by Julia Hightower

Last semester, Austin Williams and Deborah Schander found an uncatalogued book in the stacks. While the author is unknown, authorities agree it is likely the last journal of a former law student. Sadly, within its pages was an entry many of us can relate to.

“Hour 2 in my search for a Clean Restroom:

My bags have become too heavy to carry. I’ve abandoned them in an empty locker. I pray they will remain safe until my return. Rations are low. Moral is poor. If a nicer place to sit is not found soon, I fear the worst.”

This journal’s haunting last entry got the reference librarians thinking, “How can we improve the libraries amenities for the poor lost souls, I mean law students, who spend so much time here?” They reviewed last year’s library survey, but not enough people filled it out to give them a cohesive idea of what the student population wanted. (Seriously, go fill out the survey. They listen!) So they took the next logical step. They convened the panel of your peers known as the “Law Library Advisory Committee” and asked for ideas. In response your library, your home away from home, went through a MAJOR upgrade:

• First, they succeeded in replacing the old water fountain with a Hot and Cold Filtered Water Fountain. Go! Rejoice! Make Tea!
• The Library purchased board and card games for your entertainment. Said games, available at circulation, may be checked out for 3 days. Take them home over the weekend and host a board game night.
• Thinking about skipping class because your laptop is dead? We have laptop chargers for checkout.
• Is your smartphone dying? Ask circulation if they have a smartphone charger which fits it!
• And last, but certainly not least, the restrooms now have toilet seat covers.

Let this parable be a lesson to you. Change can come!

By Kristin Poland

Spring break is over, and you might be thinking that there aren’t any holidays to look forward to until Memorial Day, right?  Wrong!  April is full of fun and interesting celebrations, so choose your favorite and make it memorable.

Dyngus Day was celebrated on April 1^st this year.  Traditional activities include soaking ladies with water and swatting them with pussy willow branches.  If that type of thing doesn’t appeal to you, you could just kick back with a plate of pierogies and listen to some polka music instead.

April 7^th is No Housework Day, so be sure to get your laundry done on Saturday if you happen to be running low on clean undies.

The inventor of Scrabble was born on April 13, 1899, and so, every April 13^th, we observe National Scrabble Day.  I recommend commemorating the day by learning all of the words that begin with “q” but do not require “u.”

Tuesday, April 16^th is National Library Workers Day.  I can’t find a reference anywhere, but I’m pretty sure that this momentous holiday is observed by bestowing gifts of baked goods on your friendly GSU Law librarians.

Closing out the month is Hairstyle Appreciation Day, on April 30^th.  Websites recommend that, among other things, you style your hair in a special way, or in a way that you have not tried before.  For those of you born after 1989, and therefore never sported a mullet for school pictures (with the laser background, of course), now is the perfect time to try it out.

Happy April!

Flicker photo by Extra Ketchup

By Mark Edwards

A new nontraditional method of education has emerged through free online education websites.  While education costs are steadily rising, these websites serve as a method to overcome the financial barrier that prevents many people from receiving an effective education.  The lessons are presented in a variety of formats such as: online videos, audio recordings, blackboard illustrations, and many more.  Here is a list of some of these websites:

Khan’s Academy (https://www.khanacademy.org/) – uses Yahoo Doodle images on a blackboard in combination with a voiceover to teach over 4,000 micro lessons.  Subjects include: mathematics, history, healthcare, medicine, finance, physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy, economics, cosmology, and organic chemistry, American civics, art history, macroeconomics, microeconomics, and computer science.

Open Yale Courses (http://oyc.yale.edu/) – is a project of Yale University to share full video and course materials from its undergraduate courses.  All lectures were recorded in the Yale College classroom and are available in video, audio, and text transcript formats.

U.C. Berkeley (http://webcast.berkeley.edu/) – is a database of video of undergraduate lectures recorded by professors of U.C. Berkeley.

MIT OpenCourseWare (http://ocw.mit.edu/index.htm) – is an initiative of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to put all of the educational materials from its undergraduate- and graduate-level courses online, partly free and openly available to anyone, anywhere. MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW) is a large-scale, web-based publication of MIT course materials.

Wikiversity (http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Wikiversity:Main_Page) – is a collaborative learning community in which the internet community creates and edits the lessons.

Coursera – (https://www.coursera.org/) – offers courses from various universities around the county.  Courses include engineering, humanities, medicine, biology, social sciences, mathematics, business, computer science, and other areas.

by Joshua Kahn

Image Used By Permission Under Creative Commons License

Ohio prosecutor Michael Gmoser has filed an indictment against groundhog-prognosticator Punxsutawney Phil, accusing the varmint of purposely misrepresenting an early spring. The charges are extremely serious and carry a potential death penalty.

The prosecution’s case is likely to rest on the groundhog’s purported “incapab[ility] of error” which, the prosecution will say, shows his clearly erroneous prediction was an intentional misrepresentation.

We here at Georgia State believe it is critical that the voiceless be given their day in court, and are therefore asking students to help us draft an amicus curiae brief in the case on behalf of Georgia groundhog—and holder of an honorary doctorate from GSU—General Beauregard Lee.

General “Beau” Lee seeks to argue his Yankee colleague simply is not very accurate, that Punxsutawney Phil’s most recent wrong prediction was just another in a long series of mistakes, and, therefore, he should be spared a grisly demise at the hands of overzealous prosecutors.

Beau is also willing to offer expert testimony that his predictions are more accurate than “cousin” Phil’s.

Any interested students should contact the library staff.

h/t Ohio State Law Library

by Joshua Kahn

Image by Crosa

March 8th is national Be Nasty Day (do not ask us how this got started) and a wonderful occasion to review a few defamation lawsuits.

We all know that somewhere deep in the bowels of case reporters lurk some outrageous cases, and here are a few for your procrastinatory enjoyment:

Newman v. Delahunty, 681 A.2d 671 (1994)
Apparently, it’s not impossible to defame a political candidate.

Hustler Magazine, Inc. v. Falwell, 485 U.S. 46 (1988)
The name pretty much says it all.

Burnett v. National Enquirer, Inc, 144 Cal.App. 3d 991 (1983)
Did “a boisterous Carol Burnett had a loud argument with another diner, Henry Kissinger. . . traipse around the place offering everyone a bite of her dessert. . . [then] accidentally knocked a glass of wine over one diner and start giggling instead of apologizing?”

If you want to learn more about defamation law, we have a number of good books on the topic in the library stacks.

By Joshua Kahn

Public domain image from Sonia Sotomayor’s confirmation hearing

Interested in the Supreme Court Nomination process?  The law library’s History of Supreme Court Nominations database gives you access to transcripts and reports on both successful and unsuccessful Supreme Court Nominations. [Off-Campus Link | On-Campus Link]

Or maybe you want to learn more about the Justices before they became Justices?  The archive includes their previous writing, decisions and even transcripts of oral arguments made as attorneys.

For example, you can find Justice Elena Kagan’s  old law review articles, briefs and oral arguments before the Supreme Court while working as Solicitor General.

Look smart in front of Professor Segall in next year’s Con Law class.

by Joshua Kahn

image by Flickr user x1brett

Spring semester means it’s time to for first years to write persuasive briefs for RWA and second years to craft oral arguments in Litigation.  Both require a heaping cup of persuasive ability, a skill that is totally different from simply knowing the law.  Not only that, but persuasion is one of the cornerstone skills for practicing attorneys.

Clearly, we’ve chosen a profession that demands persuasiveness—but that’s a skill they don’t teach you in Torts, Evidence or CivPro.  RWA shows you some examples of persuasive legal writing, and litigation throws you right into the pool, but neither really breaks down how to make a convincing argument.

So where can you learn how to communicate persuasively?  If you weren’t born with a silver tongue can you pick up the skill?

The GSU library system has a number of helpful tools for learning persuasion.  Even if you don’t have time to read them now, consider at least placing them on your summer reading list:

The Art of Rhetoric by Aristotle – the classic work on persuasion and still deeply relevant today.  The law library has a translation at PA3893 .R3 1991

Thank You for Arguing : What Aristotle, Lincoln, and Homer Simpson Can Teach Us About the Art of Persuasion – an excellent guide to the various tools of persuasion that essentially teaches classic rhetoric in a conversational, modern tone.

How to Win Every Argument : The Use and Abuse of Logic – a good guide to the various smoke and mirrors you often hear in arguments.

John Quincy Adams: Lectures on Rhetoric and Oratory: Delivered to the Classes of Senior and Junior Sophisters in Harvard University (1810) – A series of classes by given by John Quincy Adams a decade before he was elected President of the United States.  They’re considered a classic guide to persuasion and are online for free here.

By Meghan Starr

If you are researching the legislative history of an early American bill or trying to ascertain original intent, the Library of Congress has a website called A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation that focuses on U.S. Congressional documents from 1774-1875.

One focus of the website is Debates of Congress.  This section contains four separate journals.  Each can be browsed by volume, by page heading/speech title, or you can run a search for a specific term or phrase.  The site also contains a Citation Guide and a historical timeline.

Annals of Congress

Researching the Louisiana Purchase or the treaties with the Creek and Cherokee?

Formally known as The Debates and Proceedings in the Congress of the United States, the Annals cover the 1st Congress through the first session of the 18th Congress, from 1789 to 1824.  They were actually compiled between 1834 and 1856 using records and newspaper accounts to paraphrase the speeches.  It is considered to be a fuller record than the House and Senate Journals from that period.

The debates over expanding the railroads or renewing the charter for the Bank of the United States can be found in the Register of Debates.  This journal runs from the second session of the 18^th Congress through the first session of the 25^th Congress (1824-37).

Although published contemporaneously with the proceedings, the journal provides a summary of “leading debates and incidents” of the period rather than a verbatim record.

Each volume has an index, but you can also use the indexes of the House and Senate Journals during the relevant session of Congress to find the date you are looking for, then search by the date in the Register.

Look for speeches to impeach Andrew Johnson and abolition petitions in the Globe which covers congressional speeches from 1833-73 (23^rd Congress through 42^nd Congress).

The first five volumes overlap with the Register of Debates.  While initially containing an abstract of the debates, by the 32^nd Congress (1851) the Globe has more of a verbatim transcription.

The Congressional Record, printed by the Government Printing Office beginning in 1873, is the final publication of debates of Congress.  While this website only provides debates up to 1875, more recent versions can be found on the Library of Congress’ THOMAS website.

By Stephen Adams

Tomorrow it will all be over. Heck, I love politics and I’m already ready to stick a fork in this election cycle. While I haven’t reached the level of young Abigael Evans, I must admit that her actions look somewhat cathartic. (Although that may or may not have something to do with my upcoming Evidence final.)

Now, I really want you to know that it will all end tomorrow. Seriously, look at me, take a deep breath and repeat after me: “This will all be over tomorrow.” Half of us will be crying in front of the television, while the other half will celebrate. (Probably in the other half’s faces; I have no shame in admitting that I will be one of those people if my guy wins. This stuff is better than football.) But I need you to know something: this could actually keep going.

You and I both know about the nightmare scenario. We all talk about it every four years, and we laugh it off and think about how it hasn’t happened since 1824, and how silly we are for even thinking about it. It’s only those fringe journalists that bring it up just so they can think they look cool and edgy. Well, unfortunately for you, I was one of those journalists in undergrad, so you’re stuck with the story.

ABC News has outlined five specific paths to a 269-269 tie in the Electoral College, and Bloomberg News has reflected on what would happen if the election was punted to Congress. But we’re in law school, so it’s all about the lawyers. NPR reports that, of course, both major candidates have teams of lawyers ready to descend upon whatever swing state happens to be too close. (Why do I get a feeling that there are a few pre-purchased one way tickets to Columbus already?)

If you think you may, someday, become one of those folks anxiously awaiting the call to fly to Ohio, Florida, Colorado, or whatever state it will be next time, here’s some resources to help you study election law.

Research Guides

Library of Congress Research Guide – Hey, it was the government that got us into this mess, the least they can do is help guide your research.

University of Chicago LibGuide – Why not use the school where President Obama taught Con Law?

University of California-Irvine – They’ve got the most electoral votes, so why not?

News/Journals/Blogs

Election Law at Moritz – How ironic that the Ohio State University Moritz College of Law maintains a non-profit election law research program.

Election Law Blog – Rick Hasen’s election law blog is a must-read for election law folks.

VoteLaw Blog – Lesser known and less-frequently updated, but still features smaller stories that have fallen through the cracks about smaller, more local elections.

by Joe Brock

Image found at: http://www.stmarytx.edu/law/index.php?site=advocacyPrograms#loneStarClassic

I think congratulations are in order for the GSU Student Trial Lawyers Association (STLA) team that placed second at the Lone Star Classic this year. Team members Lauren Smith, Joshua May, Alex Galvan, and Lynette Jimenez did an outstanding job in the competition that featured Baylor, Brooklyn, Buffalo, Cumberland, Denver, Emory, Faulkner, Florida Coastal, Fordham, Houston, Loyola of Los Angeles, Michigan State, South Texas, Stetson, and University of Texas.

As many of you law students have probably noticed, GSU boasts an impressive resume in trial advocacy, which is evidenced by the numerous awards that adorn the entry to our school. The coaches and members of the team Tom Jones, Paige Boorman, Joe Burford, Alison Burleson, Cheryl Champion-White, Rebecca Davis, Rudjard Hayes, Kristen Spires, and faculty advisor Professor Gable put in a great deal of time preparing for the competition. And while the accomplishment is certainly outstanding for the team members we should all be proud because GSU did a great job in front of some outstanding schools, including our in-state competitor, Emory.

So, if you see any of these folks around campus make sure to say congrats. They did a fantastic job representing all of us.