Out-of-the-Box Lawyering

An out-of-the-box way to test your case with juror types — And without using either a focus group or a mock trial. Would you believe the juror types are placed in M.R.I. equipment!!! M.R.I. testing is already being used by political consultants!

The New York Times reported on April 20 that political consultants are placing people in M.R.I. equipment and showing them political commercials and other information and seeing what M.R.I. readings result. The consultants have found that they get different readings from Democrats and Republicans, depending on how the subjects feel about what is being displayed to them:

“[One subject] lay inside an M.R.I. machine, watching commercials playing on the inside of his goggles as neuroscientists from the University of California, Los Angeles, measured the blood flow in his brain. Instead of asking the subject, John Graham, a Democratic voter, what he thought of the use of Sept. 11 images in a Bush campaign commercial, the researchers noted which parts of Mr. Graham's brain were active as he watched. The active parts, they also noted, were different from the parts that had lighted up in earlier tests with Republican brains.”

What's interesting is this type of testing is not new. The article details how it has been used in other contexts:

“Though new to political advertising, brain imaging has been used to analyze other kinds of reactions to commercials, both by ‘neuromarketers' selling services to corporations and by academic researchers like Read Montague, who has studied brain responses to soft-drink advertising. He said research like Professor Iacoboni's could help expose manipulative techniques during political campaigns.” (Professor Marco Iacoboni is the lead researcher and “is an associate professor at the U.C.L.A. Neuropsychiatric Institute who directs a laboratory at the Ahmanson Lovelace Brain Mapping Center there.”)

The article details the different parts of the brain that are affected, depending upon how the subjects of the different parties view the ads. It also notes that the technique is still in the testing phase.

Are lawyers the next to test-run their cases by playing videotapes to juror-types who are in the M.R.I. equipment?

You can read the full text of the article at no charge until April 27 or 28. (Free registration is required.) Thereafter, the article costs $2.95.

The library of the Louisiana Supreme Court is having a moving sale and you can get many federal, state, and even French, Canadian and other foreign volumes at virtually no cost. Some of the volumes date back to the 1800s.

The library of the Louisiana Supreme Court is moving to new quarters in, where else, the French Quarter and is offering large quantities of duplicate stock that they aren't taking along with them. There are all sorts of books (remember books?) that they are either giving away to academic and public libraries or are selling at very low cost (really, VERY, VERY low cost) and are requesting that you pay mailing costs.

The list of books and monogaphs includes ALRs, Fed 1st, 2d and 3d and the C.J.S. volumes. Not only are there federal materials, there are volumes from Louisiana and other states. There are also British and Canadian materials, and some of the domestic and foreign volumes date back to the 1800s. This is a perfect way for libraries to complete their collections. (No, I'm not on commission.)

The library has notified libraries both in Louisiana and around the country and some books have already been requested. But many valuable titles remain to buy “for bargain basement prices.”

For information, you can call either Georgia at (504)568-5704 or Carol at (504)568-5706. You can also e-mail Carol at cbillings@lasc.org.

Scirus – A Search Engine for Scientific Information

Genie Tyburski, in the April 9 issue of her TVC Alert, cited to a report on Wired News that concluded that, for searching scientific information, the search engine Scirus is better than Google. Genie summarized the article as follows:

“The article illustrates how special search services such as Scirus serve scientists better than Google. Scirus, owned by science publisher Elsevier, is powered by Fast ESP.”

An article I found with a Google search listed the author's favorite search engines. Here's what he said about Scirus:

“At times I need scientific research material and one of the best sites to get scientific information is Scirus. Scirus (http://www.scirus.com) is the most comprehensive science-specific search engine on the Internet. Driven by the latest search engine technology, Scirus searches over 167 million science-specific Web pages, enabling you to quickly [help find] the latest reports, peer-reviewed articles and journals that other search engines miss. . . . Scirus has proved so successful at locating science-specific results on the Web that the Search Engine Watch Awards voted Scirus ‘Best Specialty Search Engine’ in 2001 and 2002.”

A review on TechTv's site summarized the advantages of using Scirus over most search engines:

“Scirus.com is unique because it searches only websites with scientific content. It currently covers more than 120 million science-related pages, including access-controlled sites. Journal sources covering life, physical, social, and health sciences University websites.”

The reviewer adds: “Scirus reads non-text files. This helps you locate scientific papers appearing in PDF and PostScript files, which often don't show up in conventional Web searches.” Moreover, he lists “a lot of great [Scirus] functions that you won't find in most standard search engines.”

Another posting, this one in a thread, was less enthusiastic. However, even the author of that posting also reported that, under certain circumstances, Scirus was better than Google.

Scirus describes itself as “for scientific information only.” In It's About Us, Scirus gives details about the service.

Incidentally, if you are interested in Internet resources and don't already subscribe to Genie's TVC Alerts, you're missing valuable information. She describes her TVC Alert as “a free weekday news bulletin [that] reports on industry events and Web-based resources for library and legal professionals.” You can find instructions on how to subscribe on her web site.