by Terrance Manion

Going Back to CALI

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.

11.01.10

by Pam Brannon

Be an Informed Voter

Ballotpedia is one of the more fascinating sites that you’ve probably never heard of. It’s a freely editable wiki, like Wikipedia, but much, much more specialized. With a couple of clicks, you can find out what measures are currently on the ballot across the country, details on all of the state legislative elections, and all sorts of information on what’s going on with the Georgia elections.

Ballotpedia also has a lot of historical information. Want to see what measures were on the Georgia ballot in 2004? Or 2000? You can find them there. In many cases you can even find a link to the full text of the measure or the official election results. And, of course, Ballotpedia will be updating the site tomorrow with all of the latest results.

10.12.10

by Pam Brannon

Angelo Herndon: Race, Communism, Free Speech, and Atlanta

The College of Law’s Henry J. Miller Distinguished Lecture Series continues on October 21st, when Harvard’s Mark Tushnet will talk about a case that originated in Atlanta in a lecture entitled “The Hughes Court’s Treatment of Radical Dissent: The Angelo Herndon Case.”

Angelo Herndon, an African-American, member of the Communist Party, and labor organizer, was arrested in Atlanta in1932 for attempting to “incite insurrection” and convicted the following year. His case, which went to the Supreme Court in 1935 and 1937, features a stunning cast of characters, including future 5th Circuit judge Elbert Parr Tuttle, renowned historian C. Vann Woodward, poets Don West and Langston Hughes, and Charles Hamilton Houston, special counsel for the NAACP. The final verdict in Herndon v. Lowry was a narrow 5-4 reversal of Herndon’s conviction.

Of course, the Law Library has much more information on this fascinating case. The Law Library has put together a display of books and videos related to the case and its major issues, and you can find the complete record of the case in U. S. Supreme Court Records & Briefs, a database available through the College of Law Library.