Online Law Scholars Conference

via Kosmosonline.org 

For law students interested in entering the legal academia field, this online conference may be of interest.

The Law Scholars Conference brings together a small group of leading law students who are interested in academic careers in the law.

The seminar will consist of five one hour sessions held on weeknight evenings in May. Over the course of the program, presenters will offer advice on researching, networking, the job market, vitae building, and learning to think like a successful future academic. You can also look forward to practical advice about how to flourish during your time in law school.

Presentations will include:

• Legal Academic Publishing with David Bernstein
• Making the Most of Your Time in Law School with Ilya Somin
• The AALS Process with Lee Otis

The conference will also feature current research discussions where students can receive feedback on their work from top law professors.

For more information on individual sessions and our Online Law Scholars Conference faculty, please visit the links below.

Faculty

Sessions

Current Research Discussions

Lincoln Law School of San Jose’s Professor to Speak at KC’s Legal Series

Our own professor of Professional Responsibility, Alison Buchanan, will be speaking at the Knowledge Congress Legal Series: Ethics for Attorneys in a live webcast on July 5, 2012 from 12:00 PM to 2:00 PM ET.

They will address the following key issues:

- Ethical Considerations in the use of Internet
- Electronic File Maintenance
- Potential Ethical Problems –- What should lawyer do?
- Confidentiality
- Concept of Legal Ethics and the recent developments
- Up-to-the-minute regulatory updates

Read More & Register for the Event

Press Release

Check & Register – Federal Social Media Accounts

via bloghowto.gov.

Do you have an official government social media account? Have you ever wondered if one you’re following is legit?

GSA has built a federal social media registry — a government-wide solution that gives the public a way to verify whether a social media account is official.

It also provides a place for agencies to register their accounts centrally so they don’t have to build a solution within each agency.  This tool is now available for agencies to use on HowTo.gov, so they can start entering and editing their data.

Go to the bloghowto.gov site for more details and tutorials for checking the validity of federal government social media accounts online.

Job Search Tip #1 – Learn How to Say Your Prospective Employer’s Name

Thanks to Georgetown Law Library, you’ll never have to stumble over the pronunciation of a law firm name. This will be of particular use to law school students getting ready to start the interview phase of the job search.

The school has compiled a page of dozens of law firms across the nation. Click on the name to hear it the proper pronunciation. The audio files are in MP3 format.

 

WestlawNext – A Beginner’s Guide to Online Research (pt 2)

Last week, we discussed the general search bar, creating folders, and the history tracking tools of Westlaw Next. Today’s we’ll get into more detail regarding specific research methods for your queries.

PRIMARY SOURCES / SECONDARY SOURCES (kcll research guide)
• Primary sources publish the law itself, i.e., the rules that local, state, and federal governments will enforce. Sources of primary law include ordinances, statutes, treaties, court decisions, court rules, administrative rules and regulations,
administrative agency decisions, and executive orders and decrees. Example: U.S. Statutes at Large.
• Secondary sources of law are materials that help find the law, or explain or comment on it, but are not “the law itself.” Law review articles, treatises, legal encyclopedias, digests, and loose-leaf reporters are secondary sources. Example: Corpus Juris Secundum (CJS).

Searching Primary Sources

You can research primary sources (specific law & statutes) by searching directly in the folders marked:

• Cases
• Statutes & Court Rules
• Regulations

For all three topics, you can search by content type, state, territories, and by topic.

Searching Secondary Sources

Go to the box below the search bar, and click on the All Content tab. From there, click on Secondary Sources to be taken to the Secondary Sources search bar. Once there, you can search by content type, by state, or by topic. Why search through the secondary source? First of all, what is a secondary source?

A primary source is the actual law. A secondary source is commentary on the law. Secondary legal resources can be legal encyclopedias, treatises, legal periodicals, and law reviews which are not binding like judicial opinions and statutes.  They are usually a well-written rephrasing of the law, and provide a good introduction to an unfamiliar research topic.

According to Westlaw, searching the secondary sources is a great starting point for research. Secondary sources can reveal major concepts, commonly used terms, and procedures used by practitioners in that area.

• Secondary sources reference significant citations. These materials help you find citations to important case law and statutory authority, as well as citations to journal and law review articles.
• Secondary sources are sometimes persuasive authority. Some secondary sources are so widely respected that they can be cited as persuasive authority in arguments to the court.

LSAT Resources – The What and the Why

Although law schools have different requirements for potential applicants, one of the most vital preliminary steps to entering law school, is taking the LSAT, the Law School Admissions Test, administered by the Law School Admissions Council. This is a score that all law schools require before granting admittance.

Although it is a standardized test, the test and the testing process is a good indicator of how well you will succeed in the law school of your choice. Do you have the motivation and patience to study for timed exams, for essay writing and for critical thinking? There are a number of options when it comes to studying for the LSAT. You can sign up for a review course, or you can study on your own with the help and resources of your public library. Although, to achieve the best score possible, it is recommended to study and learn from professionals who know the ins & outs of the exam.

Upcoming US Test Dates

• June 2012 - Register by May 8th, May 18th for Late Registration.

• October 2012 - Register by Sept. 4th, Sept. 14th for Late Registration.

• December 2012 - Register by Oct. 29th, Nov. 9th for Late Registration.

• February 2013 - Register by Jan. 13th (2013), Jan. 18th for Late Registration.

Choosing a professional test preparation program can help you focus your energy and time efficiently in preparation for the LSAT. Taking an LSAT review course allows you to learn from professionals, have open discussions in class, as well as take timed tests regularly to get a real understanding of the actual LSAT process. Here at Lincoln Law School of San Jose, we offer Bar study programs for the LSAT and the Cal Bar. Go to our website for more details.

If you decide to study on your own, make sure to use your public library.

Located only a few blocks away from Lincoln Law School of San Jose is the City of San Jose  Public library.

With a San Jose Public Library card, you can access their legal databases & locate books & tutorial DVDs on the shelves.

Databases

• Legal Collection

Articles on legal issues, studies, and trends from 250+ law journals. For college level and up.

• Legal Information Reference Center

Online full-text access to legal reference books and forms, including Nolo books and various legal forms for consumers and small businesses.

• Tutor.com SkillsCenter Resource Library for College Center

Worksheets, tutorials, study guides for college students, including sample tests and practice books for the SAT, PSAT, GRE, MCAT, GMAT, and LSAT.

Books

• 340.076 & 378.16 - The Dewey Decimal Call numbers for LSAT study books, logic games, practical guides, etc. The same call numbers are applied to DVDs, & CD-ROMs. You can locate books in this call number at any public library in your neighborhood. Some libraries have test books in a special section, so make sure to double-check with a librarian if you don’t see anything on the shelves.

Other tips

• Take a practice test from the book, or see if Kaplan/Princeton offer diagnostic tests. Have a family member or friend time you as if you were taking the real test. Grade yourself and see how well you did. Do you need to take the paid review sessions? Do you feel confident studying on your own?
• Take the practice tests multiple times before taking the real LSAT, time yourself according to the guidelines in the test prep book.
• Take the test in an environment similar to the actual test (the library for an example) to get accustomed to people fidgeting, coughing, finger tapping, and any other annoyances that will probably pop up during the test.

WestlawNext – Key Numbers for better searches

If you haven’t already subscribed to the Westlaw Insider’s Blog, I highly suggest you do. They post a lot of great insider tips for using WestlawNext to improve your online research and search results.

Last week’s tip promoted the use of Topics & Key Numbers to look for cases on similar issues. The Key Number system is something akin to the Dewey Decimal System for public libraries.

Under the West Key Number System^®, every legal issue in a case published by West is identified and summarized in a headnote. Each headnote is then classified under one or more Topic and Key Numbers.

Once you have found a case that is on point with your research, you can then use the Topics and Key Numbers in this case to search for others on the same legal topic. The Westlaw Insider provides an easy 9-step guide to using the Topic and Key Numbers strategy:

1. Find similar cases on a legal issue or point of law by clicking a Topic or Key Number in the classification hierarchy next to the headnote
2. Find similar cases on a broad topic by clicking the Topic above the headnote
3. Find cases that cite to your case for the legal issue or point of law in the headnote by clicking the link below the headnot
4. View headnote results for your Key Number
5. View summaries of the decisions
6. Click the title to view the full text of the decision
7. Navigate up or down the Topic hierarchy to retrieve additional headnote results
8. Change the jurisdiction of your headnote results at any time
9. Search within results to narrow the list of headnotes to those that contain specific terms

Friday Funnies – Lawyer Dog!

Go to Buzzfeed to add your own caption to the newest meme on the Internet.

California Legal Resources Guide

Check out our California Legal Resources Guide when starting your legal query or research. The guide is divided into 9 topics and each topic has a plethora of links and resources that are freely available on the web.

I. STATUTES & LEGISLATION

II. JUDICIAL

III. EXECUTIVE

IV. REGULATIONS & AGENCIES

V. CASES & COURTS

VI. LOCAL GOVERNMENT

VII. STATE LAW REVIEWS & BAR JOURNALS

VIII. GENERAL RESOURCES

IX. LEGAL & RESEARCH GUIDES

Are we missing anything? If you think there is an important California legal resource missing from one of these lists, let me know!

Westlaw Next – A Beginner’s Guide to Online Research (pt 1)

1. Go to lawschool.westlaw.com

2. Sign in with your Onepass username & account

3. Click on WestlawNext in the top header feed

The Basic Search

Using the WestlawNext search bar is now easier and more efficient. Framed after a typical search engine *coughGOOGLEcough* this new searching format lets you merely type in keywords to produce a variety of results, from statutes, to law review articles, and much much more.

If you aren’t sure what keywords to use, then you can browse the different subjects, labels directly underneath the search bar. You can narrow the scope to just Federal or State materials, Topics and Tools.

When searching for State Materials in the State of California (for example) you can do a broad search, digging through all of the different types of content available for state legislature. You can also narrow the search by specifying exactly which content matter should be searched.

Folders

You can create folders on Westlaw to help organize your research once you find relevant documents. If you’re going to away from your computer and still want to access the files, you can export all of your search results to a PDF document for easy printing, or you can export the documents to your Kindle. You can also share folders with specific people listed in your contacts file. You can create subgroups and sub folders for study group meetings or specific class projects and assignments.

History

WestlawNext keeps a history of your conducted searches. If you forget how you found a certain document, you can always go through your history to relocate it, or retrace your steps. If you view all of the documents, they are broken down by content type in the left hand bar, allowing for an easier way to narrow down the search.