A recent NY Times Op ed piece talked about the outcomes of the GOOD NEWS CLUB et al. v. MILFORD CENTRAL SCHOOL US Supreme Court decision 533 U.S. 98

Chapters, etc. I have good news....

A question came up recently whether NYS unchapterd laws -- that is, laws in their original form, not consolidated -- were available online. The answer is yes, at the same website where you can look up bills and other legislative materials.

http://public.leginfo.state.ny.us/menuf.cgi

From that site, click CHAPTERS and use the search tool. Just limit to "chapter number" and fill it in, along with the year. AND don't forget to click the box marked "text" to see the complete text of the act.



Don't know one or the other? There's a keyword search tool. Or Google the name of the act to discover its chapter number and year, then return and try again.

"Past Practice"

While "past practice" has a definition under the law, it is not a term found in most law dictionaries. It actually comes from Labor: the US Office of Personnel Management
(http://www.opm.gov/lmr/glossary/glossaryp.asp) defines it as

"Existing practices sanctioned by use and acceptance, that are not specifically included in the collective bargaining agreement. Arbitrators use evidence of past practices to interpret ambiguous contract language. In addition, past practices can be enforced under the negotiated grievance procedure because they are considered part of the agreement. ..." Follow the OPM link above to see other definitions and context from the Federal Labor Relations Authority (http://www.flra.gov), where you can search for more information, including decisions involving unions and corporations that may be relevant to your idea.

So Why wouldn't LexisNexis help you much?? As I said, "Past Practice" is a term used most often in labor, especially in contracts and negotiations. Many labor negotiations, arbitrations and other disputes are resolved by independent or governmental boards, rather than the courts. So while you may find a few case decisions on Past Practice, you'd find much more looking at unions', negotiators', and arbitrators' websites. Here are a few to try, all of which allow you to search for decisions relating to labor negotiations (they are not court cases!)

* The National Labor Relations Board [http://www.nlrb.gov/]
* The NYS Public Employees Review Board [http://www.perb.state.ny.us/]
* United Federation of Teachers [http://www.uft.org] Note: Some "members only" portions of this site
* National Education Association [http://www.nea.org]
* AFSCME [http://www.afscme.org]

The NYS Commissioner of Education's Decisions, which contain some uses of the term in context, may be valuable, though the Commissioner is not empowered to hear certain labor matters. Still, it's worth a visit, and you can search for the term there. If you're in the Ed Law class at New Paltz this semester, you'll search the Decisions often. They're found at
http://www.counsel.nysed.gov

The Cathie Black Matter

Shael polakow suransky



hakeem jeffries









Dennis Walcott






Here is the scratch-pad for what's transpired so far. Here, we're deliberately ignoring the media attention, the blogs, etc., in order to focus on the laws, regulations, precedents and filings.

1. The filings: The Eric Snyder Petition, the Hakeem Jeffries Petition. And what's an Article 78 proceeding, anyway?

2. The Commissioner's Waiver Decision

3. NYS Consolidated Laws Education Law sec. 3003. Pay close attention to subsections (1) to (3)

4. The Commissioner of Education's Regulations (8 NYCRR) 80 - 3.10 (b). Browsing? You'll find under Chapter ii, subchapter 3: Teachers...requirements.

5. 8 NYCRR 52.21 (c)(3), which regulates School District Leadership Curricula. Is Ms. Black Qualified?

6. Matter of the Application of the Mayor of the City of New York and Klein, 2002.

7. What are the City of NY Chancellor's duties anyhow? To whom does she report? It's Education Law 2590-h

NYS statutes in Lexis Nexis Academic

FAQ "How do I find NYS statutes...you know, from the McKinney's Black Books, AKA the Consolidated Laws of New York State, in Lexis Nexis Academic?"

A: Once you sign into LNA, select US LEGAL, then
State Statutes, Codes & Regulations. Choose New York from the search box menu, then....

If you have a specific citation, preface the section number with "NY CLS [the law heading] sec. [the number]"

Seem complicated? It's not, really. Example: if you're looking for "education law 3020-a" type in -- with the quotes: "ny cls educ. sec. 3020-a"

Looking for Mental Hygiene Law section 9.09? Type in NY CLS Men Hyg § 9.09.

If you do a keyword search instead, you an limit results to NYS laws (as opposed to the NYCRR regulations) by clicking "Statutory Codes" to the left of the results.

NYCRR is In LEXIS NEXIS!!

You can now find the New York Codes, rules & Regulations in Lexis Nexis Academic! Oce you're signed in to LNA:
Go to US LEGAL, and Choose
State Statutes, Codes & Regulations, then choose New York
To search by citation, type "8 nycrr sec. [the section and subsection]"
EXAMPLE (yes, with quotes): "8 nycrr sec. 80- 1.3"
THEN: click all the Source boxes (administrative codes, statutory codes, etc.)

YOU can also search by Keyword! From your results -- which should include NYS statutes as well as regulations -- click "Regulatory codes" from the left-side menu. Voila! NYCRR regulations!

Supreme Court Dockets Or What Is That Number?

A student writes "I need to find this Supreme Court case...I was given the names of the parties and a number with a dash in the middle. What is that number, and how do I find the decision?"

The number is a Supreme Court Docket Number, the first part of which is the year the case was placed on the docket with the Court, and the second is essentially the case number. It's a case number, not a decision number, really. In principle, it is possible for decisions to be rendered in a different sequence than their docket numbers.

This SCOTUS site explains docket numbers and lets you search for case names and decisions by docket numbers, too.

What to do in Lexis Nexis: the best thing to do is to look by the parties e.g., Locke v. Karass, rather than trying to search them with the docket number (07-610) too.

The only way I'm aware of to search by docket number in Lexis Nexis Academic is to do a US Federal & State Cases search and look for the docket number as a keyword. Limit your search to the court (e.g., US Supreme Court) to avoid a lot of noise. Not nearly as efficient as searching by citation or parties, but it can be done!

Just for fun, try in the SCOTUS Docket Search, then in Google, then in LexisNexis...

• Fitzgerald v. Barnstable 07-1125
• Locke v. Karass 07-610