Lawyers, law students, and law librarians enjoy a good story.  Even better is when that story combines our interest in the law with a bit of escapism.  Here are a couple of ways you can take a break from studying without having to forget about law school entirely.

You may be familiar with some lawyer authors—John Grisham, Brad Meltzer, Lisa Scottoline—who write books for adults—and other lawyers, like Louis Sachar who write for younger readers.  These authors know how to capture an audience’s attention:  Write about issues of justice, power, and the law.

Legal academics entertain themselves and others by considering legal themes in popular culture.  In print, for example, The Law and Harry Potter analyses legal concepts and issues seen in the Harry Potter series.  New York judge Karen Morris wrote Law Made Fun Through Harry Potter’s Adventure:  99 Lessons in Law from the Wizarding World for Fans of All Ages.

And, just this past weekend many celebrated the DVD release of X-Men: First Class.  As described in the Law and the Multiverse blog, the latest X-Men movie addresses international law, as well as civil rights-employment law.  Other blogs also address superheroes and the law.

While you are enjoying law school—whether you’re in your first or your final year—remember that this new way of ‘thinking like a lawyer’ enables you to consider your popular culture consumption in a new way.  You, too, can consume and create fiction—books, movies, blogs, and more—with a focus on truth, justice, and the American way!

The days before the fist bump.

Though you still shouldn’t use it in your 1L writing assignment, fist bump is now recognized as a word in the Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary for 2011.  Fist bump is one of approximately 150 words added to the new edition.

Dictionaries add new words to reflect changing times, thoughts, and ideas.  You might wonder: the Obamas made the fist bump famous in 2008, why recognize the word now?  Well, the editorial staff who write dictionaries want to be sure that new words are truly part of the vocabulary before adding words—so there is a bit of delay between the introduction of a new word to spoken vocabulary and the formal addition of a new word to the dictionary.

The Concise Oxford English Dictionary also recently issued a 12^th edition, commemorating 100 years since the first edition.  Approximately 400 new words are included in the new edition, so parents can defensibly take teens to task for sexting, cougars can hunt men without using their claws, and we can all woot with enthusiasm.

If you’re trying to find the meaning of a new word—that’s not yet in the traditional dictionary sources—don’t forget that you can check slang dictionaries.  One online source for that is urbandictionary.com.  When you want an explanation of jeggings, you can find one in a slang dictionary.

Dictionaries also eliminate words that are no longer common parlance.  Sadly, no longer can we use a growlery—“a place to ‘growl’ in; jocularly applied to a person’s private sitting room,” according to the Oxford English Dictionary online—that may happen instead in a man cave.  You can access the Oxford English Dictionary online through the University Library’s database list.

The Internet was burning last week with stories about Missouri’s new law banning Facebook friendships between students and teachers.  The talk on the web suggests that teachers and students can’t be friends on Facebook.  But is that really what the law says?

The easiest way to answer that question is to go directly to the law.  What’s the best way to do that?  We could try to find the law by turning to the Missouri statutes database on Lexis or Westlaw, but that won’t work.  Why not?  The statute is too new.  The easiest way to begin tracking a new law, one that is the talk of the town, is to begin with Google.  The search <<Missouri facebook teachers friends>> brings up over 34 million results, including reputable news sites.

News stories, such as the National Public Radio story, include background information about the law.  The story includes the number for the bill (SB 54), the name of the bill’s sponsor (Missouri State Representative Chris Kelly), and the approximate date of the bill (“signed into law last month [July].”

The NPR researchers and writers make it easy for us to look at the exact language of the law—they link directly to the Missouri Senate website containing the language of the bill.  Fantastic!  A free legal research tool for those who are interested in Missouri law.

Reviewing the bill summary provided by the Missouri site, we can see that the bill was divided into sections, each section numbered to indicate where the law will be found in the state code, once codified.  The section of interest for teachers, students, and bloggers is Missouri state statute section 162.069.  The exact language of the law: “Teachers cannot establish, maintain, or use a work-related website unless it is available to school administrators and the child’s legal custodian, physical custodian or legal guardian.  Teachers also cannot have a nonwork-related website that allows exclusive access with a current or former student.”

Although Facebook is not mentioned, the law appears to prohibit teachers from maintaining social network sites that allow for private communication with a student.

Whether the law would withstand constitutional challenges is another question!