Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Law

FGM

Is anyone here willing to check a sentence for me in Female genital mutilation? The article is going to be featured on the main page on February 6 as TFA, so I'm trying to make sure there are no errors or important omissions. The text says, of U.S. federal legislation against FGM, in this section:

In September that year [1996] the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act made it illegal to perform FGM on minors for non-medical reasons, and in 2013 the Transport for Female Genital Mutilation Act prohibited transporting a minor out of the country for the purpose of FGM.

Sources

It would be extremely helpful if someone who knows how to use the best law sources would quickly check that this is accurate and up to date and that nothing important is missing. Sarah (SV) ^(talk) 19:58, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

Notability

Does the fact that an individual is a judge on the Supreme Court (i.e. Asoka Wijetunga) make the individual notable? There are no additional references cited showing that the indvidual presided over any signficant cases nor is there any independent verifable references provided relating to the individual. Dan arndt (talk) 06:33, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

Occupational Qualifications

I think Bona fide occupational qualifications and Genuine Occupational Qualification are should be merged to one article. --CDjanegirl (talk) 07:26, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

Feel free to nominate a WP:MERGE. GiantSnowman 10:08, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

Need reliable sources

Hello there! I'm drafting an article on Terence P. Stewart and have enough content I gathered from several primary sources and whatever else I could find. I'm still having trouble finding solid references to back some things up. I'd really appreciate any help you could extend, perhaps using some law-specific resource? Let me know! Thanks! CesareAngelotti (talk) 13:49, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Darrell Brock Jr.

Can someone please look at the recent edits and say something about the terminology of "indiction". —George8211 / T 23:08, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Sorted some time ago. —George8211 / T 21:20, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

Legislation, Statutory law, Statute articles

Legislation, Statutory law, Statute why are there three standalone articles on Wikipedia? Opnions invited. Thanks in advance, Ottawahitech (talk) 03:10, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

Because England. The Italians, and the Continental legal systems in general, perhaps unsurprisingly, use more precision. I find it amusing, the Italian articles that these English articles link to; at some point we need to create articles for these Continental (i.e., non-English), normative legal concepts. Int21h (talk) 03:31, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

And on that note, realize that both statutes and regulations (i.e., delegated legislation) could be considered legislation. A statute could be considered an (possibly along with others, such as statements of legislative intent, possibly the only) instrument of statutory law, and a regulation could be considered an instrument (along with adjudication etc.) of administrative law. I think the Italian articles are clearer in this respect. Int21h (talk) 03:26, 7 March 2015 (UTC) Int21h (talk) 03:34, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

Proposed new article on mental health and the American prison system

Hello! My name is Magen and I am an undergraduate student at Rice University. This semester, as part of an upper-level course on human development, I am interested in creating an article on mental health in the American prison system. I can't find any information on this topic currently on Wikipedia except for a section within the Prison Abolition Movement article, which, accordingly, is framed in relation to that political stance. This article would address the prevalence of mental illness within the prison system (according to one study done by the Treatment Advocacy Center, there are currently more people with mental illnesses in jails and prisons than in hospitals), proposed causes of this prevalence/its relation to deinstitutionalization, the psychiatric care inmates receive while incarcerated, the different experiences of inmates with mental illnesses vs. inmates who do not have mental illnesses, and advocacy surrounding this issue/proposed reforms. I have identified these topics through a review of the relevant research, and I plan to draw on scholarly sources available to me through my university, including journals such as Criminal Justice and Behavior, American Psychologist, Psychiatric Services. The Journal of Law and Criminology, American Journal of Public Health, etc. If you are interested in knowing more about my current bibliography, feel free to ask and I can send it along. This is only my second contribution to Wikipedia (my first was "Homelessness among LGBT youth in the United States," which received a B-Class rating), so I am more than open to feedback, ideas, cautions, etc. My most immediate concern is what the title of the article should be. I have also consulted Wikiproject Psychology on how to appropriate refer to a person with a mental illness, but if you have any thoughts about how to structure the title of the article, please let me know. Thank you so much for your time and feedback. I hope this posting finds you well! Magenstat (talk) 23:31, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

Our article on psychiatric disease is currently titled Mental disorder. This may or may not be the best title, but using that terms fits our titles. Incarceration in the United States#Mental illness has what we have now. No title seems perfect as the article should include both the incidence, and warehousing, of persons with mental illness, but also treatment, or lack thereof. User:Fred Bauder Talk 10:11, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

Naming the article is important. Wiktionary seems to differentiate between "prison", "jail" (or gaol), and "incarceration", but "incarcerate" doesn't seem to have a noun form referring to a thing so I suggest "Prison mental health in the United States" or something. (Also see the usage notes for "inmate", which smacks of doublespeak.) I would also suggest adding a section in the Incarceration in the United States and Health care in the United States articles (and any relevant articles linked to from there) summarizing the subject (WP:SUMMARY) as well. If there are any specific jurisdictions (states, localities, agencies) or other things with articles that have a significant number of mentions or are particularly notable, make sure to updated those articles as well: don't just write a huge article and neglect to integrate it into the rest of Wikipedia, or it will whither and die. As for structure, I prefer simple section names, like "Relation to deinstitutionalization" and "Causes" over "Proposed causes" or "Proposed causes of prevalence", but that will probably become clearer once the article is sufficiently developed. Int21h (talk) 02:45, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

The effective legalization of torture in state and federal prisons by the Prison Litigation Reform Act has resulted in substantial untreated psychiatric disease in extreme situations such as ADX Florence. See the references in the following:

In 2012, 11 inmates filed a federal class-action suit against the Federal Bureau of Prisons and officials who run ADX Florence, Bacote v. Federal Bureau of Prisons now titled Cunningham v. Federal Bureau of Prisons. The suit alleged chronic abuse, failure to properly diagnose and neglect of prisoners who are seriously mentally ill. As of March 2015 settlement negotiations were underway with the help of a federal magistrate and some improvements had been made by the Bureau of Prisons.

It turns out that, regardless of the source of the disease, a prisoner driven mad by torture may have the right to medical treatment. User:Fred Bauder Talk 09:58, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

Homan Square

Please, help with the breaking story. --NaBUru38 (talk)

I'll note that, while I don't have a source for this, human rights scholars in the Chicago area are skeptical of The Guardian's coverage. One prominent scholar has personally told me that he/she is refusing media requests to talk about Homan because there just isn't enough information available to say anything meaningful at this time (particularly because the entire story is based on exactly one interview with a person who was actually held at Homan, plus a smattering of second- and third-hand claims by interested lawyers). While I'm not saying we should integrate something like that in our article on Homan, I would suggest that we take great care in covering alleged human rights abuses at Homan Square. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 15:44, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

From what I can tell, the only thing in question is that it is done at Homan Square, not that it is done. Because it is relatively agreed that the activities alleged to have taken place not only do take place, but that they are likely legal under Illinois law and US jurisprudence. This seems to be missing from the section/article as is. And AFAIK these practices are banned in the EU under several directives and only survive in a few jurisdictions that have not effectively transposed the directives into law (e.g., Spain), which is probably why its news in the UK. Int21h (talk) 01:15, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act

Hi, folks. Input is needed for how (and whether) to cover RS's that assess the effects of the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act (aka Adam Walsh Act or AWA). There exist very many RS's discussing the outcomes of AWA (a list of nearly three dozen RSs is available here, at the AWA talkpage). The RSs are nearly universally negative in their assessment of AWA; multiple searches failed to reveal much positive assessment. Some editors feel, however, that including these RSs would violate NPOV and that no RSs assessing AWA should be on the page at all. Input from people with experience in editing law pages would be greatly appreciated.— James Cantor (talk) 19:01, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

Yet despite all these opinions the law has not been changed. Cantor and an SPA wish to use the article as a platform to advocate for such change, possibly because they are apologists for deviant behaviors.--MONGO 05:25, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

Yes, but bill to repeal AWA in Nevada has been introduced as James pointed out, and majority of states have not implemented it for various reasons. We merely want the main page to reflect the state of RS which happens to be unanimously negative towards AWA. Your contributions for improving the article this far includes multiple violations of WP policies:

• 1. WP:YESPOV by removing sourced information with no attempt to rewrite to achieve more neutral tone.
• 2. WP:WEIGHT by blocking any attempt to make the "main space to fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable ::sources, in *proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources", and by claiming that long list of peer reviewed RS that has ::been provided, (which is only a fraction of the unanimously critical RS there exist) constitutes WP:FRINGE, which is outright lie.
• 3. WP:AGF by continuously repeating SPA, which seems to be no problem to half dozen other editors (who also initially objected some of my first edits ::and of *which many told you to back down)
• 4. WP:NPA by your claims that me and James (who happens to be one of the top scholars on this field) are "apologists for deviant behaviors"

Note: this was already addressed by the one and only outside editor this far User:Epeefleche: "High-end RSs reflecting criticism should in turn be reflected in the article. Guesses as to the agenda of an editor notwithstanding -- we don't censor such criticism, because of a guessed-at-agenda, even if it is the case."

• 5. WP:OR by asking us to provide answer to your question "How many actual incidents of inconvienence are caused by the legislation?" (which you well ::know can't be answered objectively) as a precondition to anything to be added on the article
• 6. WP:POVFORK by suggesting new article covering critique

Very nice list for a WP editor of 10 years. It almost seems like this is all about WP:IDONTLIKEIT.

Outside input is definitely needed. Please people, take time to read what has been going on at the AWA talkpage and give your oppinion. Currently the article is not what WP:BALANCE requires it to be. ViperFace (talk) 21:32, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

• Viperface is a single purpose account and as bad a POV pusher as I have seen in some time. Even a cursory glance at the accounts edits easily demonstrate they are here for one purpose and one purpose alone.--MONGO 06:11, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Judges are politicians at wikipedia?

An article I just started a few hours ago went for deletion almost instantly. Apparently the wikipedia notability requirements for judges are the same as for politicians? Ottawahitech (talk) 02:59, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, the notability guidelines for judges have been difficult in the past. NPOL provides some carve-outs from GNG that apply to judges (i.e., state supreme court judges, to my understanding, are automatically notable regardless of GNG). WP:NLAW, a failed proposal, would expand the carve-out to non-temporary members of state courts of appeals. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 19:44, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

Notice and comment

I was surprised to discover this administrative law concept is a redlink (with or without hyphens). There are probably a few possible redirect targets, I'm not sure which would be the best. postdlf (talk) 16:45, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

Rulemaking? But it could probably be an article on its own: [1], [2]. TJRC (talk) 20:30, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, Rulemaking would be the ideal target for now, at least until someone gets together a full-blown article. There's definitely enough material on notice and comment rulemaking (maybe that should be the ultimate title) to merit a separate article. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 00:38, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Notability of treaties

There is a discussion of notabilities of treaties and other international agreements going on at Wikipedia talk:Notability (law)#Treaties and other international agreements. This is a talk page for a somewhat old failed notability guideline, but every once in a while, some of us get inspired and try to see if we can raise a consensus on some elements of this, and right now, it's treaties.

If you have any input, please join in. Right now we have only me and one other editor, hardly enough to approach a consensus; and I suspect since the guideline has been long-dormant, it's not on many radar screens.

I'm posting this to WP:WikiProject Law and WP:WikiProject International law. If there are other WikiProjects that you think would have an interest, feel free to invite them to the discussion. TJRC (talk) 19:02, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ius Laboris

This discussion may be of use in establishing detailed criteria of notability for legal firms. Comments appreciated. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:43, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Another related discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sebalu & Lule. I would really love to see the project guideline on what makes a law firm notable, with particular attention to whether inclusion if lists like Ius Laboris, Wells and Partners, Legal500, IFLR and such is a factor to consider. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 01:31, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

about notability of law firms

This is about notability of law firms. But, it wouldn't be mere inclusion in the directories/databases that I or anyone else would say is relevant, because all or too many firms are listed.

The question could be whether there could be some general endorsement of a reasonable process (or a Wikiproject guideline set up), to guide creation of articles on the positive side, and to guide AFD deletion processes on the negative side. I wouldn't want to start by trying to change Wikipedia:Notability_(organizations_and_companies). But this WikiProject, or any group of interested editors (say just Uganda-interested editors), could set some very general guideline for themselves, to prioritize article development by criteria that seems most sensible. I suggest, at a minimum:

• First what matters is whether a firm is in the very top tier of firms in a major group
• With major groups being nations, or women-owned or minority-led firms, or specialties like banking, bankruptcy, corporate, M&A, etc. For the U.S. and some other countries there are lots of law firm articles, maybe including all of the top tier ones, but in most nations, there is little coverage of the top tier yet.
• With "top tier" defined as best can be done:

• using the best available sources: the most widely accepted/commonly used, the most comprehensive, the most reliable sources that list and rate firms (including The AM Law 100 for the U.S., Wells and Partners for many/all countries, IFLR for many/all countries (?), Legal500 for some/all countries (?))
• using ranking or grouping methods possible: e.g. size in revenues where available (what AM Law 100 does, using their estimates of firm reveunes), by quality of firm (e.g. class "A" vs "B" vs "C" firms, as Wells and Partners and IFLR provide), perhaps by size in number of lawyers

• Also very high priority should be given to learning about, documenting the sources, e.g. by developing articles about the major ones (Wells and Partners, others are currently red-links).
• With some agreement on the above, document the agreement in a WikiProject Law guideline or resources page. And then ask positive content editors to create/develop articles in the top tier, and generally ask deletion-involved editors to avoid AFD'ing articles of the top tier.
• There should be a list-article covering the at least the top tier ones in each nation or major group, showing redlinks where new articles are needed. All in the top tier achieve at least "list-item notability" (a lower standard than notability for having a separate article). A firm's row in the list-article would serve as a reasonable target for a redirect, as a nicer AFD outcome than outright deletion. And the list-article would help rationalize the process for all editors interested in the topic area.
• In the far future, perhaps, plan to refine priorities/guidelines towards covering more than top tier, with sources that may vary by nation, specialty, or other group.

Could anyone endorse/agree on the above? sincerely, --doncram 09:10, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for takimg up the task. First, I'd be careful with the proposal that being at "the very top tier of firms in a major group" is valid; this has been rejected for companies in general and I don't see why law firms should be an exception. Just being quietly large, profitable and succesful is not encyclopedic, IMHO. Further, it's difficult to quantify: size and profit will vary from country to country, and where is the cutoff? Top 5? 500? How to verify claims of "one of the largest in Fooland"? (see this new thread at NCOMPANYU talk). Now, I see you given a lot of thought to addressing some of those issues. I think that an argument can be made not about size/profits per se, but rather, by recognizing some lists, such as Ius Laboris, as reliable sources. If we can agree which lists, and rankings in them, are good, we could try to create a guideline such as "listed in at least two of the following rankings: Top 50 in A, all in B and C, etc.". We do however need input from experts on which lists classify as reliable sources (editorial/peer review, fact-checking) and which are PR/marketing spam including anyone who will pay to be added to them. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 04:32, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for acknowledging I have applied attention. Sure, the number of firms in a country are "top tier" will vary, and what are the common sources that say whether a firm is top tier or not, will vary. And sure, an extreme policy of accepting the top firm in any group, where group can be "most profitable law firms whose founding partners are identical twins and their main building is painted blue", would be unreasonable. That's not a problem. There won't be any sources, much less a consensus of sources, about which firms are in the top tier of that nonsensical group.

Consider a reasonable group: firms in a nation, such as Uganda. There are multiple sources that do group Ugandan firms into 3 tiers, into "A B C" or "Class 1 Class 2 Class 3". And for the top tier the different sources show some consensus. All 3 methods identify one specific law firm being in the top class, whether the size of the top class is 4, 5, or 11. ALL AVAILABLE SOURCES AGREE THAT THIS FIRM IS TOP TIER. And Uganda is a major group. We have to agree that at least this firm should be covered in wikipedia if we want to help Wikipedia get developed, engage more informed editors etc. We need one firm to be covered so that there is one article where the sources matter, and are used. Eventually, 10 years from now, if a group of very informed editors, looking at a lot of good articles, reviews the big picture and says one country shouldn't be covered, because all of its firms are way less important than the accepted top tier firms in every other country, then okay. Like if there is, weirdly, one firm located in Antarctica, but it is just two people who do personal income tax filings for a few of the scientists down there, well sure, it would fail that review and is probably not worthy of an encyclopedia article.

But, we're not anywhere near that point. We have no law firms in too many countries. We need to allow/encourage editors from many countries to contribute, rather than arbitrarily, in advance, with no information, just say no firms from Belgium allowed. To start, we have to allow at least one firm (and more if there are several all tied), and allow debate there about whether it really is the top one or not, etc. And, for now, on a "working basis", not a forever decision, we allow at least one. I don't want to have to endure AFDs that repeatedly try to get rid of all of a country's firms, attempting the impossible task of comparing its number one to the accepted firms of all other nations. AFDs would be okay by me, if, however, they were about using sources to argue one given firm is not "top tier", it is lesser than some other firm(s) that are the top one(s), based on new sources, better interpretation of sources, etc.. At least that would be productive in developing understanding of sources. Simply, I don't want to edit in an article development drive that rules out ALL of my country, or of any other country, in advance, unreasonably.

You want to pose a big obstacle: although you yourself don't know anything about sources, you nonetheless want to halt all article development (you will proceed with AFDs) until you are satisfied by wonderful experts that you trust joining wikipedia and participating in discussion. I bet there are no experts available here, and maybe never will be, of the type you would accept. And so far we have little/no knowledge about sources. We must start somehow. We need to have a workable way to develop articles and sources, which has to allow ONE in Uganda. This is not changing wp:Notability standards for organizations. This is not permanent, either. It is a reasonable way to start. And, I rather assume the top tier in every country will meet wp:GNG, eventually when national news sources become available, etc. For Uganda and many countries, probably, any government-funded public works project is required to have a Uganda firm involved, every big lawsuit between multinationals has to have a Uganda firm, etc. And I predict there's gonna be coverage about those Uganda firms. Sure, I don't have a great amount of coverage in hand. But you don't have access to all the likely sources, and you can't read Swahili, Luganda, Southern Luo, Runyankore, Runyoro, Ateso, Lumasaba, Lusoga, and Samia to be able to rule out significant coverage in each of them, either. So drop the principled but impractical obstacle, for a year or two or three, okay? --doncram 03:39, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

The way I read your argument is that we should ignore GNG because 1) said firms may become notable later 2) our policies may change 3) systemic bias discriminates against some companies. I respect the inclusionist approach, but I just can't find much sympathy for what I see in essence is many companies using Wikipedia to advertise their services. We are not Yellow Pages. Most companies are not notable. If there's no proof of coverage in reliable sources like newspapers or research works, we need to agree on some other, clear criteria. Like WP:NSONG/Wikipedia:Record_charts. Like what you describe in your opening paragraphs. If there are reliable lists for the biggest/most important firms in a given grouping, that's a convincing argument. (Sadly, this WikiProject doesn't seem active enough to have anyone offer their opinion on that, so we may not make much progress). And yes, I can leave the third-world law firms for a while, systemic bias and all of that. There're plenty of other spam entries to focus on (which is why I moved to reviewing Category:Law firms of the United States). --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 03:10, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

Some firms pay attention to their Wikipedia article, and those of their attorneys; some do not. The consequence is that coverage is skewed toward those who have made an effort. Which serves our readers poorly, as the length and content of articles reflects the skill of the public relations effort rather than objective criteria. Objective criteria for notability of firms might include being of counsel in cases which are heard by state and federal appellate courts; appointments to the judiciary from the firm, and being of counsel in notable cases. Normal Wikipedia:Verifiability and Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources should apply, of course. To use just Colorado, which I am familiar with, as an example that must include the regional press and the local legal press, as there is little or no national or international coverage. User:Fred Bauder Talk 09:31, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

Update: I return because I am reminded by a relisting notice at the AFD for what appears to be one of the very top Ugandan law firms (tied with 1 other for top, or tied with 3 others for top, or tied with 4 others for top, according to three sources). This current discussion is fine. I appreciate that editor Piotrus offers above that "yes, I can leave the third-world law firms for a while, systemic bias and all that". In the Wikipedia coverage of third-world nations' law firms, I see under-coverage or no coverage as the problem, and backing off a bit about deleting all of any nation's coverage is necessary as I argue above, and appreciated. Also about Piotrus turning attention to wp:ADMASQ (Ads masquerading as articles, or also known as wp:ARTSPAM, Articles that are merely SPAM) of U.S. law firms, that's fine by me. Fred Bauder's point is undoubtably true, for Colorado firms or for U.S. firms in general. What's needed, probably, is subdivision of the Notability of law firms topic into what I covered above about under-covered areas, vs. topic of over-covered areas. Perhaps tabulating the ratio of population of area vs. law firms in that area having wikipedia articles, for major categories of law firm articles, would provide some useful guidance. Seriously, do let's do some tabulating and make some rough calculations. --doncram 04:46, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

Rough look at $GDP per law firm

Credit due: $GDP data by nation table here was copied from Wikipedia List of countries by GDP (nominal), then adapted. The $GDP values are 2015 per World Monetary Fund. Note U.S. states' GDP is available at List of U.S. states by GDP.

Note there are 40 countries in Category:Law firms by country.

This is a rough draft...

Note: Formulas for counts of articles in category not working properly yet, except for areas where there are no sub-categories. (Technical question: A PAGESINCATEGORY formula like 938 can report the number of articles in a simple category having no sub-categories; is there a formula that reports the number at or beneath a given category? It doesn't matter to me if the count is perfect or not, like if there is a list-article or two, or a few firms show up in more than one subcategory. But if there's a way to get unduplicated counts of firms under a big category, that would be great. --doncram 05:33, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

Rank	Country/Region	GDP (Millions of US$)	Count in category**	Category	$GDP / law firm
	World	77,301,958
9999999	European Union	18,495,349
1	United States	17,418,925	58	Category:Law firms of the United States
2	China	10,380,380
3	Japan	4,616,335	13	Category:Law firms of Japan
4	Germany	3,859,547	8	Category:Law firms of Germany
5	United Kingdom	2,945,146	93	Category:Law firms of the United Kingdom
6	France	2,846,889	5	Category:Law firms of France
7	Brazil	2,353,025	0	Category:Law firms of Brazil
8	Italy	2,129,276	1	Category:Law firms of Italy
9	India	2,049,501	10	Category:Law firms of India
10	Russia	1,857,461	0	Category:Law firms of Russia
11	Canada	1,788,717	24	Category:Law firms of Canada
12	Australia	1,444,189	25	Category:Law firms of Australia
13	South Korea	1,416,949	4	Category:Law firms of South Korea
14	Spain	1,406,855	3	Category:Law firms of Spain
15	Mexico	1,282,725	0	Category:Law firms of Mexico
16	Netherlands	880,394	7	Category:Law firms of the Netherlands
17	Indonesia	856,066	0	Category:Law firms of Indonesia
18	Turkey	813,316	0	Category:Law firms of Turkey
19	Saudi Arabia	777,870	0	Category:Law firms of Saudi Arabia
20	Switzerland	679,028	1	Category:Law firms of Switzerland
21	Nigeria	594,257	1	Category:Law firms of Nigeria
22	Sweden	559,113	2	Category:Law firms of Sweden
23	Poland	552.230	0	Category:Law firms of Poland
24	Argentina	536,155	1	Category:Law firms of Argentina
25	Belgium	527,810	1	Category:Law firms of Belgium
26	Norway	511,602	3	Category:Law firms of Norway
9999999	Taiwan	505,452
27	Austria	436,069	0	Category:Law firms of Austria
28	United Arab Emirates	402,340
29	Thailand	387,253	2	Category:Law firms of Thailand
30	Colombia	378,415	0	Category:Law firms of Colombia
31	Iran	367,098
32	South Africa	350,800	12	Category:Law firms of South Africa
33	Denmark	330,614	4	Category:Law firms of Denmark
34	Malaysia	313,158	0	Category:Law firms of Malaysia
35	Singapore	297,941	14	Category:Law firms of Singapore
36	Israel	290,643	11	Category:Law firms of Israel
37	Chile	276,971
9999999	Hong Kong	274,027	5	Category:Law firms of Hong Kong
38	Philippines	272,067
39	Egypt	271,427	2	Category:Law firms of Egypt
40	Finland	267,412	4	Category:Law firms of Finland
41	Greece	241,796
42	Pakistan	232,757
43	Ireland	232,150
44	Kazakhstan	231,876
45	Iraq	229,327
46	Venezuela	227,175
47	Portugal	220,062	1	Category:Law firms of Portugal
48	Algeria	212.453
49	Qatar	202,450
50	Peru	202,416
51	Czech Republic	198,450
52	Romania	188,893
53	New Zealand	181,574	9	Category:Law firms of New Zealand
54	Ukraine	178,313	1	Category:Law firms of Ukraine
55	Kuwait	175,787
56	Vietnam	170,565
57	Bangladesh	161,763
58	Hungary	132,260
59	Angola	124.178
60	Morocco	112.552
61	Slovakia	95,805
62	Ecuador	93,746
63	Oman	77,116
64	Azerbaijan	73,537
65	Syria	71,998
66	Belarus	71,710
67	Sudan	66,748
68	Sri Lanka	66,722
69	Libya	65,516
70	Dominican Republic	61,256
71	Luxembourg	60,402
72	Croatia	57,371
73	Uzbekistan	56,805
74	Burma	56,759
75	Uruguay	55,708
76	Kenya	54,993
77	Guatemala	53,797
78	Bulgaria	53,046
79	Costa Rica	49,621
80	Slovenia	48,005
81	Ghana	47,830
82	Tunisia	46,995
83	Lithuania	46,507
84	Ethiopia	45,999
85	Lebanon	45,019
86	Serbia	42,492
87	Turkmenistan	40,826
88	Panama	40,467
89	Yemen	40,415
90	Jordan	33,858
91	Tanzania	33,285
92	Bahrain	32,791	1	Category:Law firms of Bahrain
93	Côte d'Ivoire	32,061
94	Latvia	30,953
95	Bolivia	30,824
96	Congo, Democratic Republic of the	29,896
97	Cameroon	29,267
98	Paraguay	29,051
99	Trinidad and Tobago	27,719
100	Zambia	26,831
101	Estonia	24,888
102	El Salvador	24,259
103	Uganda	22,926	8	Category:Law firms of Uganda
104	Cyprus	21,919	2	Category:Law firms of Cyprus
105	Afghanistan	21,706
106	Nepal	19,341
107	Gabon	19,228
108	Honduras	18,813
109	Bosnia and Herzegovina	17,828
110	Brunei	16,214
111	Georgia	16,162
112	Papua New Guinea	15,973
113	Cambodia	15,659
114	Equatorial Guinea	15,574
115	Mozambique	15,329
116	Senegal	15,154
117	Botswana	14,837
118	Iceland	14,656
119	Jamaica	14,288
120	Congo, Republic of the	13,781
121	South Sudan	13,734
122	Chad	13,411
123	Zimbabwe
124	Albania	12,724
125	Namibia	12,318
126	Burkina Faso	12,247
127	Mauritius	11,930
128	Mongolia	11,516
129	Nicaragua	11,272
130	Madagascar	11,210
131	Mali	11,070
132	Armenia	10,431
133	Macedonia, Republic of	10,238
134	Laos	10,002
135	Malta	9,545
136	Tajikistan	8,497
137	Haiti	8,458
138	Bahamas, The	8,367
139	Benin	8,310
140	Moldova	7,935
141	Rwanda	7,431
142	Niger	7,359
143	Kyrgyzstan	7,225
144	Kosovo	6,827
145	Guinea	6,282
146	Timor-Leste	6,147
147	Suriname	5,057
148	Sierra Leone	4,788
149	Montenegro	4,377
150	Togo	4,360
151	Barbados	4,284
152	Mauritania	4,187
153	Fiji	4,037
154	Malawi	3,814
155	Swaziland	3,620
156	Eritrea	3,444
157	Guyana	2,970
158	Burundi	2,723
159	Lesotho	2,276
159	Maldives	2,276
161	Bhutan	1,985
162	Liberia	1,933
163	Cape Verde	1,920
164	San Marino	1,802
165	Belize	1,604
166	Central African Republic	1,538
167	Djibouti	1,457
168	Seychelles	1,398
169	Saint Lucia	1,317
170	Antigua and Barbuda	1,201
171	Solomon Islands	1,097
172	Gambia, The	850
173	Guinea-Bissau	845
174	Vanuatu	821
175	Grenada	814
176	Saint Kitts and Nevis	767
177	Saint Vincent and the Grenadines	720
178	Samoa	705
179	Comoros	652
180	Dominica	498
181	Tonga	477
182	Federated States of Micronesia	333
183	São Tomé and Príncipe	308
184	Palau	246
185	Marshall Islands	175
186	Kiribati	172
187	Tuvalu	38

Peter Cazalet

I'm working up an article on Peter Cazalet (racehorse trainer), Although he is not of interest to this WikiProject, his son Edward Cazalet became a barrister and High Court judge. Therefore members of this WP may be able to fill in a few details about Peter Cazalet. Assistance in this matter is sought. Mjroots (talk) 10:32, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

Proposal to split Law school in the United States

I propose to split Law school in the United States into two articles, one focusing on the conduct of legal education, and the other containing material on Post-law school employment in the United States. I propose this because I believe that the primary concern of an article on law school in the United States should be law school itself, and not what happens after a student completes their time there.

I also find it odd that the section on "Post-law school employment" comes even before the section on Admission (I have never known anyone to pursue post-law school employment prior to being admitted to law school), and because at least some of this information is duplicated in a later section of the article, at Employment statistics and salary information. As it stands, the post-law school section seem to dominate the article, and clearly have more than enough material to support a freestanding article. The current focus on post-law school employment is also directed to a narrow point in history (from the article it seems to begin in 2009, although post-law school employment is something that has existed for as long as law schools have existed), and to a narrow point in the post-law school experience (the first few months or years after graduation, with no attention to whether graduates are employed in a legal field, say, five, ten, or twenty years out).

I also think a reader coming to an article on Law school in the United States is first and foremost going to want to know what a law school is and how it works (in terms of admissions, curricula, grading, and other elements of how one goes through law school). From an encyclopedic perspective, we should also be presenting more prominently information on the historical development of the features generally found in law schools, all of which is more relevant to an article on law schools than information about what happens after law school. bd2412 T 21:22, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

This seems like a minor problem with a particular article that is easily solved by a reorganization of the sections. Int21h (talk) 10:00, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

Resources to show notability

Being outside the legal profession, I need some guidance or help please. There is a proposal to delete Satvinder S. Juss, and I am struggling to evaluate him against the notability criteria. Google Books shows him as the author of a significant number of books, but how can I determine how much impact those books have had on the legal profession? Are there secondary sources that would indicate this? Or a "Who's Who in the Law", or any other resource you could recommend? Of course, if anybody cares to contribute to the AfD discussion directly, please do so at Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Satvinder_S._Juss. --Gronk Oz (talk) 13:37, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

Notability of law firms

Are law firms within the scope of this project? Are there any specific notability guidelines to supplement Wikipedia:Notability (organizations and companies)? Would, say, rankings in the likes of Chambers & Partners or Legal 500 be relevant? The specific case I am thinking of is the Denver law firm, Davis Graham & Stubbs. Ferma (talk) 18:47, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

Do you think there's a need for anything more specific than the notability guidelines for organizations/companies generally? postdlf (talk) 18:58, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

Yes it's within our jurisdiction (pun intended), but like Postdlf says WP:ORG and WP:GNG is applicable here. GiantSnowman 18:59, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

@Postdlf: Yes. See discussion above. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:52, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

Rankings in law directories needs to be evaluated by someone familiar with how they work. I remember getting invitations from these and, in some cases, I think the listing depends on what the firm submits or even how much money they pay. I note some are red-linked above. As noted in the discussion above, some expertise in how reliable they are would be welcome. Just being a big firm, I think, might not be that notable. A great firm does great things and there will be sources. User:Fred Bauder Talk 09:06, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

Well, there seems to have been a spate of summary deletions of obviously notable law firms recently, such as Bae, Kim & Lee, Gleiss Lutz, and Cuatrecasas. These are among the largest law firms in South Korea, Germany and Spain, respectively, and are often high in the rankings published by independent bodies like the two I mentioned above (each of which do their own interviews of clients to produce their rankings, albeit based on law firm submissions, but they do not do "pay to play"). For direct comparisons, see Yulchon, Hengeler Mueller, and Garrigues. Gleiss Lutz and Cuatrasas are among the largest European law firms outside the UK - see List of largest European law firms (excluding UK) (2012)

I think these deletions are just plain wrong. Compare the recent AFDs for Yulchon, and the even more clear result for Advokatfirman Vinge.

No doubt there may be unduly promotional material in this sort of article, like any other article about a commercial organisation or product, but that is a reason to improve them and make them more neutral, not a reason to delete them. Ferma (talk) 18:23, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

Proposed US Constitution WikiProject

Hi everybody! There is currently a proposed WikiProject called WikiProject: United States Constitution, which would focus on article related to the United States constitution. If you want to support the creation of the group, visit Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals/United States Constitution. Thank you! CookieMonster755 (talk) 05:19, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

Clarifying a nonsense sentence

At Contractual term#Terms implied in law we have the following sentence:

• Wong Mee Wan v Kwan Kin Travel Services Ltd. established that when a tour operator contracts to for the sale of goods.

This sentence is missing a main verb, making it totally senseless. I have no idea what it's supposed to mean. Can someone who has some knowledge of the topic clean it up please? Hairy Dude (talk) 23:42, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

Never mind. I dug through the article's history and found it'd been copied over from Contract way back in 2007, which had previously lost a big chunk of text due to some vandalism no one ever reverted. Here's the offending edit. I'll reinstate it and maybe someone can check the resulting text is OK. Hairy Dude (talk) 23:54, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

Menominee Tribe v. United States nominated for TFA

Menominee Tribe v. United States has been nominated for Today's Featured Articles, if interested, please visit and register your support or opposition to the nomination. GregJackP Boomer! 17:45, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Peer review request

Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock has been submitted for peer review in preparation for a run at featured article. If you are interested, please go the the peer review page and help out. Thanks, GregJackP Boomer! 19:05, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

Category:Judicial branch of the United States government

Hi,

Is Category:Judicial branch of the United States government about the federal judiciary only, or also about state judiciaries? It is a subcategory of United States federal law but Category:Courts in the United States‎ and Category:State judiciaries in the United States are subcategories of Category:Judicial branch of the United States government.

Perhaps we should make clearer what meaning (legal or geographical) of "United States" in a category name or article title: e.g. replace it with "federal ... United states" (for federal US law) or "in the United States" (for all legal or political "American" topics) ?

Apokrif (talk) 19:11, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

This keeps coming up and I've never gotten a straight answer. The GNIS system (the successor to the FIPS system) recognizes this fundamental difference between "civil" identifiers and "populated place" identifiers. I think thus far we have de facto been treating them as legal (civil) IDs, in the context of political topics. But our article structures are flexible enough to consider inherently related topics, e.g., subnational and subordinate entities, to be fair game for inclusion in an article. Categories' simplistic tree structure's parent-child relationship is not explicitly defined and AFAIK follows the scheme used in the articles, so to any extent that the category structure deviates from the article structure, it needs to be corrected.

For other countries, such as Iraq, I have used a "federal ... of Iraq" scheme and redirected the ambiguous phrase to it. But just because. :/ I don't know if Iraq's provencial judiciaries are considered separate. Some countries have a unified judiciary at a national level while having de jure autonomous states, like Russia. Other countries like Germany I'm even less sure about. So it's not as if we can look to other countries for guidance.

I have also chosen to interpret, as a rule, "of" to refer to the political entity, and "in" to refer to the geographic area. Given that most state judiciaries seem to be unified at least in theory, a single article for each state should suffice.

The "Courts in" category, and it's related articles, are a relic and should eventually be merged with the "Judiciary of" articles, mostly because the "Courts in" articles' simplistic nested list just plain misinforms on the relationship between courts. (For example, court heirarchies of the Judiciary of New York are not accurately reflected in the Courts in New York article, neither in respect to appeal procedure nor in administrative divisions, nor could it be with such a simple mechanism.) But we've not enough knowledge of our governments to supplant such a simplistic and retarded analysis, so thus they stay. Int21h (talk) 01:58, 5 May 2015 (UTC) Int21h (talk) 02:09, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

I should also note the problem is, IMO, when using the "in" style, we cannot limit the subject matter to the proper political entity as a rule, e.g., when the article has become so massive to become unreadable. And if we use that style at one level, should we not standardize across the board, and if so, would for example "Courts in New York" include, as a rule, those federal and international courts within those geographic boundaries, e.g., those courts whose jurisdiction could conceivably cover the teritory? (Be truly NPOV and that becomes a massive list.) Would that not become too uncontrollably massive? For that I am against that course. Int21h (talk) 02:28, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

"Courts in New York" would rather literally mean: courts located in New York, whatever their jurisdiction: there could be e.g. UN courts or tribunals in this city, or even a court which has jurisdiction overs countries which have no obvious links with the USA (as is the case for the Iran–United States Claims Tribunal in the Netherlands). Apokrif (talk) 14:15, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

Free access to HeinOnline

The Wikipedia Library has just launched a partnership with HeinOnline to offer Wikipedians free access to this archive of legal periodicals. Please sign up for one of the 25 free accounts at WP:HeinOnline. Nikkimaria (talk) 22:40, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

What a poor partnership to promote. That means, at a maximum, there will be an additional 25 Wikipedians that can do basic research, which practically few can verify.

In addition, I am of the opinion that HeinOnline subtemplate (of {{Subscription needed}}) should be purged from Wikipedia until such time as Hein can get their act together and provide DOI identifiers, or at least unique identifier strings like JSTOR, and thus be included in the citation templates. They are obviously smart enough to do so, especially given their apparent courting of (or at least an informed consciousness of) the Wikipedia community, so I assume they are doing it on purpose, and for that they should be expect to be given especially low visibility--not more, special visibility than other online document repositories via this Subscription needed template.

Thank you for bringing this to my attention. Int21h (talk) 01:08, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

I think 25 Wikipedians with access is better than none, and if the pilot program is successful it could be expanded in future. But I agree DOIs or identifiers would be helpful. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:09, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

AfC submission

Hello there! What do you reckon about this recent submission? Draft:Unreasonable Search and Seizure in New Zealand. Regards, FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 23:04, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

Another list of cases (and topics)

There are redlinks from a soon-to-be-deleted userspace list of law school textbook cases and topics (the page in question violates copyright by copying entire TOCs, but this assorted list does not). Cheers! bd2412 T 15:00, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

1. Alberts v. California
2. Allied Structural Steel Co. v. Spannaus
3. Associated Press v. Walker
4. Bridges v. California
5. Commonwealth v. Davis, aff'd sub nom. Davis v. Massachusetts
6. Corporation of Presiding Bishop of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints v. Amos
7. Erznoznik v. Jacksonville
8. Globe Newspaper Co. v. Superior Court
9. Gooding v. Wilson
10. International Society for Krishna Consciousness v. Lee
11. Kovacs v. Cooper
12. Lehman v. City of Shaker Heights
13. Lugar v. Edmondson Oil Co.
14. Madisonian Republicanism
15. Maher v. Roe
16. Moose Lodge No. 107 v. Irvis
17. Perry Educators' Association v. Perry Local Educators' Association
18. Planned Parenthood v. American Coalition of Life Activists
19. Police Department of Chicago v. Mosley
20. Public Utilities Commission v. Pollak
21. Rendell-Baker v. Kohn
22. Richmond Newspapers v. Virginia
23. Sable Communications, Inc. v. FCC
24. Shaffer v. United States
25. Southeastern Promotions v. Conrad
26. State v. Post
27. Thompson v. Western States Medical Center
28. United States Trust Co. v. New Jersey
29. United States v. Washington Post Co.

Move discussion Law project editors might be interested in

Law WikiProject editors might be interested in taking a part in this move discussion. ― Padenton|✉   22:48, 5 May 2015 (UTC)