Bloomberg Law's Tax Practice Center

In a press release issued today, Bloomberg Law announced the launch of its Tax Practice Center which integrates in-depth analysis, commentary, practice tools, news, case law and other primary sources, to give attorneys a comprehensive understanding of the critical issues in tax law. The Tax Practice Center features unlimited access to primary law and trusted secondary sources, such as Bloomberg BNA’s Daily Tax Report and an extensive library of transaction and topic-specific Portfolios, which contain practical guidance written by leading practitioners and academics. Brooklyn Law School Library has offered Bloomberg Law to its users who will now have access to the Tax Practice Center as part of their subscription.

The press release states: “Key functional features of the Tax Practice Center include the ability to research related primary and secondary sources with ease to save practitioners research time. Secondary sources from BNA, including Portfolios and other analysis, are clearly linked to primary resources including Internal Revenue Code, Public Laws and Treasury Regulations. Moreover, practitioners can find important documents using citation and Portfolio numbers with easy 'Go To' search functionality. DealMaker Document Search offers model tax agreements and clauses, and practitioners have access to tax forms from the IRS.”

Bloomberg Law's Tax Practice Center is pictured below:

Gideon 50 Years Later

Fifty years ago, on January 15, 1963, the US Supreme Court heard oral argument in Gideon v. Wainwright and unanimously ruled later that year on March 18 at 372 U.S. 335 that states had the obligation to provide counsel for defendants who are unable to afford an attorney, extending the Constitutional right to counsel in criminal cases to poor and low-income people. By highlighting the responsibility of the government to provide legal counsel to low-income Americans, Gideon was a landmark case in the equal justice movement in the United States, paving the way for the creation and expansion of the public defender system in the country. Audio files and transcripts of the case are available online at the Oyez Project. 

The landmark case is included in Illustrated Great Decisions of the Supreme Court by Tony Mauro (KF4549 .M334 2000) located in the Brooklyn Law School Library Main Collection. The BLS Library also has in its collection the print and video versions of Gideon’s Trumpet which tells the story behind the case which began in a Florida state court when the defendant Clarence Gideon was charged with a felony for breaking and entering. 

Marking the 50th Anniversary of the decision in March of this year, BLS Law Professor Susan Herman will be the keynote speaker at a two day seminar sponsored by the Florida Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. The session, called Gideon v. Wainwright, March 18, 1963: A Day Worth Celebrating, will feature several other speakers including Assistant Federal Public Defender Paul Rashkind, Public Defender, Sixth Judicial Circuit Bob Dillinger, Stetson University College of Law Prof. Bruce Jacob, and others.

Asset Forfeiture

Included in the 49 titles in the Brooklyn Law School Library’s most recent New Books List is Asset Forfeiture Law in the United States (Call #KF9747 .C37 2013) by Stefan D. Cassella, one of the federal government's leading experts on asset forfeiture law. A former Senior Counsel to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, the author has a J.D. from Georgetown University. The second edition of this book which has 1204 pages is divided into four Parts: Part I - Overview and History; Part II - Administrative and Civil Forfeiture; Part III - Criminal Forfeiture Procedure; and Part IV - What Is Forfeitable? The 28 Chapters provide an Overview and Development of Asset Forfeiture Law in the United States; Administrative Forfeiture under the Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act of 2000 and Judicial Review of Administrative Forfeiture and other topics on the innocent owner defense.

The US federal government has used the tactic extensively in its forty year old “war on drugs.” The possibility for abuse is great. Many local government agencies increasingly rely on “civil forfeiture” to bolster their strained budgets. Use of asset forfeiture is part of a “policing for profit” trend. See the March 2010 Institute for Justice Report Policing for Profit: The Abuse of Civil Asset Forfeiture. Based on a legal fiction that enables law enforcement to take legal action against inanimate objects for participation in alleged criminal activity, regardless of whether the property owner is guilty or innocent—or even whether the owner is charged with a crime, asset forfeiture has generated much criticism. Nonetheless, it has become one of the most effective legal tools in the prosecutor’s arsenal allowing the government to seize and gain title to property obtained through criminal activity or used to further a criminal conspiracy. Criminal asset forfeiture can be used against drug producers and traffickers to cripple their operations and claim their profits. It can also be wielded in civil proceedings. In states implementing medical cannabis programs, personal property gained from or used for the sale of cannabis is subject to seizure due to the supremacy of federal laws prohibiting narcotics sales.

Last November, members of the Brooklyn Law School Students for Sensible Drug Policy, a chapter of Students for Sensible Drug Policy, participated in an Interview with Brooklyn Law School Students for Sensible Drug Policy, Part 3. Addressing recent marijuana legalization efforts in Colorado, Adam Scavone, BLS Class of 2013, noted that “Colorado seems to have worked out a system that can survive an attempt of repression by the Federal government . . . . to insulate people who want to enter that market from the tools that the federal government has on hand to shut down that market – the banking laws, asset forfeiture, and the old-fashioned handcuffs and federal prison. There are about 5,000 DEA agents in the country and 750,000 state and local law enforcement officers. More than 95% of the arrests made for drugs are made by state and local police officers. “

Business Boot Camp

This month, Brooklyn Law School conducted a Business Boot Camp to teach law students valuable skills for succeeding in the business world. The course which Professor Michael Gerber teaches is the first of its kind and involved over 200 students. Developed and taught by top business professionals and the School’s corporate and business law faculty, the program provided students with the skills and basic business literacy they will need to serve their clients. The classic law school experience is designed to teach law students to think like lawyers. However, practicing lawyers often need to think like business persons. Issues that confront business professionals include how to develop a business plan, how to keep track of money, how to value assets, how to raise the capital necessary to run their companies, and how to meet their business goals while also complying with the law.

The goal of the BLS Business Boot Camp is to introduce students to these issues from the business person’s perspective, and provide students with the vocabulary and framework they will need to communicate effectively with clients and evaluate their needs. The Business Boot Camp is being taught by a team of business and finance professionals from Deloitte Financial Advisory Services in collaboration with BLS faculty and alumni. The syllabus is based in part on an intensive course that Deloitte developed for first-year law firm associates, and includes topics such as the development of business plans; types and sources of financing; capital budgeting; valuation; how to read a financial statement; and the purchase and sale of businesses. Students participating in the Boot Camp do not need a background in finance or business law, as the Boot Camp is designed to help provide that background.

“As every seasoned lawyer knows, there are times when lawyers need to reach beyond their legal training to effectively advise and represent their clients,” said Professor Michael Gerber, who chairs the faculty group that helped to develop the course. “The ability to think like a business person as well as a lawyer is extremely useful, and we designed this course to enable students — even those who have never studied business, finance or economics — to do just that.”

The BLS Library has a number of items in its collection to assist law students in gaining basic business literacy including The American Heritage Dictionary of Business Terms by financial expert David L. Scott who defines more than 6,000 terms from all aspects of business in clear, understandable language. It covers the entire spectrum of business terminology. In clear language it defines over 6,000 terms drawn from the areas of investing, finance, marketing, law, real estate, management, economics, accounting, insurance, and international business. The dictionary is an indispensable reference for business professionals and investors at all levels of expertise.

Holidays Today and 100 Years Ago

For the upcoming Holiday Season, the BLS Library Blog will be away until the New Year. Brooklyn Law School and the BLS Library will close on Saturday, December 22 and will reopen on Wednesday, January 2.

BLS Library users looking for inspirational reading for the holidays will enjoy the short 84 page book Memory of a Large Christmas by Lillian Smith (1897-1966). Written fifty years ago in 1962, the book recounts Christmases of fifty years earlier in the South which Smith recalls as being certainly big with lots of people who ate lots of food in a house with lots of room. From the preface of Thanksgiving through the hog-killing, gift-buying, stocking-hanging and finally the main event, the small volume is packed with illustrations and a few recipes. Smith‘s recollection of Christmas as a child at the turn of the last century transports the reader to a kinder and gentler time where the anticipation of hog killing is a wondrous and dreaded occasion. In addition to being a writer, Smith became a vocal social critic of the Southern United States. A white woman who openly embraced controversial positions on matters of race and gender equality, she was a southern liberal unafraid to criticize segregation and work toward the dismantling of Jim Crow laws, at a time when such actions almost guaranteed social ostracism.

Best wishes for the Holiday Season and a Happy New Year!

New Books List

The Cataloging Department at the Brooklyn Law School Library has put out its latest New Books List. It has 69 items including Legal Analysis: 100 Exercises for Mastery, Practice for Every Law Student by Cassandra L. Hill and Katherine T. Vukadin (Call #KF240 .H533 2012). Aside from helping preparation for first year exams, it teaches how to issue spot and to formulate answers to get the maximum points in the most efficient way. There are 100 paced exercises to sharpen students' legal analysis skills. The book will appeal to Professors who will find a bank of 100 legal analysis exercises at the ready, whenever students' analysis skills need attention or refinement; assignments that contain thoughtful sample answers and helpful annotations; learning objectives and outcomes for each chapter; Sample annotated answers for 50 of the exercises that their students can use to assess their own performance; and online resources for ready access to authority.

Students will receive tools to develop a keen understanding of rule-based and analogical reasoning; self-assessment opportunities to ensure progress in analysis; writing assignments with self-contained feedback; and online resources for easy access to exercise cases, statutes, and regulations and helpful tips on improving legal analysis and writing skills.

Human Rights Day 2012

December 10 is the day for the annual observance of Human Rights Day which the UN General Assembly designated to commemorate the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The UDHR, adopted in 1948, lays out the basic human rights that every person is entitled to receive, regardless of race or gender or any other distinction. It was drafted as “a common standard of achievement for all peoples and nations” and was the first universal statement that all human beings have certain inherent rights that are inalienable. Consisting of a preamble and thirty articles covering such human rights as freedom of expression, assembly, movement, and religion, it sets out the basic principle of equality and non-discrimination in terms of the enjoyment of human rights, and affirms that everyone shall be free from slavery, torture, and arbitrary arrest or detention. Article 1 describes the philosophy on which the UDHR is based. It reads:

• All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

In 1950, the UN established Human Rights Day and asked member states to celebrate however they choose. The 2012 theme for Human Rights Day is “on the rights of all people — women, youth, minorities, persons with disabilities, indigenous people, the poor and marginalized — to make their voices heard in public life and be included in political decision-making.”

For a history of the UDHR, see the Brooklyn Law Library copy of A World Made New: Eleanor Roosevelt and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by Mary Ann Glendon (Call #K3238.31948 .G58 2001) which tells how in 1947, after a devastating war and mass displacement, the idea of a Universal Declaration of Human Rights seemed impossible yet necessary. With the coming of the Cold War, the American delegation to the UN, chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt, began writing what would become the world's first statement of human rights. The book traces the evolution of the document which was ratified on December 10, 1948, after six drafts and much debate by the UN General Assembly. It also presents a portrait of a woman driven to public service while still grieving for her late husband. The book concludes with a legal analysis of the declaration and a lengthy discussion of its applicability today, when many non-Western nations claim that the concept of "universal" human rights precepts precludes an acceptance of cultural differences.