Legal Tech Institute Celebrates First Anniversary

The Legal Tech Institute at the Harris County Law Library launched in October, 2016, with the CLE Social Media for Lawyers. Building on the success of that program, we've expanded learning opportunities significantly with a dozen in-person courses and 5 On-Demand training sessions available on our website. As with all programs at the Harris County Law Library, LTI classes are always free and open to all.

Additionally, each LTI video CLE is accredited by the State Bar of Texas and Texas attorneys can receive credit for watching the videos up to a year after the live program. That means the LTI anniversary also marks the end point for receiving Texas CLE credit for our first program. Watch Social Media for Lawyers and report your credit at www.texasbar.com before time runs out!

The Spirit of the Law

In the spirit of the Halloween season, Harris County Law Library is exhibiting several spooky selections from our print collection. The sources we uncovered will be on display through the end of the month. Don't miss your chance to see them before they vanish! The following featured items are included in the exhibit. 

Burchill v. Hermsmeyer, 212 SW 767 (1919), is the case of the ghost who inspired a contract dispute and a fraud claim. Mr. Hermsmeyer sued to recover the $10,000 he invested in Mrs. Burchill's corporation. She claimed that ghosts, with whom she consulted via a medium, told her there was oil under her land. When no oil was discovered, Mr. Hermsmeyer argued that Ms. Burchill's claim was a fraudulent misrepresentation of facts. The court rejected his argument saying that the existence of ghosts is a matter of belief, not of fact. His claim was, therefore, "insufficient to form a basis for relief for the plaintiff."

Purtell v. Mason, 527 F.3d 615 (2008), involves Halloween yard decorations which caused a neighborhood dispute and raised questions about the right to insult every person on your block. Jeffrey and Vicki Purtell displayed six wooden tombstones in front of their Chicago home, each bearing unflattering references to their neighbors and the details of each person's fictitious demise. One of the neighbors identified on the tombstones argued with Mr. Purtell over the offensive decorations resulting in a call to the police. Officer Bruce Mason arrived at the scene. He arrested Mr. Purtell and ordered the removal of the tombstones. The Purtells asserted their free speech rights, but the Seventh Circuit found no loss of First Amendment Protection under the "fighting words" doctrine. 

The Law of Cadavers and of Burial and Burial Places by Percival E. Jackson is the "standard work on the subject of the law pertaining to the care and disposal of bodies of deceased human beings, and the establishment and maintenance of burial places." Included in this volume is a thorough treatment of the law regarding sepulture along with "approximately a hundred pages of forms pertaining to the regulation of cemeteries, the transfer of plots, graves, and monuments therein and the care, transportation, and burial of human corpses as well as some forms of legal proceedings in both tort and contract, germane to the general subject." (Book Review by Charles G. Coster, 2014) This title, 2nd edition, is available in the Harris County Law Library's print collection and also via HeinOnline's Legal Classics Library, which you can access at the Law Library.

In the early 1900s, three creative thinkers designed new and improved lanterns in the category of "decorative and grotesque illuminating devices commonly called jackolanterns." (Andrew B. Heard, Patent No. 715,379) Their patent drawings are featured in the exhibit and shown in in the graphics throughout this post.

To see the rest of the Halloween-themed legal materials on display, visit the Law Library before November 1st. Happy haunting!

Domestic Violence Awareness Month

October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month. The Harris County Law Library provides access to resources for victims of domestic violence and their families. If you or someone you know is a victim of physical abuse, the following resources are available. 

AVDA’s Legal Advocacy Program has a staff of attorneys who will provide victims of abuse with free legal representation for protective orders, divorce and child support and custody.

The Houston Bar Association provides a thorough list of resources including a list of hotlines and shelters in the Houston area. Also provided are links to information about services available in surrounding counties.

The Texas Advocacy Project offers free legal services to victims of domestic violence and sexual assault throughout the state of Texas.

The Texas Association Against Sexual Assault is committed to helping victims of sexual abuse, including abuse that happens in the home. AVOICE is a program offered by TAASA that provides free, confidential legal advice and representation for all victims and survivors of sexual assault in Texas. Call AVOICE at 888-343-4414.

The Texas Council on Family Violence provides good information about protective orders as well as a service directory of legal advocates who can assist victims of family abuse.

If you are in need of immediate help, please contact the Houston Area Women's Center at the numbers listed here. Assistance is available twenty-four hours a day.

• Domestic Violence Hotline: 713-528-2121
• Toll-Free Line: 800-256-0551
• Rape Crisis Hotline: 713-528-7273
• Toll-Free Line: 1-800-256-0661
• Office: 713-528-6798
• TTY: 713-528-3625

A Better Legal Internet

When you search Google for something like heat rash, Abraham Lincoln, or the Eiffel Tower, the list of search results is accompanied by a Knowledge Card, which contains brief, supplemental information about your search term along with relevant facts. Symptoms and treatment (for a medical term), biographical data (for a historical figure), or geographic information (for a national landmark) is presented in a box to the right of your search. Pictures, bits of trivia, related search terms, and links to official websites are also included, providing a snapshot, in plain language, of the topic you are researching.

This information is all very useful when it's available, and having this kind of easy-to-access, user-friendly content on the same page as your search results can be a very helpful starting point for your basic online research. For legal terms, however, no such equivalent exists. A search for the terms unlawful detainer, emancipated minor, or protective order do not offer the same benefits. A definition, or a featured snippet from Google, drawn from Wikipedia or FindLaw, may appear at the top of your search results, but no other value-added content is likely to be provided. Knowledge cards simply do not exist for legal terms, nor do so many other search engine features that could improve the user experience for those in need of legal information.

Fortunately, the Legal Design Lab is taking steps to introduce just those kinds of improvements. A Better Legal Internet is the name of the project that seeks to improve the search experience for Internet users, particularly lay people looking for legal information. The goals of the project are to (1) increase the ability of search engines to identify legal issues in people’s queries, and (2) direct them to relevant, jurisdiction-specific, actionable information to deal with those issues. Overall, A Better Legal Internet will provide a seamless, intuitive, user journey for people who rely on the internet for legal information. As users search for help, they should be able to find legal information (i.e., what the law says), legal service providers (i.e., people who can help), self-help tools and forms to complete legal tasks, and paths for accessing the courts system. 

Underlying the goals of A Better Legal Internet is a semantic system similar, in some ways, to the Google Knowledge Cards. Creating a taxonomy of legal terms used by lay people, including words and phrases that describe a person's case details and legal objectives, would be an important first step in developing a semantic foundation for A Better Legal Internet. Next, linking the taxonomy of legal terms to a directory of available legal options and their associated eligibility factors would need to follow. Providing action steps and the sequence of tasks to complete for each step of a legal process, along with accompanying forms and self-help documents, would be another important part of the equation. Finally, finding people in your geographic area who can help provide legal assistance, including free service providers and legal clinics, would round out the options available. 

Mediation at the Harris County Dispute Resolution Center

Alternative Dispute Resolution can be a helpful way to handle conflict between two parties in a disagreement. It's often a good and less expensive alternative to hiring an attorney and taking your case to court.  The Harris County Dispute Resolution Center (DRC), which is sponsored by the Houston Bar Association and funded through the Harris County Courts System, offers mediation for general disputes, divorce, and active civil cases, free of charge to Harris County residents. (For examples of the kinds of disputes handled in each category, please refer to the list at left.)

Mediation for general disputes typically involves money, automobiles, landlord/tenant issues, or property damage. The DRC mediation program for general disputes is for resolving disagreements before a lawsuit is filed.

Divorce mediation is for all issues related to divorce either before or after a suit is filed. Child custody, child support, and visitation can be addressed through mediation, along with related family law matters such as property division, common law separations, and LGBT divorce issues. 

For mediation in active civil cases, the DRC can only mediate for parties with a court pleading or disputed dollar amount of $100,000 or less. Also, the Dispute Resolution Center does not mediate suits involving more than three named parties.

Other types of disputes that can be resolved through mediation typically involve Children’s Protective Services, juveniles, special education, or truancy. To speak with a Case Manager and request mediation for any of the issues mentioned above, please contact the Dispute Resolution Center at 713-755-8274 (8:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m., Monday through Friday) or email email@drchouston.org and briefly explain the nature of your dispute.