C-M Law Library Blog

C|M|LAW faculty will review bar subjects, address difficult issues and answer your questions in The Faculty Bar Presentation Series.  The series will be offered Monday, February 13 , 2012 and Tuesday, February 14, 2012, in Room 201of the law school.   Here is the schedule of topics and presenting faculty.   Past students found the series extremely useful for their bar preparation.  Food will be provided.

The C|M|LAW Alumni Association is offering twenty (10) $1,000 scholarships towards the purchase of the bar review exam course offered by BARBRI. The scholarships will be awarded in the form of a credit to the overall cost of the course with no monetary value.  The scholarship cannot be combined with another BARBRI  scholarship.

C|M|LAW students in their final year and in good standing can apply for a scholarship by completing the application and returning it to Mary McKenna, either by emailor to Room LB121.  The scholarship application deadline for students taking the July ’12 Bar Exam is February 20, 2012.  Please contact Mary McKenna if you have any questions.

There is a slight adjustment to the time, and location, of the March 28th Getting Ready to Clerk Law Library Research Certificate Seminar – it will be 4pm-5pm in Room LB60.  All the rest of the Seminars this Spring Semester are still 4:50pm-5:50pm, in Law Library Room A059.  There are seats available for all of the Seminars, so take another look at your schedule to see if you can attend – see the full list of Seminars below.  To register, C|M|Law students should contact Laura Ray, Instructional Services Librarian, 216-687-6880, laura.ray@law.csuohio.edu.

Also, there have been some questions about Casemaker and Fastcase – what are these and why are they important?  Casemaker and Fastcase are legal research systems that are alternatives to LexisNexis and Westlaw, and many small to mid-size firms are using them.  As a member of the Ohio State Bar Association (which law students can join for free), you get Casemaker as a benefit.  As a member of the Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Association, you get Fastcase as a benefit.  However, even though as a law student you can join the CMBA for free, Fastcase does not come as with the student membership – you have to be a regular member.

Full list of Law Library Research Certificate Seminars:

• January 25th – Scholarly Writing – seats still available
• February 1st – Casemaker (vendor Webinar) – register by January 30th
• February 15th – Fastcase (vendor Webinar) – register by February 13th
• February 22nd – Lexis Advance (vendor seminar) – register by February 20th
• March 21st – LexisNexis/Westlaw Refresher – register by March 19th
• 4pm-5pm, March 28th, Room LB60 – Getting Ready to Clerk – register by March 26th – co-sponsored by the Office of Career Planning and refreshments provided!
• April 4th – Ohio Legal Research for your Summer Associate Experience – register by April 2nd

The library’s LexisAdvance v. WestlawNext Comparison Chart was updated to include the many improvements Lexis made to LexisAdvance when it went from the Beta version to the final version this winter.   Both of these systems have an all-in-one search box; enhanced natural language searching;  for each case, related topics discussed in the case, with lists of cases for the topic;  and folders to store your research.

The key differences noted so far are that the enhanced natural language searching in each is based on different criteria, and the pre and post filters are somewhat different.  LexisAdvance is available to Lexis subscribers in the “real world” for free, while there is a cost for WestlawNext.  LexisAdvance has many unique features including searching the open web, graphical search history, graphical Shepards, Legal Issue Trail,  and Persistent Tabs.  The related topics in LexisAdvance which appear on each case also have summaries of the topic, (for example, contracts>subrogation), which may be useful to law students who are new to legal concepts.  WestlawNext has its own exclusive features, such as post filters by particular court, ability to use field searches as in Classic Westlaw,  storing History  for a longer time period, automatic update of documents in folders, full text searching of folders and Advanced Search Commands.

More improvements are coming soon to LexisAdvance including:

• Printing on the Lexis printer in the law school computer lab.
• Get a Document and Search by Source.
• Pre-filter by a specific source, such as Ohio Jurisprudence.
• More of the Lexis.com content will be added, such as AmJur, and more treatises.

Photo by Steve K.

You know you have a little John Grisham in you, and here’s your chance to prove it. Seak, Inc. (a continuing education firm that specializes in expert witness training), is sponsoring its 2012 National Fiction Writing Competition for Physicians and Lawyers [more info]. The competition is open to any licensed attorney (or physician). Interested writers should submit a short story or novel excerpt in the fiction genre that does not exceed 2,500 words.  Cash prizes will be awarded, and a Fiction Writing Conference for Physicians and Lawyers will be held on August 11-12, 2012 in Cape Code, Massachusetts. The submission deadline is August 1, 2012. Thanks to the Legal Writing Prof Blog for the tip.

Today marks the 39^th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision. In the news today, several journalists write that the decision is responsible for saving numerous women from unnecessary deaths resulting from illegal abortions. For example, Debby D’Arcangelo of The Star-Ledger notes that abortion was the official cause of death for approximately 2,700 women in 1930. Although this statistic is from the distant past, it does drive home the point that improper abortions that took place before the Roe v. Wade decision often caused death. What this does not recognize or comment upon is that death may sometimes also result from legal and medically-sound abortions. From the years 1972 to 2003, there were 386 deaths caused by legal abortions. While this number is absolutely miniscule in comparison to the statistics from 1930, which strongly supports the decision to legalize abortion, and some deaths from any operation must be expected, it is still extremely unfortunate that any woman would lose her life as a result of the procedure.

The comments made above do not take into account any of the moral implications of aborting a fetus, but only focus on how the Supreme Court decision has affected the rights and well-being of women who have made the decision to abort. Obviously the reasoning behind the Supreme Court decision is much more complicated than this single facet.

The degrees to which the decision is accepted and rejected by the public are as varied as one can imagine. There are many Americans who interpret the decision as an attack on the sanctity of human life. In order to demonstrate this belief, tomorrow protesters against the pro-choice movement will meet in Washington D.C. for the 39^th annual March for Life. Yet, for as many people that oppose the decision, there is an equal amount of supporters.

On this anniversary of the decision, please take a moment and think about Roe v. Wade one more time. No matter which side of the debate you believe in, today is as good as any day to reevaluate why you believe what you do.

Since Roe vs. Wade decision, 39 years of care for women – The Star-Ledger

Roe v. Wade: 39 Years Later – The Huffington Post

Women, their unborn children both deserve respect for rights – The Plain Dealer

In all likelihood, you probably came across some unfamiliar images on your computer screen yesterday while accessing any one of several highly-used websites. For example, Google’s logo was covered by a black strip and Wikipedia’s information could not be accessed by users at all. This is the first time that Wikipedia’s English version has ever been blacked out. Approximately 162 million people unsuccessfully attempted to access the website during this protest.

These and other actions were all in response to the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA). The SOPA bill, H.R. 3261, can be read here. The bill’s aim is to stop non-U.S websites that sell pirated movies and fraudulent goods by making Google and other online services block them. The movie and music industries especially support the two acts. For more information on SOPA and PIPA listen to this hearing from June 22, 2011.

In addition to Wikipedia and Google, Facebook also made its view on SOPA and PIPA known. Although Facebook itself did not alter user access, its founder Mark Zuckerberg posted his first tweet in almost three years and also posted on Facebook to show his disapproval. He wrote, “The internet is the most powerful tool we have for creating a more open and connected world. We can’t let poorly thought out laws get in the way of the internet’s development. Facebook opposes SOPA and PIPA, and we will continue to oppose any laws that will hurt the internet.”

These actions by Wikipedia, Google, Facebook, and others were far more than a publicity stunt. Together they have already caused a great deal of change. Several senators and representatives that were originally co-sponsors for the bills, such as Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Rep. Ben Quayle (R-Ariz.), have pulled their support since the online demonstrations.

LexisAdvance, Lexis’s answer to WestlawNext is now available for students and faculty.  Similar to WestlawNext, LexisAdvance has an all-in-one search box, enhanced natural language searching and folders to store your research.  Some features exclusive to LexisAdvance include:

•  Results from the open web in a separate tab
•  Legal issue trail to key in on a passage in a case and obtain cases that cited that passage.
• Wordwheel which offers suggested terms while you are typing.
• Opens various steps in the  research process in a new tab, making it easier to go back and forth between results.
• Work carousel (see picture to the right) which allows one to easily toggle between folders, search history, recent and favorite filters and alerts.
• Innovations Research Map – a graphical depiction of your search history.
• Shepard’s Graphical – a graphical map showing the history of subsequent citing cases, as well as subsequent direct history so you can easily see whether a case has been overruled.

You can use terms and connectors in LexisAdvance, if desired.  The same Classic Lexis terms and connectors will work, but the “official LexisAdvance” terms and connectors are slightly different than on Classic Lexis.   For example, LexisAdvance Syntax is w/sent instead of w/s to make the words appear in the same sentence.  To see the connectors, click on the Search Tips link in the upper right of the search box.  Segment searches such as court(eighth) will not work in LexisAdvance.

Get a Document and Find a Source are coming soon.  It looks like the easiest way to pull up a document by citation on LexisAdvance at the present time is to click on Shepardize, enter the citation, then click on the case name associated with that citation.

At present, LexisAdvance does not let you pick a  certain source before you search (for example, Ohio Jurisprudence), but that feature is coming soon.  You can prefilter a search for jurisdiction, subject and/or type of document.  Filtering by source can be done after you run the search.

Some sources are not yet available on LexisAdvance, such as some Matthew Bender treatises, Ohio Jurisprudence and American Jurisprudence, but these will be on LexisAdvance in the summer.  To see the current content, click on Help, and then Content Listing.

You  should have received an email with the subject line: Register Now to Upgrade to Lexis Advance.   More information on Lexis Advance can be found when you log into Lexis.  Just click on the image:

The Institute for Law Teaching and Learning is accepting program proposals for its  Summer 2012 conference, The Value of Variety.   From the Institute’s annoucement:

The Institute for Law Teaching and Learning invites proposals for conference workshops on the benefits of variety in all aspects of teaching and learning. The Institute’s summer conference provides a forum for dedicated teachers to share innovative ideas and effective methods for cutting edge legal education. This conference will take place at Gonzaga University on June 25, 2012. The Institute invites proposals for 60-minute workshops consistent with a broad interpretation of the conference theme.

The Institute must receive proposals by February 1, 2012.

More information on submitting a proposal.