Happy Holidays to all of our clients! All of us at LIS wish you a joyous celebration And a great New Year! Check out our 2015 Holiday card We look forward to meeting your legislative and administrative history research needs in 2016. Every law has a history, an intended purpose with ideas proposed and compromises negotiated. The facts are out there and our mission is to help you find them. Since 1974, we have helped litigators, researchers, legal professionals and judges find these pieces of the truth to reveal the factual reality that has led to winning their cases and understanding their area of practice. LIS’ office as ... Read More >
Dec 12
Origins of California’s paramedics
Anybody weaned on shows the likes of “ER” is familiar with Hollywood’s version of a hospital emergency room: A place where, at regular intervals, a cadre of professionals, along with a patient on a gurney, slams through a pair of swinging doors and rushes inside, all while paramedics shout rapid-fire bits of information to hospital staff. Medical professionals can tell us how, or even whether, the above scene squares with reality. We do know that in real life, if you have a medical emergency and 911 responds, you likely will first receive advanced medical care on the scene – long before you reach a hospital – from a paramedic or EMT. It’s ... Read More >
Nov 13
Wait, THEY Got Elected!? 3 ‘People’ You Won’t Believe Were Actually in the Government
Did you know that there are two senators from each state -- no matter how populated or unpopulated that area is -- who are elected by the people in accordance with the 17th Amendment to the Constitution? In order to run, a candidate needs to be at least 30-years-old, have been a U.S. citizen for nine years, and when elected, reside in the state of which they were elected to represent. Now, that's just the senators. With all that being explained, it's fair to say that there have been a lot of people in government since the U.S. was born. In that time, some pretty odd characters have shown up. Here are just a few that our legislative history ... Read More >
Oct 29
Bodie’s ghosts live on
"Bodie ghost town" by PDPhoto.org. Licensed under Public Domain via Commons. People who enjoy ghost towns have been known to visit one of California’s most famous examples: Bodie, in Mono County. High above the treeline and subject to brutal eastern Sierra Nevada winters, Bodie is a well-preserved gem of a town. The site of a gold strike before fires decimated much of it, a small portion of Bodie still stands today. Its interiors are covered in dust and memories and, they claim, left just as they were when the state deemed it a state park in 1962. In fact, California coined a new term to describe its upkeep of the town: “arrested decay.” It’s ... Read More >
Oct 15
Think Before You Treat: 3 Spooky Halloween Laws
You could say that the Senate is a bit of a graveyard. After all, there are over 300 bills waiting there for action, but only 33% will be enacted by Congress for December in the first year of a session. There's also checks and balances to consider, too. After a proposed amendment makes it all the way through Congress, it must then be ratified by three-fourths of the states. That's a lot of federal statutes falling into their graves. Even scarier are some of those laws that actually do make it out alive. Here are just a few spooky legal statutes recent law research found! No Priest Costumes in Alabama. It's not just certain towns and ... Read More >
Oct 5
1968 Federal Law Basis for Pocket-Dial Decision
1968 Federal Law basis for Pocket-Dial Decision: In July, the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed summary judgment in part in Huff v. Spaw, a matter in which the listening and recording of a 91 minute pocket-dial was determined to not be eavesdropping. James Huff, chairman of the Kenton County, Kentucky, Airport Board, had the unfortunate luck of discussing firing the airport’s CEO at length, all while the recipient of his pocket-dial, the CEO’s executive assistant, listened and recorded. Huff alleged, among other things, that the executive assistant violated Title 18, section 2511(1)(a) of the United States Code, which relates to ... Read More >