Lexis Nexis Exam Preparation Game

http://www.caselawgame.com/

Be fully prepared for exams with the new case law game (it's free!) designed to help you spot and analyze issues _ a crucial part of every law exam. 1Ls: prepare for exams by testing your knowledge of case law content based on areas of law you're learning about right now. 2Ls and 3Ls: prepare for exams _ or even the bar _ with 5 levels of questions that increase in difficulty. Prep now _ in a free, fun, and easy way. Powered by the research technology of Lexis AdvanceT, Think Like A Lawyer is the fun, informative, and free way to get ready for exams. Compete against your friends, or find out how you stack up against law schools across the country on the Think Like A Lawyer leaderboard

The New Lawyer

The New Lawyer, published annually by The Daily Journal, is now available. This issue includes a list of bar passers - search by last name.

Here's a link to the PDF: 
http://www.dailyjournal.com/common/misc/TheNewLawyerNov2012.pdf

Exam Prep with Lexis

LexisNexis will offer an exam prep training to review how Lexis Advance can help students prepare for exams.  Specifically, we will address how to retrieve cases, outlines, and secondary sources to explain issues and rules/black letter law. All students are encouraged to attend on Wednesday, November 7, from 12-1pm or 5-6pm in room 3216.

$500 Amazon Gift Card Drawing for 1Ls

 

1Ls at GGU are eligible to enter a Lexis drawing for a $500 Amazon Gift Card. It is simple! Just register on Lexis.com and Lexis Advance (complete both steps 1 and 2 of registration), watch the Making Class Preparation Easier video, and complete a short attached quiz. Students who complete these requirements will be awarded 1,200 points and will be automatically entered into the drawing, which will take place in early November. If you have questions, contact alyce.perry@lexisnexis.com.

October Lexis Advance Trainings

Alyce Perry, our GGU Lexis representative, will be offering Lexis Advance trainings. All GGU law students are invited to attend on any of the following dates:

Lexis Advance    Tues    2-Oct    12:00-1:00    3216    Shepard's
Lexis Advance    Tues    2-Oct    5:00-6:00    3201    Shepard's
Lexis Advance    Wed    3-Oct    12:00-1:00    3203    Shepard's

Lexis Advance    Tues    23-Oct    12:00-1:00    3216    Lexis Advance Certification
Lexis Advance    Tues    23-Oct    5:00-6:00    2203    Lexis Advance Certification
Lexis Advance    Wed    24-Oct    12:00-1:00    3214    Lexis Advance Certification
Lexis Advance    Wed    24-Oct    5:00-6:00    3214    Lexis Advance Certification

Bloomberg Law Trainings

Our Bloomberg representative, Tracey Broadhead Frith, will offer Bloomberg Law trainings. All GGU law students are welcome to attend on any of the following dates: Wednesday, September 12, from 12 to 1 pm in room 3214; Tuesday, September 18, from 5 to 6 pm in room 3201; or Thursday, September 20, from 5 to 6 pm in room 4200. Bloomberg will provide free food for those who RSVP by emailing tbroadheadfr@bloomberg.net.

Lexis Advance Trainings

Our Lexis representative, Alyce Perry, will offer Lexis Advance training sessions. All GGU law students are welcome to attend on any of the following dates: Tuesday, September 11, from 12 to 1 pm in room 3208; Tuesday, September 11, from 5 to 6 pm in room 2201; or Thursday, September 13, from 12 to 1 pm in room 3208. Lexis will provide free food for those who RSVP by emailing alyce.perry@lexisnexis.com.

$500 Amazon Gift Card Drawing for 1Ls

1Ls at GGU are eligible to enter a Lexis drawing for a $500 Amazon Gift Card. It is simple! Just register on Lexis.com and Lexis Advance (complete both steps 1 and 2 of registration), watch the Making Class Preparation Easier video, and complete a short attached quiz. Students who complete these requirements will be awarded 1,200 points and will be automatically entered into the drawing, which will take place in early November. If you have questions, contact alyce.perry@lexisnexis.com.

1L Book Scholarship

FOR: GGU 1L students

PRIZE: $500 Amazon.com gift card 

FOR WHAT: For registering your Lexis and Lexis Advance IDs.

In early November, all 1Ls who have registered both IDs, watched a short video, and taken a quiz will be entered into a drawing for a $500 book scholarship.

HOW TO ENTER: The 1L Book Scholarship is based on the completion of both steps 1 and 2 of registration, as well as the Making Class Preparation Easier video and attached quiz.  After completing registration, watching the video, and taking the short quiz, students will be awarded 1,200 points and also will be automatically entered into the drawing, which will take place in early November.

THE BLUEBOOK IS NOW AVAILABLE AS A MOBILE APP

After an extensive vetting process, the editors* of The Bluebook, A Uniform System of Citation, have selected the rulebook app as the exclusive mobile app to publish The Bluebook on mobile devices. The Bluebook is the authoritative style guide for legal citation in the United States used by lawyers, scholars, judges, law students, paralegals, and others involved in the legal profession. A joint venture of the Columbia Law Review, the Harvard Law Review, the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, and The Yale Law Journal, it is the most widely circulated law-related book in the world.

“The rulebook app helps us keep our promise of making The Bluebook as accessible and useful as possible,” said Conor Tochilin, president of the Harvard Law Review Association. “We are excited to see The Bluebook available in such an easy-to-use digital format.”

The rulebook app easily allows legal professionals to reference federal and state court rules, codes, and style manuals. The app incorporates all the functionality of paper rule books, such as highlighting, bookmarking, and note-taking, and adds functionality unique to digital devices, including searching, hyperlinking, and multitasking. It also keeps the mobile version of The Bluebook, as well as its other content, current with regular updates that are seamlessly integrated without overwriting the user’s personal highlights
and annotations.

“We are honored that the rulebook app has been chosen as the mobile app for The Bluebook,” said Gregory Hoole, president of Ready Reference Apps, the developer of the rulebook app. “There is an unmistakable paradigm shift occurring from paper to paperless publication. The Bluebook editors’ proactive move into this new space will provide a great benefit to law students and legal professionals alike.” Currently in its nineteenth edition, The Bluebook was first compiled in 1926 by Erwin Griswold, a Harvard Law Review editor and later, dean of Harvard Law School. 

Availability
The mobile version of The Bluebook is now available for individual sale via the rulebook app on all Apple iOS devices, including iPad, iPhone and iPod touch on the App Store at http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/rulebook/id454619081?mt=8. Law firms, court systems and other large organizations can also purchase The Bluebook in bulk on behalf of their employees via an enterprise version of the rulebook app, which can be customized specifically for the organization’s needs.

New Law Students: Make Friends With A Librarian

Great blog post from the Law Librarian Blog:  New Law Students: Make Friends With A Librarian:

U.S. News & World Report has a short post out for new law students who will start their law school career in the next few weeks.  It offers four points for navigating law school:

1. Come prepared
2. Focus on finals
3. Make friends
4. Remove distractions

I’d like to focus for a moment on the third one.  The author suggests making connections within the law school and the wider university through activities and other diversions as a break from the law school routine.  That’s great advice as law school can be a highly competitive grind.  I’d like to make one other suggestion that may help the new student:  get to know a librarian.  Why?  Because we know stuff that students do not.

We know the cycle of the law school academic year.  It normally doesn’t shock us when 1Ls invade the library for the legal writing treasure hunt.  It’s not exactly the running of the bulls, but there are certain parallels.  For students it’s a new experience.  For us, it’s “been there done that.”  Don’t be afraid to ask questions, even for the simple stuff.  There’s usually a ready answer that can make a student’s life easier.

We also know the resources.  It may be nice to have all of those apps on tablets and phones.  And I’m sure there are plenty of new law students who have a lot of experience doing research in college.  Legal research, however, is a different animal.  Lexis, Westlaw, and Bloomberg Law are not free in the wild.  The mechanics can be a challenge despite the trend to provide Google-style interfaces.  Librarians understand how this stuff works and can help.

I’ll offer related word of advice:  not everything is online.  More important, not everything is online and is free.   It’s more often than not a pay for play world.  Luckily the law library has licensed a lot of the good stuff.  We can tell students what information is easily accessible and what is not.  We can also explain how to get remote access to stuff, like articles, hard to find documents, exams, and other materials.

Librarians know the law school.  We’re not the concierge for the school, but we know how it works.  We can tell you generally which office likely handles what responsibility.  We can tell you where are public copiers, scanners, microform readers (yes, they are still necessary) and other useful resources may be.  We can also tell you generally what your expectations should be in using them.  The library is probably the friendliest location in the law school.  Students use the library facility regularly in spite of the integration of technology into the curriculum.  We try to make the place a comfortable and quiet space to study.  Take advantage of that.

So, make friends with a librarian.  We won’t break the rules for you.  But our institutional knowledge of the law program and legal information can make a student’s life easier.  We even know where the bathrooms are located.  Don’t be afraid to ask. 

Welcome New Law Students!

Orientation for 1Ls begins next week, and a great deal of information will be disseminated over a very short period of time.


One thing that you can do to help yourself - and that takes only a moment - is to "like" the law library on Facebook.  Find us here.

Bloomberg BNA

As part of the law library's efforts to provide research tools that are both timely and easy to access, we are proud to add Bloomberg BNA's online platform to our list of legal databases.  This service is part of a package that will bring Bloomberg Law to law faculty and students in the fall.  (Details and training on Bloomberg Law will come in the fall.)

 

Bloomberg BNA brings us such titles as: 

• Bankruptcy Law Reporter
• Criminal Law Reporter
• Daily Tax Report
• TAX MANAGEMENT PORTFOLIOS (Yay!) (We're still keeping these in print as well)
• US Law Week
• IP law resources
• Environment & Safety law resources
• and much, much more

 

You can access Bloomberg BNA in one of two ways.

1.  There is a link on http://law.ggu.edu/law-library/online-resources under "Subscription Databases"

2.  The direct link is here: http://lawlibrary.ggu.libguides.com/BNA

 

As always, you will be connected through our proxy server and will need to enter your GGU ID and password.

 

Please "ask a librarian" if you have any questions.  Enjoy!

The Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law

We are pleased to announce that the Law Library now subscribes to the Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law online. 

ABOUT THE ENCYCLOPEDIA

The Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law (MPEPIL) is a comprehensive online resource containing peer-reviewed articles on every aspect of public international law. Written and edited by an incomparable team of over 800 scholars and practitioners, published in partnership with the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law, and updated throughout the year, this major reference work is essential for anyone researching or teaching international law.

Each of the 1,700 articles selected for publication within the Encyclopedia has been chosen to reflect not only the history of public international law, but also recent growth areas such as criminal law, human rights law, economic law, and environmental law. Every article published undergoes a rigorous review process, which includes peer-review by at least two members of the MPEPIL Advisory Board, led by Rüdiger Wolfrum, Director at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law. 

Articles within the Encyclopedia can be searched by title, full text, author, bibliography, and more; the collection can be browsed by name, subject, or author. Print friendly PDFs of each article are available. The Encyclopedia also features the Oxford Law Citator, which provides links between related cases, articles, and additional materials within the Encyclopedia, other online resources from OUP, and selected third party websites.

ACCESS

Law students, faculty and staff may access the EPIL in two ways:

1. Click on this link: http://library.ggu.edu/record=b1473732~S0 to access the database from our catalog.

 Or

2. Go to: http://law.ggu.edu/law-library/online-resources, click on “Subscription Databases” and then on Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law.

Either way, you will then log in with your GGU ID and password.

Please contact a reference librarian if you have any questions.  Thank you!

Free eBooks for Law Students!

CALI's eLangdell Press publishes free ebooks. Subjects include: Federal Rules of Evidence, Criminal Procedure, Civil Procedure, and more. These ebooks can be downloaded to an ipad, Kindle, other ereader, or a laptop (with a free software download). For more information, visit the eLangdell website at:

http://elangdell.cali.org/ 

If you have questions, feel free to visit us at the Law Library reference desk.

The Institutional Repository vs. SSRN

The April, 2012, issue of AALL Spectrum (the periodical of the American Association of Law Libraries) discusses whether an IR (Institutional Repository - our Digital Commons) will damage your SSRN rankings in the article, Will an Institutional Repository Hurt My SSRN Ranking?  by James M. Donovan and Carol A. Watson.


The authors conclude that an IR not only will NOT harm your SSRN ranking, it actually improves access to your scholarly work.  SSRN "excels at delivering their work to the cadre of legal specialists," while the IR exposes your work to a broader base of researchers that SSRN does not reach.  Hits delivered to your articles in the Digital Commons are not taken away from your SSRN downloads because "these users often would not have found the SSRN version, especially as studies show most users don't look past the first page or two of Google results."


You may read the entire article at http://aallnet.org/main-menu/Publications/spectrum/Vol-16/No-6/institutional-repository.pdf. And take a look at our own Digital Commons.

Introducing Chat Reference

Have you been wanting another way to ask research questions? Are you not able to come into the library when the reference librarians are available? Try our new chat reference! Head over to http://law.ggu.edu/law/law-library/library-services to chat with a reference librarian. This morning, I received a question by chat about how to submit an InterLibrary Loan request and a question by chat about where to find past exams. Try chatting with us to get some of your questions answered.

Chat is not available all the time (we have lives beyond these library walls); if we're not online, you can either email us your question or wait until we're back online.

The New York Legal Research Library

We now have access to the New York Legal Research Library on Hein Online.  The library includes a lot of historical materials; of current interest are the NY Journals and NY Attorney General Opinions, the State Register, Bar Journals, and Comptroller Opinions.

Access by going to: http://law.ggu.edu/law-library/online-resources, click on "Subscription Databases" and then on "Hein Online."

Please contact a reference librarian if you have any questions.

New Research Guides!

 

Check out our new LibGuides! GGU law librarians have created these new research guides to assist with your research, with links to print and electronic resources, along with explanations about using those resources. LibGuides cover a wide range of research topics. You work hard... do yourself a favor and let us help with your research!Follow this URL: http://lawlibrary.ggu.libguides.com/

Two New Libraries From Hein Online

Now available from Hein Online:

• The Pentagon Papers
• The Canada Supreme Court Reports from 1876-2011

To access, go to http://www.ggu.edu/lawlibrary/virtual/online_resources, click on Hein Online, and login with your name and GGU ID. You'll see the libraries alphabetically in the menu listing.