An Overview Of The Maryland Legislative Session

Published by the Department of Legislative Services, the 90 Day Report for the '07 legislative session provides a "discussion of the majority of bills passed in [a particular] policy area, including comparisons with previous sessions and current law, background information, and a discussion of significant bills that did not pass." The report is organized into 12 parts, each dealing with a major area of policy.

Finding Environmental Problem Sites

If you're interested in finding Maryland (or any state, for that matter) sites which may have been cited for enviornmental violations, your best bet is a number of databases from the EPA. The EPA's Superfund Program designates specific sites around the country as being contaminated with hazardous waste. Included in the Superfund Program are National Priorities List--"a list of national priorities among the known releases or threatened releases of hazardous substances, pollutants, or contaminants throughout the US." To see the National Priorities List for a paricular state, see this page; to search the NPL database, click here. You can also search ECHO (Enforcement and Compliance History Online), a database that provides access to compliance and enforcement information for approximately 800,000 EPA-regulated facilities. To search ECHO click here. You can search by zip-code or city and state (eg., "Baltimore, MD"). In addition to EPA data, certain state environmental agencies (Maryland not among them) also provide access to compliance and enforcement data.

An Overview of The Maryland Judicial System

A couple of years ago, I created a document entitled "Going To Court In Maryland" while working as an intern at the Maryland State Law Library. It took us a while to get the document reviewed, edited, and formatted for the web, but we finally got it up. Although intended for individuals unfamiliar with the judicial system (all legal terms are linked to their explanations), others (particularly legal practitioners from other states) may find it useful as a quick means for finding basic info about the Maryland Judiciary.

New Maryland Law Blogs

A number of Maryland legal blogs have sprung up in the past year or so. If you haven't heard of these sites, you may be interested in checking out the following: Maryland Employment Law, Maryland Accident Law blog, Maryland Injury Lawyer blog, and the Maryland Family Law blog. Each of these blogs appear to provide substantive content in a clear, understandable format. If anyone knows of other Maryland law blogs, please leave a comment.