BarclayBlog

Law Library announcements, legal research updates from around the world, new and interesting research resources and web sites of interest to the faculty at the Syracuse University College of Law. Note: For easy navigation, right click on hyperlinks to open links in a new window.

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Gender Differences in the Legal Profession

Law.com's Legal Blog Watch (May 22, 2008) reports
on several recent articles about gender differences in
the legal profession.

The blog post cites a recent article on Bloomberg.com
that "reports that male lawyers in the U.K. earn $38,000
-- or 32 percent -- more than female lawyers...[and]
U.K. female lawyers hold about 43 percent of practicing
certificates, but they hit a glass ceiling when it comes to
higher paying partnerships."

The review also discusses an article in the Las Vegas Review Journal
on lawyers' perception of male and female judges' courteousness.
"In a survey of 378 lawyers conducted by the Review-Journal,
male judges in Clark County, Nev., outscored female judges on
courtesy. In fact, even the highest-ranked female judge still had
lower courtesy scores than all but two men."

Amnesty International Releases 2008 Report

Amnesty International has released its 2008
report on the state of the world's human rights.
The report, which is searchable on the AI web site,
is organized by country, region, global themes, human rights
treaties, and "facts and figures." The report may
also be downloaded free of charge from the web site.

Watch a Video About Global Legal Information Institutes

Most legal researchers are familiar with the
Legal Information Institute resources at Cornell Law
School, but did you know that there are 14 Legal Information
Institutes worldwide?

Tom Bruce (Director of the LII) has posted three
short videos on UTube about these valuable online
research tools of interest to researchers in foreign,
international and comparative law. (For best results,
select "watch in high quality.")

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

U. of Michigan Document Center's "Elections 2008"

The University of Michigan Document Center's
Elections 2008 web site is a comprehensive portal
to election information. The site offers links to
Internet sites covering election history and background
information; presidential congressional, and state candidates;
elections and voting; policy issues; news sites; statistics,
and sources for academic research on election topics.

Teaching Support for Law Faculty - Center for Engaged Learning in the Law

The mission of the Center for Engaged Learning in the Law
blog, authored by several law professors and hosted at Elon
University, "is intended to contribute to the discourse on
teaching and learning in law, from the inspirational
to the whimsical, to the mechanical. It includes the varying
perspectives of teachers, administrators, learners and
practicioners [sic]."

Content is organized under the following headings:
advice (for newer teachers, adjuncts, 1Ls, etc.);
inspiration (descriptions of teaching, learning and law
practice); prescriptions for improving legal education
mechanics (how to...); and, innovation (good, bad and
ugly ideas).

Recent posts include:

Exam Review Jeopardy
Catching Preconceptions About Students
Improving Learning by Listening to Students

More Gadgets for Legal Pros

Brett Burney (LLRX, 5/12/2008) has come out with his
latest article on tech gadgets for legal professionals.
Featured are a Ergotech "Convertible" Monitor Arm
(which Burney says can easily handle two monitors
at a time) and the Canary Wireless Digital Hotspotter,
an ueber-spotter that identifies the the name of the
wireless network, the signal strength, the type of the
network, the channel number, and whether the wireless
network is open or secured.

Friday, May 02, 2008

HeinOnline Adds Feature: "Run This Search in Other Collections"

HeinOnline has added a feature that allows researchers
to run their search in other HeinOnline collections from
the original search results screen. For example, you
could run a search on child labor laws in China in the
International and Non-U.S. Law Journals database,
then click on the "Run This Search in Other
Collections" link from the results screen to automatically
run the same search in the Foreign & International Law
Resources Database.

Listen to the U. of Chicago's Conference on Torture, Law, and War

On February 29 and March 1, the University of Chicago
Law School's Law and Philosophy Workshop (with the
assistance of the Center for Comparative Constitutionalism)
sponsored a conference on Torture, Law and War. The conference
"looked at the central question from the perspective of a wide
range of fields, from law and public policy to psychology and history."
Speakers included scholars from a dozen universities as well
as Chicago's Adam Samaha, Susan Bandes, Richard McAdams,
Martha Nussbaum, Geoffrey Stone, Scott Anderson, and Eric Posner."

You can view the agenda and listen to (or download) the conference
sessions at the conference web page, here.