A recent survey of corporate attorneys found that, "Delaware has the nation’s best legal climate, while courts in West Virginia ranked at the bottom," reports legalNewsline.com. Nebraska, Maine, Indiana and Utah were also in the top-five states with favorable legal climates. The courts’ quality of judges, the predictability of judges and damage awards were given as reasons for their favorable ratings.

And what about us?  While the article doesn’t mention San Diego, Los Angeles earned honors "as the city or county with the worst legal climate for business." In the nation! 

And California?  Well, it did fare better.  The report, "Lawsuit Climate 2008: Ranking the States," puts the Golden State at 6th from the bottom; only Illinois, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and West Virginia are lower.  Apparently, there ain’t gold in them thar hills, at least for corporate attorneys.  Or, should we say, corporate defense attorneys.

The report was commissioned by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and released by its Washington-based Institute for Legal Reform.  Is it corporate propaganda, as the trial lawyers’ American Association for Justice sees it? Or is it something that must be addressed in order to "attract new business and grow jobs," as the Chamber sees it?

Take a look at the report and decide for yourself.

It was only a matter of time before people using the wi-fi at the law school and LRC began to rise up en masse to protest.  The Circulation desk is being over-run with requests for ethernet cables (still an alternative, but still…the wi-fi should work!).

And now, IT to the rescue!  At this writing, IT support reps will come to the LRC twice a week — Wednesday and Thursday — from 11:30 – 1:30, to assist you with any wi-fi problems.  No kidding!  They have come to you!

Look for the friendly tech rep at a table with the large blue Tech Support banner, near the reference desk.  You can’t miss it.

Usually we are pretty lax about the decibel levels in the first floor Information Services area of the LRC.  You know, the place where all the TA’s hang out, groups like to gather, and couples discover love or break up, sometimes in the same week. It takes a lot for us to request a timeout, but it happens on occasion.  Now that it is time for serious review and studying, the noise level has begun to drift into the higher registers for acceptable library auditory experience.

But now read this from The Wired Campus in today’s Chronicle of Higher Education:

Flashing Lights Warn Library Visitors to Be Quiet

To tamp down the noise level in their libraries, some colleges are considering installing a warning system that looks like a traffic signal. Called the Deluxe Yacker Tracker, the device flashes a yellow light to indicate when the noise exceeds a certain level. When it exceeds the level by at least 15 decibels, the red light illuminates and a siren can go off, too.

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Now that sounds tempting to us, since we hate to be the Shush! Patrol.  But remember the study needs of your fellow students in the LRC — wherever you may be — and keep the noise down to a quiet roar. 

Before everything is removed for the next big thing in library display art, be sure to catch the following at the LRC: history of libraries display (near the microform reader-printers) and the changing image of librarians (outside the Reserve Room); Inna Muradyan and Melissa Fung did all the great work in finding text and graphics on designing these displays.   

The cabinets in the center of the 1st floor have some interesting insights into the people who work at your friendly neighborhood academic law library; LRC staff members wrote little vignettes about what made them want to work in libraries — kind of fun for a bit of guessing about who wrote which one.