From Helton v. State, 311 So.2d 381 (Fla.App. 1975)—

‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the jail

Not an inmate was stirring, they couldn’t make bail.

The stockings were hung by the cell door with care

In hopes that St. Nicholas would soon be there:

The inmates were huddled alone in their beds

While visions of freedom danced in their heads

And guards in their uniforms and John in his rack

Had just settled down for a long winter’s nap,

When up on the roof there arose such a clatter,

John sprang from his bed to see what was the matter.

Away to the window he flew like a flash,

Tore open the cell door and threw up the sash.

When what to his wondering eyes should appear

But a miniature sleigh and eight tiny reindeer,

With a little old driver, so lively and quick

He knew in a moment it must be St. Nick.

More rapid than eagles his courses they came,

And he whistled and shouted, and called them by name:

Now, Macquire, now Bass, now Fillingame, Newman,

On, Ingram, on Suggs, on Crosby, and Helton.

To the top of the porch, to the top of the wall

Now dash away, dash away, dash away all.’

Happy Holidays, all!

We hope that you are having a wonderful vacation.  As always the US government website has several wonderful resources for the holidays.  You can track Santa with NORAD (in several different languages!), buy ornaments, and check out popular New Year’s resolutions.  It is a wealth of information. 

This time of year is also the most satisfying time to check the “Is it Christmas?” website.  It’s up year round, but usually with a disheartening answer.  

There have been several interesting name legal issues, even leaving celebrity children out of it. Most recently are the Talula case, which was one of the top ten weirdest legal cases of 2008, and the controversy about a child named Adolph Hitler Campbell—his parents couldn’t get him a birthday cake with his full name spelled out. But funny names have been around for a while, and fortunately Eugene Volokh is keeping a list of his favorites.

Continuing yesterday’s theme of civil procedure, it is now legal in Australia to serve someone on Facebook. Having successfully tackled the questions of whether you can serve someone in an airplane, or give notice by printing it in a newspaper we are now seeing civil procedure move into the world of social networking. This is another indication of the way that blogs, Facebook pages, and Twitter accounts are finding their way into the legal system.

Good luck to everyone with an exam today. And if you are a 1L taking the Civil Procedure exam, you might want to find out which Federal Rule of Civil Procedure you are from this handy little quiz.

Law.com ran an article recently about looking for a summer job in the current economic climate. Everyone takes a different approach to the job search, some of you may have already begun applying, others not yet thought about it, but if it is important to you to get a good legal job this summer it does not hurt to start thinking about it early. There are lots of resources for job seekers out there. The article mentions the National Association for Law Placement, and there are other good sites like the FindLaw career center.

Only this time it is the top ten weirdest legal cases of 2008 from around the world. It seems that [London] Times columnist Gary Slapper brings a different unusual legal case to light every week, and he has collected his top ten from the last year. The US can claim two of them, including the Connecticut woman who sued L’Oreal for turning her blond hair brown.

As an IU student, not to mention a law student, you have access to a remarkable number of top-notch databases. You’re probably not using everything we have available, but there are some things that you might miss when you go out into the world. For several databases there is nothing to do but buy it yourself, but there are some things you can get from places like INSPIRE, the Indiana Virtual Library. INSPIRE is brought to you by the Indiana State Library, with the support of Indiana Academic Libraries. It has several good databases, including some big ones like Academic Search Premier and EBSCOhost. There are also newspapers, images, literature, and medical information. All you need is a computer with an Indiana IP address.

Now that the year is drawing to a close we can begin the process of reflecting upon it. Time Magazine has done this with a vengeance—compiling a cornucopia of top ten lists for the year, including songs, oddball stories, commercials, and food trends, to name a few. You can even compare the lists to those of 2007. And it’s good to know that “Rickrolled” was the number seven buzzword this year.

The Legal Writing Prof Blog and the Law Librarian Blog both recently mentioned a wiki page devoted to making it through your first year of law school. It is not yet exhaustive, but there are several good tips there—especially the one about asking librarians for help!