Blawg Search - Law Blogs, Lawyer Blogs, Legal Blogs Directory & Search Engine

Godfrey v Spano, 2009 NY Slip Op 08474, Decided on November 19, 2009, Court of Appeals [Decided with Lewis v New York State Department of Civil Service] Plaintiffs in this action are taxpayers challenging directives recognizing out-of-state same-sex marriages for... Posted on November 20, 2009 at 09:01 pm by Adjunct LawProfs

Keefe v. New York Law School, ___Misc. 3d___(N.Y. Co. Nov. 17, 2009), is an interesting case. A transfer student to New York Law School from Hofstra Law School was unhappy with being placed in Legal Writing II. As I understand... Posted on November 19, 2009 at 09:12 pm by Adjunct LawProfs

Disbarred defense attorney Lynne Stewart's conviction was affirmed by the 2d Circuit, but the court was very critical of the short prison sentence she was ordered to serve for providing material support to a terror conspiracy. A divided appellate court... Posted on November 19, 2009 at 09:11 pm by Adjunct LawProfs

The good news of the week for my education school professor colleagues, and for practitioners in the field who do not have unlimited access to Westlaw or Lexis, is that Google Scholar now allows you to search for both case law (federal and state) and articles through the familiar Google interface. I tried it out by doing a search with the terms, "school finance" (no connectors). Sure enough, all of the familar cases (state and federal) came up, beginning with Rodriguez and including Serrano,... Posted on November 19, 2009 at 12:24 pm by Scott Bauries

Had the marvelous opportunity a couple weeks ago to sit down and chat with Professors Rika Jobert and Jean Van Rooyen, of the University of Pretoria's Department of Education Management and Policy Studies. We chatted about educational law, leadership issues, finance issues, preparation issues, etc. It was a great time and our department enjoyed hosting them in Lexington before they went on to Louisville for the ELA conference. Below is the interview and the relevant links: Interuniversity... Posted on November 17, 2009 at 10:24 am by Justin Bathon

As I am working here in KY to modify our schools for the information economy, increasingly I am becoming concerned that school IT departments might be more of the problem than the solution. I know that is heresy (especially given my large IT based readership), but I am starting to really have some concerns. Reading Wes Fryer's excellent post yesterday caused me to want to articulate those concerns. First, power from the administration is being increasingly delegated to the IT department -... Posted on November 17, 2009 at 07:32 am by Justin Bathon

Thank you for being a loyal reader of At the Schoolhouse Gate. Effective immediately, "The Gate" is being replaced by The Edjurist. Mosey on over and see why! Posted on October 5, 2008 at 01:43 am by Scott McLeod

In Lamar County, Mississippi, a school attorney was apparently "inspired" by a conference he attended recently, and talked the school board into passing a ban on teacher-student communication on social networking sites. Here's the top of the article. Pay particular attention to the last line! Teacher-student Web friendships restricted by Lamar school board Brittany Brown &#xe2€&#xa2 Hattieburg American &#xe2€&#xa2 July 21, 2008 Teachers and students in Lamar County can't be Internet friends this year after the... Posted on July 23, 2008 at 04:27 pm by Mike Tully

Campus paper not returning in the fall Former adviser blames censorship By Bruce Lieberman UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER July 19, 2008 Fallbrook High School will not have a student newspaper in the coming school year, the apparent fallout of a move by administrators to remove the paper's adviser after he protested the censorship of an article and a student editorial. Principal Rod King removed Dave Evans as adviser to the Tomahawk newspaper on June 5, the last day of school, Evans said. Evans said... Posted on July 21, 2008 at 07:37 pm by Mike Tully

We have some great readers. Hers is just one example: I ran a post a few days back on the recommendations for changes to IDEA by the National Association of Secondary School Principals. You can view that post here. They had some good ideas, I felt, but I took them to task on the idea of standards of care for each disability category. I still believe that I am correct, but I received an email suggesting that there is another side. The response was very thoughtful and well-reasoned, so I thought... Posted on November 18, 2009 at 05:53 am by Jim Gerl

This is the second in a series of posts on charter schools inspired by the excellent, recent law review article by my friend professor Mark Weber. You can read the first post in this series here. Professor Weber's article may be found here. The number of charter schools is clearly on the upswing. In fourteen communities mo Image by gothamschools via Flickr re than one-fifth of all public school students attend a charter school. In three major urban areas, more than 30% of all public school... Posted on November 16, 2009 at 06:23 am by Jim Gerl

A court in Douglas County, Illinois has ruled that Kaleb Drew, a first grader with autism can have his service dog attend classes with him. The final injunction was issued by the trial court last week. Here is the news story from radio station WGIL. Thanks to alert Facebook special education law group member Julie Kelley for the heads up. Image via Wikipedia This should not be confused with the case in the Illinois appellate court. There the circuit court of Monroe county, Illinois issued an... Posted on November 14, 2009 at 03:40 am by Jim Gerl

The annual Norfolk Law Lecture takes place here at UEA on Thursday 26th November at 6.30pm, in the shiny new Thomas Paine Study Centre (so new that I don't even have a picture of it yet, but it's very nice). The speaker is the honourable Mr. Justice David Eady of the High Court of England & Wales, and his topic is the above question. He's known to many of you for his decisions in the areas of libel law and the development of the law of privacy in the UK. It's fair to say that Eady is a... Posted on November 4, 2009 at 03:33 am by Daithí

I'm delighted to present a guest post here - first time I'm doing this, but a very appropriate choice of topic. Ois&#xc3&#xadn Tobin (who will start his own blog soon!) is a scholar and PhD Candidate in the Law School in Trinity College Dublin, where his work focuses on the legal regulation of &#xca&#xbbthe cloud&#xca&#xbc. He recently completed his BCL, with distinction, in Merton College, Oxford. Cloud computing is, of course, one of the most interesting legal and technical issues, and Ois&#xc3&#xadn's new blog will no... Posted on October 24, 2009 at 01:52 pm by Daithí

Or thesis, to be more accurate&#xe2€&#xa6 Convergence and the right to communicate: assessing the application of media law to the Internet My PhD thesis is now completed, printed, bound and ready to be submitted to Trinity College Dublin. (There will of course be a defence or viva voce examination at a date to be determined, so this is not the end of the road, but somewhere on the final furlong, to mix my metaphors). I'm very grateful to Lex Ferenda readers for comments and feedback and for tolerating... Posted on October 19, 2009 at 07:24 am by Daithí

This Blog is now officially moved to www. texasteacherlaw.com Texas Teacher Law All the old entries are there, and all new posts will be put there, not here. I am working on the sidebar and additional resource material. Since I do all this myself, it's going a little slowly, as it seems like everything takes me several tries to get right. Like, for instance, I added a search bar so that readers could search for specific content just in my blog entries - but I can't get it to work! It always... Posted on October 24, 2008 at 02:32 pm

There is a stereotype of schoolteachers as timid, conservative, and unworldly. I'm not sure how they can be thought of that way when they are constantly surrounded by teenagers, but I guess it's the same way all parents are "square." Anyway, I thought I would contribute to busting the myth by noting that on this day in 1859 the very first person went over Niagara Falls in a barrel. She was Annie Decker, a teacher from Michigan. There, busted a few sterotypes with that one. Posted on October 24, 2008 at 01:00 pm

Apparently, we are now waiting for the Cname record change to resolve before the new site is visible - or something like that. Anyway, the new site is coming soon, that's all I know. In the meantime, we still have this site. And I thought I would pass on to you this resource I came across that makes a number of teaching plans available on the subject of conflict resolution among peers. So if you are struggling with behavior management and discipline in your classroom, maybe you'll find some... Posted on October 22, 2008 at 11:35 am

On January 14, 2008, Gov. Jon Corzine signed into law legislation that overturned a US Supreme Court decision (Schaffer v. Weast) and placed the burden of proving that FAPE is being provided onto the school district. Below is the pertinent language: Whenever a due process hearing is held pursuant to the provisions of the "Individuals with Disabilities Education Act," 20 U.S.C. s.1400 et seq., chapter 46 of Title 18A of the New Jersey Statutes, or regulations promulgated thereto, regarding the... Posted on January 14, 2008 at 07:22 pm by victormedina

On January 14, 2008, Gov. Jon Corzine signed into law amendments to the NJ Bullying law that expanded the scope of the protected classes to include gender expression and identification. The amendments also relate infractions of the bullying law back to the Bias Intimidation Act and expand the set of penalties that can be imposed to include completing classes, counseling programs, or making payments to organizations that provide services to victims of bias intimidation. The law also created a... Posted on January 14, 2008 at 06:55 pm by victormedina

I was recently featured in an article about blogging and got the opportunity to discuss this blog. You can read the story here at the Princeton Business Journal. Posted by Victor J. Medina - Medina, Martinez & Castroll, LLC Posted on November 29, 2007 at 06:40 pm by victormedina

In the brief time since the Amended Google Books Settlement was filed with the court (on Friday the 13th) and released to the public, there has been a flurry of commentary from a variety of perspectives. Two interesting themes have emerged, however, from those on both sides of the great debate over whether the Google Books project is a good thing or a bad thing. First, both sides seem to acknowledge that the changes have not been all that substantial. Second, no one seems to think that the... Posted on November 17, 2009 at 07:24 am by Kevin Smith

This recent post on the TechDirt blog drew my attention (and that of may others) to an earlier note on the Freakonomics blog about an artist who pays an annual fee plus a percentage of his earnings to the University of Texas, Austin for the right to paint pictures of famous UT buildings like the Texas Tower and to use university emblems, even including the burnt orange color scheme. On TechDirt, notice of this arrangement provoked a lot of angst. Many of the comments expressed outrage at the... Posted on November 13, 2009 at 08:50 am by Kevin Smith

As promised in the last post, here is a very different look at the copyright incentive and the need to be thoughtful and cautious when we talk about copyright as an author's right. In the Autumn 2009 issue of The American Scholar, William J. Quirk writes an absolutely fascinating reflection on the finances of F. Scott Fitzgerald, whose tax returns and yearly financial ledgers were preserved and form the basis for Quirk's essay called "Living on $500,000 a Year." The essay will be of interest to... Posted on November 9, 2009 at 08:39 am by Kevin Smith

The Federal Hate Crimes Bill has been revised and signed into law. Among important changes to the law is that crimes that are related to a person's disability can be considered hate crimes. It will be interested to see if this new law will act as deterrent to repeated acts of bullying, harassment and violence directed at individuals with disabilities. Given the the recent round of staff on student violence that has been reported in the press, this law is very timely. Posted on October 29, 2009 at 10:42 pm by Charles Fox

Arne Duncan's, former head of Chicago Public Schools and now U.S. Secretary of Education, strategy in Chicago was to move children out of underperforming schools to other schools. The only problem is that the "other schools" were also underperfoming. No surprise that this variant on NCLB of moving children around has not been effective for students. It did however make for good press allowing Mr. Duncan to become Secretary of Education Duncan. I am a President Obama supporter on most issues,... Posted on October 28, 2009 at 09:24 am by Charles Fox

When you are in a wheelchair (which I experience vicariously through my son everyday) a cracked sidewalk is a major obstacle. On more than one occasion, especially in urban areas, we have been forced into the street to make our way to doctor's appointments, restaurants any other places in the community. Lack of funds for maintenance, especially in hard economic times, has created enormous access issues on public sidewalks. Well I am happy to report that in Texas and other places around the... Posted on October 28, 2009 at 12:00 am by Charles Fox