NYCBA Members Newsletter

Welcome to the December 2007 issue of our Newsletter. On behalf of our Officers and our Board of Directors, I want to send all of our Members and friends our very best wishes for a Happy Holiday Season and a Healthy and Prosperous New Year.

President's Message:

On behalf of the Board of Directors I want to thank everyone for coming out for our annual Holiday event. It was well attended and everyone had a great time. This year we had an excellent turnout from the judiciary, which provided our Members with another opportunity for us to meet and exchange ideas and our experiences.

As you know, our special Honoree this year was the Hon. Michael J. Obus; and everyone is confident that Judge Obus has all the skills and experience necessary to serve as an excellent and effective Administrative Judge of the New York Supreme Court, New York County, Criminal Part. We wish him well and we all pledge to provide him with the support that he will need to succeed.

I hope everyone has a happy Holiday season and I look forward to working on some interesting events and programs in 2008.

Yours for a better defense,

Tony Ricco,
President
email: tonyricco@aol.com

NYCBA Web Site Features:

Each month, we try to point out some of the latest resources that we have posted on our Website at www.nycrimbar.org/. In keeping with that tradition, we note the following item:

• We have posted on the Computer Tips section of our website an interesting article entitled "Cheap and Free Tools to Put Zip Back in Your PC," by Preston Gralla, which was published in PC World Magazine on Nov. 21, 2007.
  
  

What's New On The Internet:

• We note an excellent new website run by the folks at Justia.com. The new site is the the Federal District Courts Opinions and Orders page, which allows you to search or browse for recent orders or opinions issued by just about any federal court in the country. You can search by Party Name, the type of lawsuit, any Federal District Court, by date, or by entering keywords into the full-text search. If documents are available, you can view them directly in the site, post them to a website, or download them as PDF files.
  
  
  You can do most of this with PACER, right? Well, yes and no. Most of the same documents are available through PACER, but getting to them is probably not as straightforward as you would find on the Justia site. Another thing that makes the Justia page so useful is the ability to bookmark a case your case and receive updates whenever your search terms come up with new hits. When you find a case you want to keep track of, the site lets you use any of 36 bookmarking sites to bookmark the page for future reference. And when you conduct a search, you are able to save that search to an RSS feed, so that when there are new hits on your keyword, you are automatically notified.
  
  
  
• The ABA Journal recently created its inaugural list of the Top 100 Blawgs in America. (A "blawg" is the name used to describe a legal Blog). While a list of 100 blawgs may sound too large a list for any lawyer to review, the ABA article noted that there are today between 2,000 and 3,000 blawgs in America - and that number is growing rapidly.
  
  The advent of blawgs is rapidly changing the face of legal research in America. In just a few years, several blawgs have become "must-reading" for any practitioner who wants to stay current with the latest developments in a particular field. Therefore, we urge you to look over this list because someday very soon some of these blawgs will probably become a mainstay of your legal practice.
  
  Because the ABA's list is national in scope, it misses a number of excellent Blawgs that are particularly helpful to criminal defense practioners from New York. For that reason, we have set forth below a listing of some of our favorite Blawgs for lawyers in New York.
  
  
  

  URL Link	Name and Description of BLAWG
  www.fedsentencinglaw.com	"Second Circuit Sentencing Blog," maintained by Harold J. Protass, Esq. Provides summaries and commentary on substantive sentencing decisions in the Second Circuit
  www.nyfederalcriminalpractice.com	"New York Federal Criminal Practice," maintained by JaneAnne Murray, Esq. Provides observations on notable court decisions, news and developments affecting Federal criminal practice in New York
  www.circuit2.blogspot.com	"Second Circuit Blog," provides case summaries and commentary by attorneys from the Federal Defenders Office in New York City
  http://nylawblog.typepad.com	"Sui Generis - A New York Law Blog," maintained by Nicole Black, Esq. Provides commentary on civil rights issues, recent decisions and other issues of interest to New York litigators and New York criminal law practitioners
  http://colleluorilaw.blogspot.com	"Long Island (Criminal) Trial Law," maintained by Anthony Colleluori, Esq. Provides ideas and updates on Law, Procedure, and Tactics to aid trial lawyers (and others) involved with allegations of wrongdoing
  http://blog.simplejustice.us	"Simple Justice - A New York Criminal Defense Blog," maintained by Scott H. Greenfield, Esq.
  http://indignantindigent.blogspot.com/ 2005/06/new-york-persistent- felony-offender.html	"Indignant Indigent," maintained by the attorneys from the Monroe County Public Defenders Office. Provides New York State criminal law updates and commentary.
  www.mentaldisabilitylaw.com	"Mental Disability Law Blog," maintained by Danielle E. Sucher, Esq.
  http://tswartz1.typepad.com/ new_york_legal_update/	"New York Legal Update," maintained by Thomas Swartz, Esq. A self-styled Online Resource for Developments in New York Law, both civil and criminal
  www.justia.com/us-states/new-york/law-blogs.html	A Listing of New York Law Blogs, maintained by Justia.com

  
  

Annual Dues:

With the New Year approaching quickly, we would like to take this opportunity to remind everyone that your New York Criminal Bar Association dues for 2008 are due on Jan. 1st. For 2008, annual dues remain $100. Payments may be made by sending your check, made payable to the “New York Criminal Bar Association,” to Michael K. Bachrach, NYCBA Treasurer, 276 Fifth Avenue, Suite 501, New York, New York, 10001. Payments may also be made by faxing or emailing your credit card authorization to Mr. Bachrach at (866) 328-1630 or michael@mbachlaw.com.

If you have any questions regarding membership dues please call Michael at (212) 929-0582, or email him at the above email address. A copy of our Membership Application/Renewal Form is attached to this newsletter for your convenience.

Comments and Newsletter Contributions Welcome

Comments on this and future issues of this Newsletter are most welcome, as are your own stories about cases, issues, arguments, events. etc. - whether just a sentence or a paragraph to alert us to a recent development, or a longer piece. Please send your material to Scott Tulman, Chair of the Internet and Newsletter Committee at Tel.: (212) 867-3600 or email: stulman@aol.com - or send your comments by email directly to our committee at: nycrimbar@nyc.rr.com.

Internet and Newsletter Committee:
Scott Tulman, Chair
Harvey Fishbein
Michael K. Bachrach
Peter Schmidt