September Newsletter- San Diego County Public Law Library

Witkin Dinner Please join us September 26th for the legal community's premier networking event, the Bernard E. Witkin, Esq., Awards Dinner! Each year the Public Law Library hosts this annual fundraising dinner, named after prominent California attorney and prolific writer Bernard E. Witkin to raise money which provides books and materials for California law practitioners for the San Diego County Public Law Library. The Bernard E. Witkin, Esq., Awards Dinner is sponsored by West Group, the nation's largest law book publisher (including Westlaw) and publisher of the Witkin treatises. The Witkin Award recognizes and honors leaders of the San Diego legal community for civic leadership and excellence in the teaching, practice, enactment, or adjudication of the law." This year there are three winners: - Alec L. Cory, Esq., - Professor Katharine Rosenberry and - Judge Robert J. O'Neill To read more about the winners, go here. Awards will be presented to winners by members of the Law Library Justice Foundation The reception begins at 5:30 p.m. with a no-host bar, and the dinner begins at 7 p.m. Tickets are $65 each ($25 of which is tax-deductible) with a choice of: - Island Breast of Chicken, - Grilled Pacific Mahi Mahi or - Saffron Lasagna. Judith Copeland, one of last year's Witkin Award winners, will be master of ceremonies. Reservations may be made by calling (619) 531-3904 or e-mailing the Law Library by September 16. Either way, please indicate your meal choices and a phone number. The Law Library Justice Foundation is proud to join with corporate donors for this major event. Donating companies will be listed for the attenders and may place ads in the program guide. Law firms, companies, and individuals wishing to sponsor tables of 10 for a $1,000 donation will be listed as donors for the event in the program guide. ($650 would be tax deductible.) Please call or e-mail Amy Conrad at (619) 531-3904 for details

Branch News New Electronic Services at the Branches: As of July, users at all the branches now have online access to cases and statutes from all 50 states, as well as the Supreme Court and federal courts of appeal through Loislaw. This subscription database is made possible through donations made to the Witkin fund, one of several funds managed by the Law Library Justice Foundation. The branches also have Shepard's Online Access available for their users. In addition to being able to shepardize online, researchers can retrieve documents by citation through the easy-to-use "Get a Document" (formerly known as Lexsee and Lexstat) feature. The only charges to users is a 20 cents per page print fee. Donna M. Gagnon has joined the staff has the new manager of the South Bay Branch. Donna has many years experience as a law librarian, most recently as a firm librarian with Cary Gary Ware & Freidenrich. "Law Made Public" Classes debut at the North County Branch: Branch Manager Laurel Moran began offering monthly classes in July. These classes are open to all users of the library who are just starting to learn how to do legal research. For the schedule of these classes, as well as classes taught at the Main library, go here. The North County Branch is now hosting weekly Guardianship Clinics offered by the San Diego Volunteer Lawyers Program, which has been temporarily displaced by ongoing renovation of the buildings in the North County Regional Center. The remodeling is scheduled to be completed by Spring 2003, at which time the Traffic Court in San Macros will be relocated to the Annex building in the Regional Center. The Annex is located behind the North County Branch Library. Upcoming events: The North County Branch will host a presentation on condominium and homeowner association law on Wednesday, October 9th, 4-5 pm. All are welcome to attend. Jay Brown, partner with Feist, Vetter, Knauf and Loy, will be the featured speaker.

Legal Links You Might Not Know About Weighing the Web Every issue of our e-newsletter will contain information about useful web sites that we run across in our daily reference activities. As professional researchers, law librarians are quickly able to evalute the usefulness and authenticity of web sites and pass that information onto you. Here are four that you may not know about: FREE FILL-IN-THE-BLANK JUDICIAL COUNCIL FORMS- Many people are familiar with the Judicial Council's official site which allows you to print off the Judicial Council's forms but not to fill them in. This site allows the user to go in free, without a password or any other encumberance, and open up Judicial Council forms and type on them. The only caveat is that you need to have Adobe Acrobat installed to open up the documents. SAN DIEGO LOCAL RULES- This is part of the San Diego Superior Court's website and it lists not only the local rules but also the departmental rules. Further, it provides a link to the California Rules of Court. NINTH DISTRICT COURT OF APPEALS- Opinions, rules of court, lists of judges, an updated edition of the Manual of Model Civil Jury Instructions, and other important information can be accessed via this web site. If you do appeals, be sure to bookmark this site! CRIMINAL RECORDS - This informative article, called "Navigating the Maze of Criminal Record Retrieval" details the ins and outs of finding criminal records. This article is part of www.llrx.com, a web site well known to law librarians. The abbreviation stands for "Law Librarian Resource Xchange" and this site was started in 1996 by two law librarians. It is a valuable resource of all kinds of information. If you have useful and free legal links you'd like to share, e-mail them and we will consider them for publication in next month's edition! Share this item with a friend!

New Books! We have received some wonderful books in the past month and here is a sampling: PIKE & FISCHER'S INTERNET LAW AND REGULATIONS, 2002. Considered to be the premier guide to Internet law, this looseleaf service is not simply an explanation of Internet law. It also contains motions, pleadings, regulations and other practice-related materials. It addresses over 100 topics including e-commerce, privacy, cybersquatting, spamming, jurisdiction, defamation, linking, domain names, licensing, taxation, securities, pornography, gambling, free speech and FCC regulations. It is updated regularly and comes with a weekly newsletter "Internet Law & Regulation Alert" which keep you on top of the latest technological issues. Stop by and see it today (available only at the Main Library). CALIFORNIA CRIMINAL LAW PROCEDURE AND PRACTICE, 2002, by Continuing Education of the Bar. This is the sixth edition of what is called the Bible of criminal law in California. Over 60 authors contribute to this invaluable tool and it contains perspectives of both defense and prosecution. Coverage includes arrest through post-conviction relief. Copies located at all locations of the Public Law Library. CALIFORNIA ESTATE PLANNING, 2002, by Continuing Education of the Bar. Twenty-four of the leading estate planning attorneys in the state, including local attorney Maria E. Nunez from San Diego's Baker & McKenzie, contributed to this essential treatise! Topics range from basics of estate planning to more complex issues such as planning for incapacity and structuring complex trusts. Copies located at all locations of the Public Law Library. FORECITE CALIFORNIA: LATEST DEVELOPMENTS IN CALIFORNIA CRIMINAL JURY INSTRUCTIONS, 2002. For over a decade, defense attorneys have been using Forecite to draft jury instructions for criminal cases. Forecite picks up where CALJIC stops as Forecite supplies annotations and critical notes to the CALJIC Instructions. Copies located at all locations of the Public Law Library. REAL PROPERTY EXCHANGES, 2002, by Continuing Education of the Bar. This complex area of law can be frustrating, which is why this loose-leaf practice guide is so valuable. Not only does this volume introduce the basics of real estate exchanges, but it also guides practitioners through complex tax planning in this field. The companion diskette has the most up-to-date forms available in this area. Copies located at all locations of the Public Law Library. Share this item with a friend!

Reference Question of the Month We get the most interesting questions at the reference desk! This month's question is about cat leash law in San Diego. Question: Are there cat licensing and leash laws in San Diego? What about throughout the state? Answer: Most laws relating to cats are found in the Food and Agriculture code beginning in section 31751, and section 31751.5 says "Whenever a city or county requires cat license tags, any such tag shall be issued for one-half or less of the fee required for a cat, if a certificate is presented from a licensed veterinarian that the cat has been spayed or neutered." So it looks like it is up to an individual city or county to decide if licensing and/or leashing is required. Neither the San Diego municipal code nor the county code mention licensing or leashing of cats. However, there is a bill (SB 1373), currently in the inactive file, which targets dog and cat breeders and dealers (pet stores) with "registration fees," required microchip identification, and penalties. Opponents say this bill would lead to the quality, home-raised pedigreed kitten becoming very expensive or a thing of the past in California. Stay tuned for more interesting tidbits.... Share this item with a friend!

We hope you've enjoyed our newsletter. We're hard at work on the next edition. In the meantime, please visit us online at: http://www.sdcll.org/. And come see us in person at one of our locations. For locations and hours please click here: http://www.sdcll.org/location.htm. For more information contact: Amy Hale-Janeke ahale@sdcll.org Media Coordinator / Reference Librarian (619) 531-3900