Help on Your Summer Job

With the end of the semester just weeks away, you may be thinking about how you can do a great job and impress your employer. Here are some tips to help you if your summer job includes legal research.

ZiefBrief, from the librarians at the University of San Francisco's Law Library, has PowerPoint slides, outline, handout, and worksheets on effective Boolean (Terms and Connectors) searching.

You can listen to Berring's Legal Research Podcast episodes to review topics that we covered in Lawyering Skills. You can also find overviews of topics that we didn't have time to cover, such as Local Laws (e.g., municipal ordinances). I recommend the episode on Legal Research Strategy, which pulls it all together for you. The podcast series supplements the Berring on Legal Research DVD set, which is on reserve in the law library at DVD 0024.

A good place to begin your research is in secondary sources, which can give you background and context for your topic as well as citations to primary authorities such as cases, statutes, and regulations. In Lawyering Skills we used legal dictionaries, encyclopedia, treatises, ALRs, and legal periodicals. Ask the lawyer who gives you an assignment for recommendations on where to start. If your employer has a law library, the librarian will also be happy to make a recommendation.

DavidMaister.com has podcast series on Career Development for professionals. The episode on Managing Your Boss begins with a discussion about how to receive assignments and an 11-point checklist to help you clarify each assignment and do what your boss expects. Even if you don't have time for the entire podcast, the first six minutes are worth a listen.

Evan Schaeffer, at the Illinois Trial Practice Weblog, provides the view from "the other end of the transaction" in Giving Legal Research Assignments to Others. He offers a helpful list of types of information that should be given with research assignments. If your boss forgets to give you information that would help you do the research, ask questions.

The SIU Law Library has research guides and links to recommended websites. You will have summer access to most of the electronic resources to which the law library subscribes if you connect with the Law VPN, so don't let your password expire. Westlaw and LexisNexis licenses limit use of student passwords to academic research. We will post instructions on how to register for summer access when we have them.

Unlike your Westlaw and LexisNexis passwords, you can use your CALI password over the summer. If you get an assignment on a topic that you haven't studied yet, check the CALI site to see if there is a lesson that will give you an overview.

The Curmudgeon's Guide to Practicing Law, by Mark Herrmann, is full of practical advice on the types of assignments a new associate is likely to receive, as well as general tips on succeeding in a law firm. Although some of the advice will only apply to permanent associates, at least the first half of the book also applies to summer employment. You can check out The Curmudgeon's Guide to Practicing Law in the law library at KF300 .H47 2006. See my previous post for links to excerpts available on the web.

(The image above is from from Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels: Into Several Remote Regions of the World pt. II, "A Voyage to Brobdingnag," ch. VII (Project Gutenberg EBook 2005) (Thomas M. Balliet ed., 1900 ed., originally published 1726).)

Berkman Center for Internet & Society Podcasts

The Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School "is a research program founded to explore cyberspace, share in its study, and help pioneer its development." As part of its mission, the Berkman Center hosts lectures and discussions by professors, scholars, attorneys, activists, and other experts on a wide range of topics relating its mission.

The Berkman Center makes audio and video recordings of these lectures and discussions available for free at MediaBerkman. Recent podcasts have included:

• “Napster's Second Life? Regulatory Dynamics of Virtual Worlds” with Viktor Mayer-Schoenberger, Associate Professor of Public Policy, Kennedy School of Government
• “Does Participatory Culture Lead to Participatory Democracy?” with David Weinberger, Research Fellow, Berkman Center
• “Copyright and Access to Knowledge” with Mary Wong, Professor of Law, Franklin Pierce Law Center
• “Opening Up to Open Access: What Can Other Disciplines Learn from the Sciences?” with Gavin Yamey, Senior Editor, PLoS [Public Library of Science] Medicine

The recordings are usually a little over an hour, but you can download the audio to your MP3 player and listen while you take a walk, ride a stationary bike, or just relax. So download a podcast and learn something interesting while you take a break.

PowerPoint Videos and Sharing

If you have attended many presentations for which the speaker used PowerPoint slides, you have probably seen some presentations that made good use of PowerPoint and too many that did not. For a humorous look at bad PowerPoint, watch Life After Death by PowerPoint, a video by comedian Don McMillan.

Another video, Le Grand Content, makes an almost surreal examination of "the omnipresent Powerpoint-culture in search for its philosophical potential. Intersections and diagrams are assembled to form a grand 'association-chain-massacre', which challenges itself to answer all questions of the universe and some more." See a review at Presentation Zen.

Finally, check out SlideShare, a fabulous site for sharing your presentation slides or viewing what other presenters are doing. You can also use SlideShare to embed your presentation in a blog or website. Search by topic tag, or browse the Latest, Most Viewed, Featured, Most Commented, Most Favorited, or Most Zinged. Enter the World's Best Presentation Contest, or vote on your favorites, by April 23.

New law librarian blog: All-Purpose BiblioBlawg

Meg Kribble, a reference librarian at Nova Southeastern University Law Library, has launched the All-Purpose BiblioBlawg. Meg has been a law librarian for about a year and has many interesting ideas. Listen to her give a tour of Second Life for Jim Milles on Check This Out! episode 59 and see her photos on Flickr.

In addition to law, librarianship, and legal research topics, future topics may include felines by the names of Rufus and Emma, second-sock syndrome, politics, Battlestar Galactica, Mac enthusiasm, video links, other amusing or enlightening topics. I can't wait. See Meg's introductory post for more information and subscribe to the All-Purpose Biblioblawg.

Congratulations, Meg!

Justia Tracks Regulations

Just last month I posted an item about the free tools for lawyers and other legal researchers that Justia had been adding to its site, and now they have added another.

Justia Regulation Tracker allows you to search, browse, and track Federal Register documents. You can subscribe to an RSS feed of all documents from a specific federal agency or refine the feed's focus to a particular type of document, such as rules, administrative orders, notices, proposed rules, executive orders, and proclamations. You can also run a search and subscribe to a feed of regulatory documents containing your search terms.

Break the Procrastination Habit

Do you procrastinate? Would you like to stop? Check out “Avoiding Procrastination,” a recent podcast episode of David Maister's Career Development series. This 15-minute audio recording is full of suggestions for controlling procrastination—a challenge for many professionals—and getting things done. As Prof. Maister explains, “A completed assignment that is adequate is better than the ‘best thing you've ever done’ that exists only in your head.” You can download this podcast and listen to it on your MP3 player or on your computer.

I discovered DavidMaister.com recently while writing an article about podcasts. David Maister is an author, speaker, consultant, and former Harvard Business School professor. His podcast is designed as a Business Masterclass. Each masterclass is a series of short podcast episodes dealing with various professional business topics. The series currently available on the site include Career Development; Strategy in Professional Businesses; Managing Professionals: Attitudes, Skills and Behaviors; and Marketing Professional Services. The site also has a blog, called “Passion, People and Principles,” and other materials for business professionals.

Related items:

• Procrastination and Time Management
• Why Do We Procrastinate?

More Good Stuff from Justia

I have blogged about Justia before, but not nearly as often as I should have, considering how frequently they release a new free tool for lawyers. Justia is a company that designs and optimizes law firm websites, lawyer blogs, and other online legal marketing. It also has many free information, public-interest, and pro-bono projects, including:

• Stanford Copyright & Fair Use Center, which provides an overview of copyright and fair use, primary and secondary sources, resources for librarians, and information on current issues and pending legislation;
• Recall Warnings, a collection of over 50,0000 recalls of autos, consumer products, food and drugs from U.S. government agencies;
• US Supreme Court Center, a searchable and browseable database of all U.S. Supreme Court decisions, with links to secondary sources, online databases, and mp3 audio of Supreme Court oral arguments from Oyez.org;
• Dog Law, a joint project of Nolo, Justia and Little Sheba the Hug Pug;
• BlawgSearch and Blawgs.FM, finding tools for law blogs and legal podcasts, respectively; and
• Legal Marketing Blog, with tips on legal website design, search engine optimization, and marketing for law firms.

This week I learned about the Justia Federal Court Filings Site, which lists new civil case filings in U.S. District Courts with links to Pacer, as well as blog, news, finance, and web searches on the party names. Search new cases by State, Court, Lawsuit Type, or Party name, and subscribe to RSS feeds to track new cases automatically, without having to rerun your search.

Another recent change at Justia is the home page, which has become a portal to legal information. It has articles and other content in a variety of legal practice areas, as well as a directory of links to U.S. state and federal laws, courts, government websites, forms, and more.

To Be a Law Librarian

Have you ever wondered what it's like to be a law librarian, or considered law librarianship as a career? We have just received a book that you should read: Practicing Reference: Thoughts for Librarians and Legal Researchers by Mary Whisner. You can find it in the law library at Z 675 .L2 W495 2006 or purchase it online. (The author arranged with the publisher to make it available to students at a reduced price.)

Mary Whisner is Assistant Librarian for Reference Services at the M.G. Gallagher Law Library, University of Washington. She was one of the law librarians who trained me when I attended the UW Law Librarianship program. She is also author of the Trial Ad Notes blog and of the "Practicing Reference" column in Law Library Journal.

Other resources on law librarianship:

• other books in the AALL publications series;
• the Law Librarian Blog's Spotlight on Law Librarians;
• the American Association of Law Libraries Recruitment Committee's resources on Law Librarianship as a Career and What's It Like To Be A Law Librarian?

The Curmudgeon's Guide to Practicing Law

Mark Herrmann, The Curmudgeon's Guide to Practicing Law (ABA 2006).

This slim volume of blunt, but humorous, advice for new law firm associates is right on target. The curmudgeon's advice covers assignments that a new associate is likely to receive, including research, writing, defending depositions, and arguing an appeal, as well as everyday matters such as billing, etiquette, what to expect from an assistant, and how to treat a client.

I recommend this book for anyone about to begin work at a law firm as an associate or summer associate, and for any second- or third-year law student. The cover price seems high, but it is worth it to have this information before you begin employment with a firm you want to impress. The price is discounted for members of the ABA's section of litigation or law student division.

You can see the table of contents and read chapter one at the ABA website, and the WSJ.com Law Blog is running a series of excerpts this week:

• Law Blog Special: "The Curmudgeon's Guide to Practicing Law"
• Defending Depositions
• How to Write
• You Are Not a Potted Plant
• Billing Time
• The Curmudgeon's Law Dictionary
• The Curmudgeon on Couth

You can check out The Curmudgeon's Guide to Practicing Law in the law library at KF300 .H47 2006.