Creative Use of a Blog in a Law School Course

Law professors contemplating the use of blogs
in their courses may want to check out Peter
Friedman's What is Fair Use?, a blog he created for
his legal analysis and writing class at Case Western.
Friedman assigns students a legal problem that’s used
in their writing assignments. Students use the blog
to address their arguments about whether the song
“K Cera Cera” by the band KLF infringed on “Whatever
Will Be, Will Be (Que Sera, Sera),” a tune made famous
by Doris Day. The blog discussion includes links to relevant
copyright web sites, to music files and even videos.

In an article about the blog in the April 29 issue of the
Chronicle of Higher Education, Friedman states:
"Of all the things I’ve tried, the blog has been the most
successful in promoting discussion...it’s certainly especially
suited to fair-use discussions, since we can post videos.”

Hat tip to the Adjunct Faculty Blog.

Lawyer2Lawyer Podcast: Too Many Law Schools?

I've recently been blogging about the spat of new law schools
in the works (here, here and here). Robert Ambrogi and J. Craig
Williams discuss the topic this week on the legal-affairs podcast
Lawyer2Lawyer. The guests are Erwin Chemerinsky, founding
dean of the Donald Bren School of Law at UC Irvine, and
Thomas F. Guernsey, president and dean of Albany Law School.

You can download or listen to the show at this page. Keep up to date
with all Lawyer2Lawyer programs by subscribing via RSS or
using iTunes.

Ten New Law Schools in the Works?

The National Law Journal (6/2/2008) reports
that as many as ten new law schools are
in the works, most of them in the Northeast.

In addition to three proposed law schools for New York
State, writer Leigh Jones reports on plans to build law
schools in Connecticut, Maine, Pennsylvania and elsewhere.

Jones looks at the concerns raised by some law school
administrators, legal educators and faculty about the
impact of this deluge of law schools on existing
law schools and on the legal job market.

New Search Service for United Nations Data

UNdata is a new search service from the United Nations
Statistics Division of the Department of Economic and Social
Affairs. The service provides access to statistics and datasets
of the UN System. A complete list of Data Sources may be found
on the web site.

The UNdata Wiki supports the search service by providing
details about UNdata's sources, links to the sources' home pages
and databases, contact links, descriptions of the methodology used,
and glossaries of terms, when available.

Thanks to Joe Hodnicki at the Law Librarian Blog for the tip.

Proximity Searching in HeinOnline

Online legal researchers are familiar with the
use of proximity connectors in Westlaw and Lexis
searches. For example, the search "statement /20
spontaneous involuntary" seeks results where the
term "statement" appears within 20 words of
either the term "spontaneous" or the term
"involuntary." Did you know that you can use
proximity connectors in HeinOnline, too?

The most recent HeinOnline Tip of the Week
explains how to use proximity searching in
HeinOnline databases (in the Advanced or
Quick Search options.) The web site
tutorial is detailed and complete. Here's a
quick summary of how proximity searches work:

When you construct a proximity search, insert
the terms in quotations, close the query with the tilde
symbol, ~, and specify the distance between terms.

Example: To locate law review articles where the
terms "proportionality" and "balancing" appear within
5 words of each other in the text, use this search:

text:"proportionality balancing"~5

New Foreign, Comparative and Int'l Law Research Articles on GlobaLex

Here is a list of new and updated legal research
articles from GlobaLex (NYU);

Introduction to Public International Law Research
(Vicenç Feliú)

Transitional Justice in Africa: The Experience with Truth
Commissions (Charles Manga Fombad)

Alternative Dispute Resolution in Pakistan
(Salman Ravala)

Researching Haitian Law
(Marisol Florén-Romero)

Republic of Mozambique – Legal System and Research
(Paula Rainha)

Updated Research Guides

À la Recherche des Travaux Préparatoires: An Approach to
Researching the Drafting History of International Agreements
(Jonathan Pratter)

A Research Guide to the Argentine Legal System
(Dr.Gisela Monge Roffarello, Emilse Monge Roffarello,
Dr. Ezequiel Trajtenberg and Prof. Eng. Julio O. Trajtenberg)

Vietnam Legal Research
(Anh Luu)

The NY Times Weighs in on SSRN

In Now Professors Get Their Star Rankings, Too
(New York Times, June 9, 2008), Noam Cohen
remarks on the significance of Social Science
Research Network (SSRN) rankings of
downloads from its popular open access
academic site. Says Cohen, "The research network
raises ...big questions about what is lost and what is
gained by removing the barriers to being heard in the
public square," asking, "Is it good that research that has
not been reviewed by peers can be found so easily and looks
just the same as gold-star approved work?"

The article includes the comments of SSRN founders and law
professors on the value of access to scholarship sans
'gatekeepers.'


Hat tip to Marie S. Newman's post on the
topic at Out of the Jungle.

Harvard Launches Peer Reviewed, Open Access Law Journal

From the Journal of Legal Analysis home page:

"The Journal of Legal Analysis is now accepting submissions.
Tentatively scheduled to begin publication in the Fall of 2008,
the JLA aspires to publish the best of legal scholarship. The JLA
welcomes social scientific research, but will not limit itself to such
work. Instead, the journal will publish law-related articles from
all disciplinary perspectives. JLA will be faculty-edited and refereed,
and published by the Harvard University Press. It will be available
free of charge on the web; hard copies will be available for purchase
on demand."

Tips for Creating Safer Online Passwords

The Google Blog (6/4/2008) offers some useful tips for
creating secure online passwords.