Today is the first day of the CALI conference for Law School Computing.  The conference is being hosted at Eckstein Hall, the new home to Marquette University’s Law School  (which was designed by the same architects the College of Law worked with during the pre-design phase of our new building).  I imagine as I type this law school technologists, librarians, faculty and administrators from around the U.S. are discussing law school technology on the shores of Lake Michigan while drinking beer,  and eating sausages.

CALI (the Center for Computer-assisted Legal Instruction) is best known by law students for their library of interactive, computer-based lessons. The CALI library of lessons is a collection of over 851 lessons covering 33 legal education subject areas. They are interactive tutorials written by law faculty to supplement traditional law school instruction. The format of the exercises varies according to the authors’ objectives.  The Georgia State Law librarians have authored several legal research lessons including:

• Georgia Legal Research–Primary Source Material
• Georgia Legal Research – Secondary Source Materials
• Copyright and Trademark Legal Research
• Mastering Looseleaf Publications
• Forms of Federal Statutory Publication
• Researching Federal Legislative History

Information on how to access CALI these and other lessons can be found here

Students may also know CALI for the awards they give out at the end of each semester.  The CALI Excellence for the Future Award is given to the highest scoring student in each law school class at many law schools including Georgia State Law. Past award winners can be found here.

In addition to the more visible lessons and awards, CALI is engaged in a number of interesting and forward-looking initiatives to better facilitate the teaching of law.   eLandell is  a new model for law school casebooks, namely electronic casebooks that better lend themselves to ebook and iPad users.  Classcaster is a blogging and podcasting solution to help faculty supplement their lectures. Free Law Reporter publishes nearly all appellate and supreme court opinions.   We recommend that you explore all of CALI’s resources.

What you may not know is how involved Georgia State College of Law has been in CALI.  As mentioned above Librarians have contributed significantly to the library of lessons.  Technologist and librarians presented at CALI every year for as long as I can remember.  This year Librarian Pam Brannon is presenting case management technology to better support faculty research.  Prof. Patrick Wiseman currently serves on the CALI Board of Directors.  Finally not one, but two Georgia State Law faculty members received the CALI Excellence in Service Award:  Dean Nancy Johnson and Prof. Patrick Wiseman.

If you are interested in viewing this year’s sessions you can do so online or if you are interested in exploring what all CALI has to offer you can get the Georgia State Law activation code here.