The Importance of Access

A law.com article titled Approaching the Court talks about the difficulties that litigants and attorneys with disabilities have had at some courts, including the United States Supreme Court.

Crossing the expert at 4:30?

So, in this trial the Defense expert finishes his direct testimony at 4:30pm and I know I have at least an hour and a half of cross examination for him. Do I start now and get in my first half hour before the break or break right now and start my cross fresh on the next day?

Don't be silly.

What do you dream about?

This morning I read an article in the News Journal about how studies show that sleep and dreaming can aid in creativity. It is said that our brain is working on our complex problems while we sleep, so that we have a shot at the answer when we wake. OK, I'll buy that.

Monday night I dreamed in detail about a trial that started on Tuesday morning. In the dream, we went through the entire trial, only the judge in my dream was Fred Gwynne from "My Cousin Vinny".

The trial's not over yet, but I think the dream helped me sort things out. Maybe if I sleep on it tonight, I can find the News Journal article I read...so that I can link it to this post.

Interstate commissions

Multistate agencies are strange creatures. They often serve at the pleasure of the governors of the states involved, and the federal government through agencies such as the Department of the Interior. Their effectiveness is also often tied to federal and state purse strings.

So, what happens when one source of revenue dries up? The Delaware River Basin Commission is running out of money. What will that mean? A public meeting tonight may determine that.

senators with RSS

We really like syndicated content here at the Delaware Law Office, and if you don't have a news aggregator to read RSS feeds, then you can use a page like the Daily Whirl to subscribe to a large number of sites that use RSS (including the Law Office).

I'm excited to see more places adopting RSS, and I came across a post at Research Buzz which describes RSS in Government. Unfortunately, there aren't a lot of states on the list of places that are using RSS. Hopefully that will grow in the future.

Delaware is one of the states not on the list, but there's a reason for hope. One of our Delaware Senators was the first to have RSS added to his web site. Backtracking through the RSS in Government page, I came across an entry titled Senate Begins RSS Rollout. According to that, Senator Joseph Biden is the first to have his press releases on his official site connected to an RSS feed.

I've got my fingers crossed in the hope that someone in Delaware State government might ask someone from the State's IT department what that little orange button, from Senator Biden's web site, with the "xml" written on it means.

It would be fun to have new legislation, and regulations, and proclaimations from the Governor streamed out across the web to my desktop, and without any spam accompanying it. I'd subscribe to those channels, if they would make them available.

Accessibility Toolbar

If you build web sites, and you would like to add accessibility to the pages you design, there's a handy tool from the National Information and Library Service (NILS) of Australia - an Accessibility Toolbar.

It's in beta right now, so if you want to help test it, and offer suggestions to the builders, here's your opportunity.

sealed criminal dockets in Florida

A Florida reporter came across some paperwork in a criminal case that didn't seem to exist, when a clerk's mistake made it public for a few hours. It's not the only one. The Sun-Sentinal is reporting that a Miami federal court has a 'secret docket' to keep some cases hidden from public.

Where else might this be happening?

(Thanks again to DianeV, who brought this story to my attention.)