Legal Research Blog

I came across a website for a court clerk. The site looks fine on Internet Explorer, but is absolutely unreadable on Firefox or Safari. For some reason, the designer wanted to use Edwardian Script, which was specified in a broken font tag. Internet Explorer ignored the broken tag, so the website was readable. However, Firefox and Safari recognized the tag, and applied the Edwardian Script to most of the text. Yikes. Save the script for wedding invitations. Use Arial, or Helvetica, if you curse the scourge of Arial.

I’m came across a website for a county this afternoon. At first, I tried to click on some of the links in the navigation, but that didn’t work. Then, I noticed the the warning at the bottom of the page:

Some links on this web page/site will be blocked if you have a “pop-up blocker” running on your computer. You will need to “Allow Blocked Content”, or make www.*****.org a “trusted site”.

C’mon. Why not just open the link in the existing window instead of forcing the user to open a new window? After all, this is pretty much the way the rest of the Internet works, except for those site that created a need to install a pop-up blocker in the first place. Then again, we don’t install pop-up blockers any more since Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari all ship with pop-up blockers built-in nowadays. Don’t fight the trend. Pop-up blockers are in place for a reason. Most people probably will not have noticed the pop-up blocker note and have thought your website was broken.

The IRS is conducting an investigation to determine the tax liabilities of US taxpayers who have signature authority over bank accounts at or over American Express, MasterCard, or Visa credit, debit or charge cards issued by banks or other financial institutions in Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Aruba, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Cook Islands, Costa Rica, Cyprus, Dominica, Gibraltar, Grenada, Guernsey/Sark/Alderney, Hong Kong, Isle of Man, Jersey, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Malta, Nauru, Netherlands Antilles, Panama, Samoa, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Singapore, Switzerland, Turks and Caicos and Vanuatu.

For this investigation, the IRS has sought account records from PayPal, as well as from MasterCard International and VISA International.

And, how does the IRS go about finding these offshore tax havens? Here’s the money quote:

I have reviewed various offshore/tax haven related Web sites on the Internet. A search of the Internet with any search engine using the key words “offshore” or “tax haven” will produce a very large number of hits.

So, while offshore banks can use websites to market to American taxpayers, the IRS, powered by Google, can also find these same websites and figure out which individuals or institutions may dedicated to helping individuals with significant assets preserve or enhance their wealth with anonymity and ease through offshore bank accounts and credit cards.

Even though the Philadelphia Eagles released Terrell Owens two years ago, the team would like to see T.O one more time–preferably with a check in hand.  The Eagles just sued Terrell Owens this week seeking confirmation of an arbitration award of $769,117.65.

You can’t make this stuff up. The State of Oregon Legislative Counsel Committee sent a cease and desist letter to Justia a couple weeks ago claiming that a copy of the Oregon Revised Statutes that Justia had published online infringed on the State of Oregon’s copyright to the statutes. While Oregon conceded that the text of the law itself, it did assert that “the leadlines and numbering for each statutory section” were protected. This is a no-win situation. If the government doesn’t act like a business, people complain. When the government acts like a business, people complain.

Some legal experts see this as a copyright issue. Me? I see this as a tax issue. If the state collected a 10 cent royalty every time someone cited an Oregon law, just think what it will do for the Oregon budget. Cha-ching! Personally, I’m waiting for a YouTube video showing someone reading the Oregon Revised Statutes with leadlines and numbering.

The keyword for today is balance.  Search engine optimization (or SEO) refers to certain methods that one can adopt to make your law firm web site or blog appear well on the search engines.  However, it is a grave mistake to treat the Google, Yahoo! or Microsoft search engines as your target audience.  Certainly, showing up at the top of page one increases the chances that a potential client will visit your web site or blog.  However, unless you are a legal publisher just interested in the size of your audience, you need to convert that audience into clients.  And, that’s where writing for search engines instead of humans can hurt you.  Ask whether the page titles and page text that you have written for the search engines are easily digestible by human readers.  Because, if a potential client cannot figure out what you have said, how likely will that person contact you for legal advice or whatever product or service you are offering?

We are all familiar with the $10,000 cash transaction limit that triggers certain bank reporting requirements. So, presuming that Eliot Spitzer operated under this threshold, how does an experienced former prosecutor get caught shuffling money around to support a “private matter”?Well, Sharon Imhoff explains it all.

Yahoo!/AP: Man Declared Dead Feels “Pretty Good”. Four months after he was declared brain dead and doctors were about to remove his organs for transplant, Zach Dunlap says he feels “pretty good.”

As part of the estate planning process, you may have drafted a living will and a power of attorney for health care to set forth the accepted course of treatment should you become incapacitated and to appoint a person to act on your behalf with regards to medical decisions. You may have directed that medical procedures that will only extend the dying process be withheld should your physician determine that you have an incurable or irreversible terminal injury and that your death is imminent except for death delaying procedures.

Now, the Mayo Clinic describes various states of consciousness ranging from stupor to brain death. It states that “[w]hen brain death occurs, there is no sign of any brain functioning. This condition is not reversible.“

However, in the Yahoo!/AP article, the “brain dead” man is alive and talking about it. So, either he wasn’t “brain dead” or brain death is reversible. Knowing this, do you want your doctors to withhold medical care if you were declared brain dead? Also, if you are acting as a loved one’s power of attorney, will you be able to carry out their wishes and withhold medical care should he or she be declared brain dead? Withholding medical care is never an easy decision to make and knowing that someone recovered after being declared brain dead just made it even harder.

The Philadelphia Inquirer: Pennsylvania Takes on Online Auctions. Mary Jo Pletz was really, really good at eBay. But now the former stay-at-home mother and gonzo Internet retailer fears a maximum $10 million fine for selling 10,000 toys, antiques, videos, sports memorabilia, books, tools and infant clothes on eBay without an auctioneer’s license.

Why is Pennsylvania seeking to compel eBay sellers to obtain an auctioneer license? Aren’t there any college graduates running the bureaucracy? After all, a basic SAT question would be Pletz:eBay::

1. Cheney:Bush
2. Leona Helmsley:Christie’s
3. Auctioneer:Seller
4. Dogs:Cats
5. Chicken:Egg

And the Commonwealth flunked this question. Pletz isn’t the auctioneer. eBay is the auctioneer. Just like when the Estate of Leona Helmsley unloaded her property, Christie’s was the auctioneer. You don’t see the State of New York asking the Estate of Leona Helmsley to take out an auctioneer license, do you? Some other type of license may be more appropriate for Ms. Pletz, but it ain’t an auctioneer license, online or otherwise.

New York Times: Can a Sandwich Be Slandered? Some companies have made a sport of using advertising to bash a competing brand: Pepsi and Coke, Colgate and Crest, Miller Lite and Bud Light. It was a rivalry of this sort that compelled Quiznos, the toasted-sandwich chain, to invite the public to submit homemade commercials in a contest intended to attack a top rival, Subway. . . . Subway promptly sued Quiznos and iFilm, the Web site owned by Viacom that ran the contest, saying that many of the homemade videos made false claims and depicted its brand in a derogatory way.

Where is tort reform when you need it? I think Chef Gordon Ramsay would be the ideal expert witness in this battle royale between sandwich chains. He is always insightful and entertaining. I’m no chef, but I’ve had enough sandwiches over the years to be able to tell the difference between a good sandwich and a bad one. My preference is Quiznos, Togo’s and Subway, from most favorite to least favorite.

Quiznos offers the best-tasting sandwiches. Their meat looks and tastes like real meat with excellent flavor and texture. Even their greens are better. Sauteed onions or the same-old shredded lettuce and tomatoes combination? No comparison. Subway must be feeling the heat because they now offer toasted sandwiches. However, while the bread is warm and crunchy, the fillings are just the same.

I like Togo’s. However, I have stood in line on more than one occasion saying (to no one in particular) that I wished Togo’s had toasted sandwiches. Usually, it comes down to how far I want to travel and how much change do I have in my wallet. Sure, Quiznos offers the tastiest sandwiches, but their sandwiches cost a pretty penny.