My First CALI Lesson, and other new lessons

My first CALI lesson, "Where Does Law Come From?" is now available on CALI. It is categorized under Legal Research and Legal Writing on the First Year subject list, and under Legal Concepts and Skills on the Second & Third Year list.

I originally wrote the lesson for learnthelaw.org, CALI's resource for pre-laws. You can run "Where Does Law Come From?" for free at http://www.learnthelaw.org/lessons/lcs04/. Thanks to Austin Groothuis, at CALI's Pre-Law Blog, and Deb Quentel at CALI for all their help.

CALI also has four new Family Law lessons this month, and there are more to come. See the newest lessons here.

Marvin Is Law Dog of the Week

This week's SIU Law Dog is Marvin, who belongs to Allison Coffeen, a first-year student here.

To see photos of all previous Law Dogs of the Week, visit our Gallery of SIU Law Dogs, which you can find under Related Links in the sidebar. See our Call for Photos for instructions on submitting your SIU Law Dog photo.

Law for the Layperson, redux

Amber and I finally received our copies of our book, Law for the Layperson: An Annotated Bibliography of Self-help Law Books. Here's a photo—isn't it beautiful?

Rocco Is Law Dog of the Week

This week's SIU Law Dog is Rocco—AKA “Little Filthy”—who belongs to Laura Stolpman, Class of 2000. Rocco is half pug, half chihuahua (a Chug).

To see photos of all previous Law Dogs of the Week, visit our Gallery of SIU Law Dogs, which you can find under Related Links in the sidebar. See our Call for Photos for instructions on submitting your SIU Law Dog photo.

LexisNexis Discontinues West Headnote Coverage in Shepard's Citations

LexisNexis has announced that, as of September 1, 2006, it no longer provides coverage of West headnotes for most case law in Shepard's Citations. See "New Enhancements" section of the current LexisNexis Info Pro for Legal Information Professionals. LexisNexis also began removing "historic headnote analysis" from Shepard's Citations on September 1, 2006. The company cites the steady decline of print subscriptions to Shepard's and states that "we can no longer justify the resources required to keep up the labor-intensive process of performing analysis for headnotes that we do not have online."

This announcement comes one year after a September 2005 LexisNexis news release stating that "LexisNexis will continue to provide headnote analysis for West's reporters. Furthermore, no existing headnote analysis has been removed from any Shepard's product." This news release had been posted in response to questions and concerns raised at the time about the rumored possible elimination of West headnote coverage in Shepard's Citations.

Online Legal Research Trends: 2006 ABA Legal Technology Resource Center Report

How often are attorneys today using online research databases vs. print sources? Are LexisNexis and Westlaw still the "go-to" sources, or are free online sources taking over? The 2006 ABA Legal Technology Resource Center Trends Report, "Online Research" (download free to ABA members) assesses these and other research question results.

For example, Coleen M. Barger, Associate Professor of Law, UALR Bowen School of Law, reports via the Legal Writing Professor Blog that "Forty-two percent tend to start their research projects using "fee-based resources" (I assume this refers to Westlaw, LEXIS), 25% use a "legal-specific search engine" (probably Findlaw or something like it), and 24% use a general search engine (the Googlers!)."

Roman Is Law Dog of the Week

This week's SIU Law Dog is Roman, who belongs to Steve Krake. Roman is almost 3 years old and very smart. Click on Roman's photo for more photos. Roman's brother Walker will appear here next month.

To see photos of all previous Law Dogs of the Week, visit our Gallery of SIU Law Dogs, which you can find under Related Links in the sidebar. See our Call for Photos for instructions on submitting your SIU Law Dog photo.

Podcasts Now Available on Supreme Court Blog

The venerable SCOTUSblog, which focuses exclusively on the doings of the Supreme Court of the United States, has just introduced a new feature: podcasts. According to the Aug. 25, 2006 post announcing the podcasts, "Every week or two, we will record and post a 5-7 minute segment on a topic that seems amenable to a recording. A principal use of podcasts will be to have guests appear on the blog." In the initial effort, contributor Tom Goldstein gives an "overview of the factors that the Justices consider in granting cert."

To access the podcasts, Goldstein indicates that: "You can subscribe to the podcast in iTunes from this link, or, if you have other podcasting or RSS software, you can subscribe to our feed directly here. Alternatively, the premiere episode is available for download as a stand-alone mp3 here."

SOURCE: Robert Ambrogi's Lawsites

New Report on Electronic Voting Machines

According to an Aug. 28, 2006 press release from the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law, the Center has "released a report and policy proposals, concluding that two of the most commonly purchased electronic voting systems today are better at recording voter intentions than older systems like the punchcard system used in Florida in 2000. At the same time the report faulted one electronic voting system under consideration in New York and in use in parts of New Jersey, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Arkansas, Indiana, Louisiana, Kentucky and Tennessee that continues to unduly hamper voters’ ability to easily and accurately cast a ballot for their preferred candidate without undue burden, confusion and delay."

The 27-page report, titled "The Machinery of Democracy: Usability of Voting Systems," is available here in PDF format.

SOURCE: beSpacific

Hannah Is Law Dog of the Week

This week's SIU Law Dog is Hannah, who belongs to Deana Hammel. Hannah is a 6-year-old black lab and is very loving and eager to please. Her favorite activities are dinner at "grandma's" (favorite foods at grandma's are hamburgers, French fries, and chicken), riding anywhere in the car, and playing fetch. Click on Hannah's photo for a larger photo.

Deana is the first student from the class of 2009 to contribute to the SIU Law Dog of the Week.

To see photos of all previous Law Dogs of the Week, visit our Gallery of SIU Law Dogs, which you can find under Related Links in the sidebar. See our Call for Photos for instructions on submitting your SIU Law Dog photo.