CSU Law Library Blog

The ABA Rules of Professional Conduct, Model Rule 1.1 Comment 8 requires, “To maintain the requisite knowledge and skill, a lawyer shall keep abreast of changes in the law and its practice, including the benefits and risks associated with relevant technology.” To that end, we have developed this regular series to develop the competence and skills necessary to responsibly choose and use the best technologies for your educational and professional lives. If you have any questions, concerns, or topics you would like to see discussed, please reach out to e.koltonski@csuohio.edu.

In a recent blog, I discussed that reality that no business, or even person, is too “small” to escape cyberattacks. Digital devices in the twenty-first century are a necessity, and that necessity comes with risk. While “it won’t happen to me” thinking is nothing new—remember those driver’s safety videos with titles like ‘Red Asphalt’—it seems particularly easy to distance ourselves from risk when it comes to the internet.

Part of my work includes following a lot of cybersecurity blogs and podcasts. It’s hard to keep up with them, but it feels hard to keep up with anything sometimes. We’ve got supercomputers in our pockets that let us access almost the entirety of human knowledge (and Twitter), and it’s overwhelming. While reading one such blog I was introduced to a tool that visually shows the prevalence of a particular type of cyberattack.

The type of attack is known as ransomware. The tool is called The World Ransomware Map. It was developed through the research of a firm called Comparitech, which I usually describe to people as being like Consumer Reports for cybersecurity and privacy.

The data here isn’t likely complete and some of the information may not be particularly important to you (such as the particular strain of ransomware used), but I really recommend that the next time you are planning to doomscroll on Twitter you instead check out this great tool and familiarize yourself with the costly risk of ignoring cyberattacks. You may even find that ransomware attacks have happened at businesses or organizations in your own backyard. You’ll certainly find less comments from Elon Musk.

I’m also including a link to the Stop Ransomware! website which is operated by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) in case you want to learn more about ransomware attacks and how to better protect yourself from them. You should really check out these sites. Seriously. Twitter will probably still be there later.

In 2015, Ohio’s Task Force on Access to Justice, convened by Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor and comprising members of the courts, legal aid, the Ohio Legal Help Foundation, and the private bar, recommended specific actions to help close the civil justice gap. The sixth recommendation from the Supreme Court’s Access to Justice Task Force Report was to “develop and maintain a statewide website devoted to providing free and accurate legal information to Ohio residents,” which resulted in the development of Ohio Legal Help.

Ohio Legal Help is a nonprofit organization that was founded to help Ohioans access the civil justice system. It provides plain language legal help information, interactive self-help tools, and connections to local legal and community resources that can help people resolve their legal issues. The information on Ohio Legal Help is reviewed by expert private and legal aid lawyers. Users can get self-directed legal information including forms and even lawyer referrals.

How to Rev Up Your Remote Instruction, an article by C|M|Law Outreach & Instructional Services Librarian Laura Ray, was published in the September 2022 issue of The Rheumatologist.  The article discusses pedagogical foundations for online/remote instruction as well as numerous considerations and strategies for developing and delivering online/remote instruction.  Article topics include technological support for learners; collaboration with instructional designers, AV technicians and librarians; methods for emphasizing humanization and connection in learner-centered instruction; tips for selecting and creating effective multimedia content; incorporating active learning activities and selected free or low-cost products for engaging learners.  The Rheumatologist is the official monthly news magazine of the American College of Rheumatology (ACR).  Prior to coming to C|M|Law in 1989, Ms. Ray was a medical librarian.  She has participated in, contributed to, ACR education and advocacy activities for decades.

In the early morning hours of July 4, 1954, Marilyn Sheppard was bludgeoned to death in her bed in a Cleveland suburb. Her husband Sam, a prominent Bay Village doctor, maintained that Marilyn was murdered by a bushy-haired intruder. He stood trial and was convicted for his wife’s murder amidst a media storm. The media frenzy so tainted the case that the United States Supreme Court released him and ordered a 1966 retrial in the case Sheppard v. Maxwell, at which Sheppard was acquitted. He died a few years later.

In 1999, Sam and Marilyn’s son Sam Reese Sheppard unsuccessfully sued the state of Ohio for the wrongful imprisonment of his father. The Sam Sheppard case materials, spanning all three trials, were donated to the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law Library by the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor’s Office. The digitized materials are available here.

WOIO Channel 19 News anchor Nichole Vrsansky—whose grandfather was the first Cleveland detective at the murder scene—recently visited the law library to see the collection and interview dean Lee Fisher for an episode of the network’s true crime podcast Dark Side of the Land. The episode is approximately 30 minutes in length and is titled The Husband or the Handyman: Who Killed Marilyn Sheppard? The TV spot is at the top of the page and the podcast is below (the latter is also available on all major podcast platforms).

If you need help with a paper, or other research project, the law library offers scheduled Research Consultations. Let us know what you have already completed and what areas you need help with, and a librarian will assist with finding resources and information. Most research consultations are approximately 30 minutes in length, depending on need.

The library also has several research guides designed to assist you in starting your research: Scholarly Writing, Finding Articles in Law Reviews and Journals, Bluebooking and Legal Writing Software, Research Databases, and Citation Checking.