Law School Innovation

CALI Offering Free Open Online Course on Digital Law Practice

The Center for Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction (CALI) is once again pushing the envelope in legal education by offering law faculty, law students, and lawyers an opportunity to participate in a Massively Open Online Course (MOOC) entitled Topics in Digital Law Practice. This free, online, 9 week course is open to all with live sessions held on Friday afternoons beginning Friday, February 10, 2012 at 2 PM ET. 

From the course website:

This course is designed to provide an overview of the changes that are occurring in the practice of law today, especially with respect to technology. It will introduce law students for real-world situations that they will encounter in the job market and point law professors to new avenues to cover in their courses.

The course will run for one hour a week for nine weeks and will feature a different guest speaker each week. Each class will be delivered via webcast and will have a 30 minute lecture presentation followed by a question & answer period and an online, interactive homework assignment for all course students to complete. There will be no formal assessment like midterms or a final exam.

The audience for this seminar is primarily law students and law faculty who will be given priority. Anyone else can join the course for one or all of the sessions. The presentations will be recorded and posted to the course blog.

Registration for this course is required.

 

-- Elmer R. Masters
Full disclosure: I am CALI's Director of Internet Development

Will Palfrey's Appointment Lead to Technological Innovations at HLS?

John Palfrey has been appointed Associate Dean, Library and Information Resources and a tenured professor of law at Harvard Law School. Bios here, here and here. John's name should ring a bell. He is Executive Director of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society and an accomplished author. Among his many works are Access Denied: The Practice and Policy of Global Internet Filtering (MIT Press, 2008)(co-editor and contributor)[Law Librarian Blog post] and Born Digital: Understanding the First Generation of Digital Natives (with Urs Gasser)(Basic Books, forthcoming August 24, 2008)[Amazon]. About technology in the law school curriculum, see his What is Technology's Role, an op-ed that was published in The National Law Journal on November 8, 2006. -- Joe Hodnicki

William Mitchell's New Business Practice Legal Practicum

The Business Practice Legal Practicum will train students to represent clients in business matters through a hands-on approach. William Mitchell Professor John Sonsteng and adjunct faculty member Karen Lundquist, ’05 are co-directors. Details. -- Joe Hodnicki

Georgia State Hosts the Conference on the Future of Legal Education, February 20-23, 2008

Excepted from the conference website:

This conference will take as its point of departure a highly critical report on American legal education recently issued by the prestigious Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching: Educating Lawyers. The report calls for fundamental changes in both the structure and content of legal education in the United States to integrate realistic and real-life lawyering experiences throughout the curriculum, and challenges American law schools to produce lawyers who are not only smart problem-solvers but also responsible professionals committed to service of both clients and the larger society.

The conference will ask two related questions:

• First, if one was charged with starting a new law school, how would one implement the Carnegie recommendations? What would the budget look like? How would the faculty be recruited and structured? What would one want the student body to look like? What would be the curriculum?
• Second, how would an existing law school transform itself into the kind of law school envisioned by the Carnegie Report? What would a 5 year transition plan look like?

For further information, visit the conference website.

-- Joe Hodnicki

Nominations for CALI Board of Directors Due By November 28, 2007

From CALI:

The Center for Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction (CALI) is seeking nominations of qualified and enthusiastic individuals to fill vacant positions on its Board of Directors. If you know of someone who would like to contribute to the research and development, strategic planning and governance of CALI, then consider nominating them for the CALI Board of Directors. It would be a good idea to clear it with the person first to make sure they want to be nominated. Self-nominations are acceptable. Nominations should be accompanied with the phone number, email address and institutional affiliation of the nominee. Also, please send along a current CV or a link to hmoe page/bio for the nominee.

Directors are required to attend two meetings a year (June during the CALI Conference and January during AALS). In addition, Directors serve on committees at the behest of the President of the Board and work on other projects and issues relating to the governance, strategy-setting and promotion of CALI’s mission and activities. Directors terms are for three years at which time their service is evaluated by the Nomination Committee along with other nominees. Service on the CALI Board is voluntary and gratis. Travel expenses for the Board meetings can be covered by CALI if institutional support is unavailable.

The list of all nominees will be submitted to the Nomination Committee who will determine a slate of candidates to be presented to the CALI Membership at the Annual Luncheon held on Thursday, January 3, 2008 during AALS in New York, NY All nominees will be contacted during the first week of December. Nominees who are chosen by the nominating committee are required to attend the CALI Board meeting on Saturday, January 5, 2008 in New York, NY.

CALI is a dynamic and forward-thinking 501(c)-3 non-profit corporation with big plans and big ideas. Qualified Directors should have knowledge and experience that they can contribute to the ongoing research and development of CALI’s mission. If you have any questions or wish to submit a nominations, contact John Mayer, Executive Director at 312-906-5307 or [email protected]. Visit the CALI website at www.cali.org to learn more about CALI’s activities.

-- Joe Hodnicki

Gene Koo, Appointed First CALI-Berkman Research Fellow

Gene Koo has been appointed the first CALI-Berkman Research Fellow effective July 1st. In this position, he will be managing a number of initiatives being developed by the Harvard Law's Berkman Center for Internet & Society and the Center for Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction (CALI). The appointment was announced at the 17th annual CALI Conference on Law School Computing last week in the context of an announcement about an exciting new partnership between these two very influential organizations.

From the press release:

[A]t the 17th annual CALI Conference on Law School Computing, the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School and the non-profit Center for Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction (CALI) proudly announced a new partnership to stimulate innovation in American law schools through a new educational resource sharing platform.  This work will be perpetuated by the establishment of the CALI-Berkman Research Fellowship.

The partnership will establish the Legal Education Commons – known as eLangdell for Harvard Law School’s first Dean and the Law Library’s namesake, Dean Christopher Columbus Langdell – where law faculty can share and use openly-licensed course materials to offer students free or low-cost course packs, casebooks, podcasts, and video.  Berkman and CALI will also research and develop innovative teaching tools to advance practice skills like client interaction, negotiations, and trial advocacy.

Gene is a 2002 graduate of Harvard Law School and a Berkman Fellow. He also helped found Legal Aid University, which provides training and development to poverty lawyers.  Gene's research on the use of technology in legal instruction makes him an excellent choice to lead this new endeavor and being an editor of this blog, I'm sure we will be hearing more about the work of the Berkman-CALI partnership.

Congratulations Gene! -- Joe Hodnicki

presentation: New Skills & New Learning for Tomorrow's Lawyers

As you all know from earlier posts, I spent the autumn researching legal technology and education, examining how a changing practice environment affects what, and how, law schools should teach. The Berkman Center for Internet & Society, with LexisNexis, published the results as New Skills, New Learning: Legal Education & the Promise of Technology.

I will be presenting these findings and facilitating discussion about what legal educators (and others) can do to respond to emerging challenges at an upcoming Berkman Center luncheon:

Tuesday, May 22
12:30-1:30pm
23 Everett St, Cambridge MA
Webcast
Second Life

Your participation as a law school innovator would be very welcome. Please RSVP if you can attend. Hope to see you next week!

- Gene Koo

Survey on Blogger Perceptions on Digital Preservation Ends on May 23rd

Should your blog posts be archived? The online survey is conducted by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's School of Information and Library Science. Details at Law Librarian Blog. -- Joe Hodnicki

LSAC Research Grant Proposals for Empirical Research on Legal Training and Legal Practice Due by Sept. 1

Proposals for empirical research on legal training and legal practice for the Law School Admission Council's Research Grant Program are due by September 1, 2007.

Contact: Lillian Worthington, Law School Admission Council, P.O. Box 40, Newtown, Pa. 18940-0040
Phone: (215) 968-1198
Fax: (215) 968-1169,
Email: [email protected]
Website: http://members.lsacnet.org/

-- Joe Hodnicki

Georgetown Launches Center for the Study of the Legal Profession

National Law Journal is reporting that Georgetown University Law Center has established the Center for the Study of the Legal Profession, which will promote scholarship on complexities of legal careers. Directed by Georgetown law professors Milton Regan and Jeffrey Bauman, the center will serve as a resource for trends and developments in the profession. -- Joe Hodnicki

Vote for the Oddest Law Book Title

I'm not sure how this relates to law school innovation but on Law Librarian Blog we are conducting the oddest law book title poll. The poll is based on nominations from law librarians, law profs, and one law school dean. Voting is open to everyone! -- Joe Hodnicki