Examples and Explanations Available Online

The popular law school study aids, Examples & Explanations, including Contracts, Federal Income Tax, Copyright, Debtor and Creditor, Evidence, Criminal Law, Property, and many others, are available online. Google has digitized the full content of many of the titles from this series. They are available on Google Books and large portions are available for free. Although the online collection does not include the most recent editions, some of the titles are as recent as 2007, 2008, or 2009.

About To Start Law School?

Summer is coming to an end and school year is about to start. The fall semester at Pace Law School starts next week when we welcome the incoming class of first year law students. Students often wonder what the experience will be like, how can they succeed, how can they survive?

Perhaps the following materials will be of assistance (all available at Pace Law Library):

Andrew J. McClurg, 1L Of a Ride: A Well-traveled Professor's Roadmap to Success in the First Year of Law School (2009).

Shana Connell Noyes & Henry S. Noyes, Acing Your First Year of Law School: The Ten Steps to Success You Won't Learn in Class (2d ed. 2008).

Eugene Volokh, Academic Legal Writing: Law Review Articles, Student Notes, Seminar Papers, and Getting on Law Review (4th ed. 2010).

Ruta K. Stropus & Charlotte D. Taylor, Bridging the Gap Between College and Law School: Strategies for Success (2d ed. 2009).

Peter T. Wendel, Deconstructing Legal Analysis: a 1L Primer (2009).

Albert J. Moore and David A Binder, Demystifying the First Year of Law School: A Guide to the 1L Experience (2010).

Austen L. Parrish, Cristina C. Knolton, Hard-nosed Advice From a Cranky Law Professor: How to Succeed in Law School (2010).

Gary A. Munneke, How to Succeed in Law School (4th ed. 2008).

Nancy B. Rapoport and Jeffrey D. Van Niel, Law School Survival Manual: From LSAT to Bar Exam (2010).

Charles H. Whitebread, The Eight Secrets of Top Exam Performance in Law School: An Easy-to-use, Step-by-step Approach for Achieving Great Grades (2d ed. 2008).

When it will be time to prepare for final exams in the end of the first semester, the library also has the following materials:

• Strategies and Tactics by Walton and Emanuel
• Strategies and Tactics by Finz
• Questions and Answers Series
• Examples and Explanations Series
• Hornbooks, Nutshells, and Understanding Series

For more assistance and additional materials, you can also view Guide to First-Year Law Students compiled by Cynthia Pittson, the Head of Reference.

Summer Access To Lexis, Loislaw, and Westlaw

Summer is approaching, so don't forget to register your Lexis and Westlaw passwords for summer access.

LexisNexis Summer Access

Students may register for LexisNexis Summer Access by requesting access to LexisNexis using their Law School Educational ID from June 1 to August 1, 2010 for academic purposes. Academic purposes include, but are not limited to:

• Class preparation and assignments
• Summer school or course work
• Research associated with moot court, law review, or law journal
• Research associated with pursuing a grant or scholarship
• Service as a paid or unpaid research assistant to a professor
• An internship, externship or clinic position for school credit or graduation requirement
• Research skill improvement, such as improving research efficiency and sharpening your area of law research skills as you prepare for practice
• Study for the Bar Exam
• NEW: Research skill improvement for education purposes. You can take any Lexis Interactive Tutorials to prepare for your summer or fall employment

Please note:

'Academic purposes' do not include research conducted for a law firm, corporation, or other entity (other than a professor or law school) that is paying the student to conduct research, or that is passing along the cost of research to a third party. These are deemed 'commercial purposes.'

Loislaw

Loislaw provides one low, all inclusive flat rate; no hidden charges for hyperlinking, downloading or printing; free training; and 24/7 technical support. Loislaw does not pose any summer access restrictions on students.

If you are not graduating this summer, click here to get the authorization code, so you can register for an account with Loislaw, if you have not already done so. The code is listed on TWEN, under Law Library on Twen - Passwords.

If you are graduating and will no longer be a student, Loislaw is also available for free through the New York State Bar Association website if you are a member.

Westlaw Summer Access

Extend your Westlaw password for the summer. Current students may use the Westlaw password for the following purposes:

• Summer law school classes
• Law review or journal work
• Project for a professor
• Moot Court
• Unpaid, nonprofit public interest internship/externship pro bono work required for graduation

Please note:

Graduating students may extend their Westlaw password for the summer for the purpose of preparing for the July bar exam. Passwords may NOT be used for research for law firms, government agencies, corporations or other purposes unrelated to law school coursework. Students graduating this academic year are not eligible. Even if student does not qualify to extend his/her Westlaw password, the password may still be used 2 hours a month in June and July.

Free and Low Cost Resources

The Pace Law Library also has a guide to free and low cost resources: Free and Low Cost Resources for Legal Research, compiled by Cynthia Pittson.

Student Debt Webinar

Via Res Ipsa Blog, a post titled Student Debt Webinar: Public Service Loan Forgiveness and Loan Repayment Assistance Programs features some details pertaining to the College Cost Reduction Access Act (CCRAA).

Equal Justice Works is presenting a number of webinars on the CCRAA. The CCRAA provides loan forgiveness for students who enter government positions, including prosecutors and public defenders, as well as public interest lawyers. The seminars provide important information on qualifying loans, loan consolidation, and managing student debt. Sign up for one of the free webinars here.

Pace Subscribes To AudioCaseFiles

AudioCaseFiles offers downloadable MP3 files of court opinions as well as streaming trial video. You can search by course to find audio and text versions of the most precedential cases in the United States, including constitutional law, criminal law and intellectual property law. Watch experienced practitioners argue cases on products liability, antitrust, mergers and acquisitions, and more.

In order to register, you must use your school provided email address. So, for all of you Pace law students, you must use your Pace law school email address. If you are interested, you can register at http://www.audiocasefiles.com/register.

AudioCaseFiles service is listed on our law library website under databases. Let us know what you think. Did you find this service useful? If so, why? If no, what should be changed? We look forward to reading your comments!

Contest For Law Students To Win $10,000

Via Legal Blog Watch, Contest Gives Law Students Shot at $10K by Robert J. Ambrogi, read about a contest for law students that gives you the chance to win $10K. All you have to do is to make a video sharing your inspiration for going to law school.

The My Inspiration contest is a repeat of last year's One Less Worry Contest. Sponsored by Access Group, a nonprofit student loan company, the contest's rules are simple: Produce a video of no more than four minutes and upload it to YouTube by July 15, 2009.

From the submitted videos, Access Group will choose 10 finalists. Starting Aug. 3, the public will be invited to vote for a winner from among the 10 finalists. One lucky and/or talented law student will win a $10,000 scholarship for law school. Up to five additional honorable mention scholarships of $1,500 each will be awarded by a panel of judges. Winners will be announced by September 1, 2009

See the full post and get yourself some extra cash towards school. Good Luck to all!

Legal Research Skills Tested On Bar Exam?

A thought provoking post at Legal Blog Watch by Carolyn Elefant Should Bar Exams Test Legal Research Skills?, is a reaction post to Joe Hodnicki post on Law Librarian Blog Should (When Will) Legal Research Skills Be Tested on bar Exam? It is obviously an involved topic, but I will try to briefly sum it up. Both sides seem to agree that strong legal research skills are important. But they disagree on the testability of legal research skills. The first question seems to be: Are legal research skills 'testable'?

One argument states that legal research skills would be hard to test because lawyers often have access to different kind of resources (electronic vs. print). Other argument says legal research skills could be easily tested because it is about the theoretical approach and knowledge of available resources rather than about having access to them. Well, what do you all think? Are legal research skills testable? And if so, should they be tested on bar exam?

JD Supra Introduced Law Centers

For those who don't know of JDSupra, take a moment to read one of our previous posts, JD Supra & Facebook. JDSupra recently introduced its Law Centers. All the donated documents are now organized into four categories by topics and areas of interest: Business Law Centers, Personal Law Centers, Government Law Centers, and Law Practice Centers.

Each section features news first, which is followed by three main sections: News and Analysis, All Documents, and Contributors. One can easily see what is new in the area of research, what new documents have been shared and posted, and who contributed them.

If you are a twitterer, the Business Law and Personal Law Centers have their own Twitter Feed that you can follow.

Summer Access to Lexis, Loislaw, and Westlaw

This post is to follow up on our previous two posts (by Cynthia) about Lexis and Westlaw summer access. This time, let's give it a summary and complete the list by adding Loislaw.

Lexis
Access to Lexis is limited beginning June 1 unless you register for summer access. Summer access is limited to academic purposes, which include:

• class preparation and assignments
• research associated with moot court or law review/law journal
• research associated with pursuing a grant or scholarship
• service as a research assistant to a professor (either paid or unpaid)
• an unpaid internship, externship or clinic position for school credit
• clerkship for credit
• bar review

Loislaw
Loislaw provides one low, all inclusive flat rate; no hidden charges for hyperlinking, downloading or printing; and free training and 24/7 technical support. Loislaw does not pose any summer access restrictions on students or non-students.

If you are not graduating this summer, as a student click here to get the authorization code, so you can register for an account with Loislaw, if you have not already done so. The password is listed on TWEN, under Law Library on Twen - Passwords.

If you are graduating and will no longer be a student, Loislaw is also available for free through the New York State Bar Association website if you are a member.


Westlaw
For those who are not graduating this summer, if you are participating in what qualifies as an educational program, you may extend your Westlaw password for the summer. Educational programs qualifies as:

• You are taking summer law school classes
• You are on law review
• You are working on a project for a professor
• You are participating in moot court
• You are doing an unpaid non-profit public interest internship/externship or pro bono work required for graduation.

Important - the following is NOT considered an educational purpose and are therefore prohibited:

• Working for law firms, government organizations, entities serving the District of Columbia, corporations, paid or for-profit internships, externships, public interest, non-graduation required pro bono
• Personal use, practice and preparation for the bar exam.

Contact us with any further questions!

Keep It 'Light' While 'Lawyering'

Via Legal Technology Blog, an article titled Nutmeg Lawyer Adds Spice to the Blawgosphere is about Adrian Baron, an attorney in New Britain, Conn., who writes rather amusing blog The Nutmeg Lawyer, a blawg discussing the trials & tribulations of law practice. Baron is a general practitioner and partner of Podorowsky, Thompson & Baron. He handles everything from criminal defense to real estate to family law and immigration. He really gets to experience the legal practice and he likes to blog about it. His blog has been highlighted by many other blawgs, including the ABA Journal Blog.

Baron says,

There are a lot of funny things going on in the legal world. I could've just as easily done a scholarly blog, but I don't want to do homework every night.

While you are in law school, try not to turn into a complete jackass. Not only will you alienate your friends and family but you will eventually alienate those you will contact in your professional life. Jackass law students often turn into jackass lawyers. They are difficult to deal with and we tend to make fun of them in courthouse backrooms and on golf course fairways.

Take a look at his blog and some of the stories he has shared and enjoy!

Get Notified About New CALI Lessons

CALI, the Center for Computer Assisted Legal Instruction is an online services that most of you might be familiar with. For those who are not, The CALI mission reads as follows:

it is a services that advances global legal education through computer technology, employs research, collaboration, and leadership to assist a diverse audience in the effective use of this technology in legal education, and promotes access to justice through the use of computer technology.

CALI offers various services among which are CALI lessons. These lessons are divided by what is recommended for First-year law students, and what is recommended for Second- and Third-year law students. Most likely, your law school subscribes and all you need is to contact your librarian to obtain the authorization code, if you already have not done so.

CALI now offers a new service - to be notified every time a new CALI lesson is added to the list. You can receive these updates via email subscription or add RSS feed to your reader, such as Google reader, or to your Outlook RSS Feeds. Stay Informed and let us know what your think!

Legal Workshop - Legal Scholarship in Lay Terms

The Legal Workshop is a website providing an online forum for legal scholarship from the top law journals in the country. If you are looking for a concise summaries of law review articles written in plain English, the Legal Workshop might be exactly what you are looking for. Current law review members are:

• Cornell Law Review
• Duke Law Journal
• Georgetown Law Journal
• New York University Law Review
• Northwestern University Law Review
• Stanford Law Review
• University of Chicago Law Review

Via Law.com,

The site aims to bring content from some of the most prestigious law reviews in the nation to a wider audience by offering condensed version of articles translated from scholarly language into plain English, and at no cost.

The New York University Law Review managing editor Matthew Lawrence who helped launch this website said:

Our goal was to provide free legal scholarship in a format accessible to laypersons.

The Legal Workshop website allows you to browse by a topic and/or a journal. You can subscribe to receive all new updates via email and/or by adding a RSS feed to your reader, such as Google Reader, or to your Outlook RSS feeds. You can also subscribe to the user-submitted comments feed.

Tips for Better Legal Writing

The (new) legal writer, once again, has an excellent post with tips and hints regarding better legal writing. This post features the current issue of Headnotes, the Dallas Bar Association's newsletter. The entire newsletter has an appellate theme and is packed with tips for appellate trial lawyers and appellate brief writers. To highlight just couple, take a look at the Questions on Quotations section on page 6, by Justice Jim Moseley, on how to effectively use quotations, or the 20 Tips for Writing Shorter Briefs on page 11, by Scott P. Stolley, on how to write your briefs shorter but still compelling. Any thoughts or comments?

Exam Time

In addition to the excellent LibGuide for First-Year Law Students (referenced in an earlier post) created by Cynthia, don't forget about the Law Library podcast, Food For Thought: Exam Prep that was created to help you prepare for the exams.
GOOD LUCK TO ALL!

Bookbag to Briefcase Podcast

On March 24, 2009 the Pace Law Library hosted Bookbag to Briefcase program that was co-sponsored by the Pace Law Library, Center for Career Development office at Pace Law School, Lexis Nexis and Westlaw. The program was a success and you missed it! But don't panic! The entire presentation was recorded. You can listen to the podcast now as it is available on the Pace Law Library Podcast site. Check it out, enjoy, and let us know what you think!

Working on Briefs?

Posted on Law is Cool on March 5, 2009. Created by one of the Law is Cool contributors.

Still Struggling With Bluebooking? Check Out the Bluebook Helpers

State Bar of Wisconsin has a post about bluebooking titled Bluebook Helpers: Tool for creating legal citation. Bonnie Schucha, the head of reference at the University of Wisconsin Law School points out the following Bluebook helpers:

CiteGenie - "Automagically copy text with correct citations from Westlaw, Lexis, and other websites."

CiteGenie is a new add-on for the Firefox web browser that automatically creates Bluebook-formatted pinpoint citations when copying from Westlaw or LexisNexis. Highlight some text from a document, right click, and choose “Copy with CiteGenie.” The text and citation are then placed in your clipboard where you can paste them into your word processor or other application.

Introduction to Basic Legal Citation by Peter W. Martin

This work first appeared in 1993. It was most recently revised in May 2007 to reflect changes appearing in the third edition of the ALWD Citation Manual, published in 2006. It is also keyed to the most recent edition of The Bluebook, published in 2005.

Cardiff Index to Legal Abbreviations

Legal abbreviations can be a puzzle to both new students and experienced professionals. This web-based service allows to search for the meaning of abbreviations for English language legal publications, from the British Isles, the Commonwealth and the United States, including those covering international and comparative law. A wide selection of major foreign language law publications is also included. Publications from over 295 jurisdictions are featured in the Index. The database mainly covers law reports and law periodicals, but some legislative publications and major textbooks are also included. The Index is still under development.

Let us know what you think and which one was your favorite? We'd love to hear your opinions.

Social Media Best Practice For Law Schools

Via WisBlawg, a post that features Social Media Law Student organization and their launch of a series called Social Media Best Practice for Law Schools, Part I, which "is the first in a series of posts about my adventures in pushing my law school to get real about social media," Laura Bergus says.

Like other law students, I was told not to blog about law school and to be careful what I posted on that evil place called Facebook. About a month into law school I started following lawyers on Twitter and reading law blogs (a.k.a blawgs). As anyone reading this already knows, participating in Twitter and commenting on blawgs is a hugely beneficial way to meet people and learn about the field. I got pretty upset with my school, and blogged about it (against their advice, of course). As with many rants, I ended up feeling guilty for whining but not offering up any solutions to the problem. So, I emailed the Assistant Dean of my school and let him know how I felt.

What are your thoughts? Share your opinions!

Mentoring Law Students On a Decline?

Legal Blog Watch has a post titled Will a Down Economy Mean the End of Mentoring? It is Carolyn Elefant's reaction to an article in the 9th issue of the Complete Lawyer. It has been common for law firms to offer summer associates positions to 2L and 3L students that potentially led to a full time employment. Students had the opportunity to be taught and mentored by practicing attorneys directly. Firms took upon a role of shaping the almost-graduates into successful attorneys. With fewer jobs and less opportunities for law students to be summer associates, what will happen to the mentoring role firms have assumed over the years? That leads to another question; how important the mentoring really is? Can older and experienced lawyers (sometimes set in their old ways) provide the sufficient guidance in the quickly changing technology based times?

So we ask you. How important this guidance really is? What are your thoughts about the existence, need, and effect of mentorship? Would you like to see such guidance as a part of the school curriculum? Or is it better to just learn on the job? Feel free to share your opinions.

Biking While Intoxicated?!

Law is Cool strikes with yet another interesting post; this time it is about biking under the influence of alcohol. The blog has previously mentioned DUIs while driving a wheelchair and a lawn mower. This time, the authors mention DUI charge when riding a bike.

Apparently, in Ohio and also in Florida, one can be charged with riding the bike under the influence. See the full post with the accompanying video here.