminar on the subject of “The Political Question Doctrine in U.S. Constitutional Law,” which was organized by the Supreme Court of Costa Rica‘s …