Sandra Day O’Connor: Her Life and Legacy

The Ross-Blakley Law Library is pleased to announce the addition of a new library guide:
SandraSandra-Day-OConnor-law school portrait Day O’Connor: Her Life and Legacy. Sandra Day O’Connor will always be known as the first woman to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States but her impact did not start when she was sworn in as a Justice on September 25, 1981 and it did not end when she retired from the Court in 2006. The new guide recounts Sandra Day O’Connor’s life, works by and about her, court opinions, tributes, honors, and more. The objective of the new guide is to paint a portrait of the life of an extraordinary woman and her remarkable legacy.

You may view the guide here:  Sandra Day O’Connor: Her Life and Legacy

New! 1L of a Ride Video Course

West Academic has a new video course for first year law students. The 1L of a Ride video course is by Andrew McClurg, a professor at the University of Memphis School of Law. He wrote the law school prep book, 1L of a Ride on which this course is based.

You may also want to take a look at these digital books from West Academic.

Critical Reading for Success– presents critical reading strategies in a systematic sequence so you can become an effective reader in both law school and in practice.

Get a Running Start– covers all the major concepts taught in each of the courses most commonly offered in the first year of law school.

A Short and Happy Guide® to Being a Law Student– learn how to be your best in and out of class, how to prepare for exams, how to cope with stress, and how to create value in everything you do.

If you don’t have a West Academic account, you can create one here:  subscription.westacademic.com

 

Five Reasons You Should Make CALI Your Study Partner

CALI Lessons are online interactive tutorials that cover narrow topics of law. CALI publishes over 1,000 lessons covering 40 different legal subject areas. These lessons have been used over 10 million times by law students over the years. To access CALI, click here: Using CALI

#1- CALI Lessons are another way to learn the law.
CALI Lessons are another way to learn the law. They are interactive web-based tutorials that both teach and apply your understanding of what you just read. You learn the law from casebook readings, faculty instruction, and from supplements. Many commercial supplements are not written by law faculty and are simplified and watered down versions of the law. CALI Lessons are not. CALI Lessons present hypothetical situations and then quiz you on your understanding using follow-up questions and branching to make sure you got the right answer for the right reasons.

#2- CALI Lessons are a formative assessment for you.
Do you want to make sure you are understanding what you study? The only way to be sure is to assess and CALI lessons provide a form of self-assessment. You get feedback on every question – whether you get it right or wrong – and you get a final score that tells you how you are doing on a specific legal topic.

#3- CALI Lessons are interactive and engaging.
CALI Lessons are not videos that you passively watch. The material is modeled on Socratic Dialogue where a question is asked, you answer the question, and then various aspects of the topic are explored. CALI Lessons are written by tenured law faculty with many years of teaching experience (law librarians author the legal research lessons). The lessons purposefully steer you into thinking about the topic in a nuanced way.

#4- CALI Lessons are rigorous.
It is difficult to get a perfect score on most CALI Lessons the first time through. Law is complex and CALI lessons dive into that complexity. Each lesson covers a specific topic without getting too broad in scope. The questions are tough and require serious thought from the student. A typical lesson takes 20 to 40 minutes for a student to complete. You can take lessons multiple times to improve your understanding.

#5- CALI Lessons are a good learning appetizer or an excellent learning dessert.
CALI Lessons are an excellent learning experience as a first bite at the material. They prepare you for class or subsequent readings. The material is brief and rigorous exposing you to the concepts and nomenclature of a topic without being drilled and practiced to death. In addition, CALI Lessons are excellent for study after class (alone or in a study group), after the casebook readings, or for studying for the final exam. They provide immediate and substantive feedback that can direct you to the places where further study is required.

To access CALI, click here: Using CALI

Congressional Research Service (CRS) reports now freely available online

CRS

The Library of Congress announced today that it is providing Congressional Research Service (CRS) reports to the public. CRS reports are analytical, non-partisan reports produced by the Congressional Research Service, a division of the Library of Congress, for members of Congress.  They are excellent tools for legal researchers as they provide authoritative and objective information on topics of legislative interest. Providing public access to the CRS reports is a big policy shift, as in the past reports were only available to the public when released by a member of Congress.

This policy change was directed by the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2018, which requires that the Library of Congress make CRS reports publicly available online. The result is a new public website crsreports.congress.gov, which allows reports to be searched by keyword. This website will include all new or updated CRS reports; the Library will add previously published reports “as expeditiously as possible.”

The Socratic Method and You

“I cannot teach anybody anything.  I can only make them think.”
– Socrates

As a law student you have no doubt experienced the Socratic Method instructional model, which is based on the asking and answering of questions in class with the goal of stimulating critical thinking.  You can thank Christopher Columbus Landell for that, who as the Dean of Harvard Law School from 1870 to 1895 introduced this method to legal education.  Before Landell, legal instruction was based on the lecture model, in which students memorized material from an instructional textbook and were lectured on that material in class.

Many law professors now combine the Socratic Method with the Case Method, in which they question students about appellate-level court cases to help them explore the rules that can be derived from those cases.  While this instructional model has a fair number of critics, it is something that you will need to become comfortable with in law school.  Below are a few ideas from the Law School Academic Support Blog on turning the Socratic Method into a more positive experience:

1) Recognize what questions the professor almost always asks about each case during class.  Think about the answers to those standard questions during your class preparation.

2) Before class, consider the case from 360 degrees.  In addition to understanding the case deeply (its separate case brief parts and details), consider the case more broadly (how does it fit with the other cases read for that day and into the larger topic).

3) When called on, think about the question asked and take a deep breath before answering.  Many mistakes are made because students blurt out something they immediately realize is wrong or answer a different question than actually asked.

4) Remember that most people in class are not judging you when you are the student called on for Socratic Method.  About a third are relieved it was not them.  About a third are looking ahead frantically because they realize their turns are coming up.  About a third are busy taking notes and looking for the answers.

Be sure to also check out Cracking the Case Method: Legal Analysis for Law School Success or 1L of a Ride: A Well-Traveled Professor’s Roadmap to Success in the First Year of Law School , both are available in the Study Skills Collection of the Law Library, for more ideas on how to master the Socratic Method.

New Self-Checkout!

Have you ever found yourself deep in thought while at the Law Library and then suddenly you realize the library staff have gone home and you need to check a book out? Have you dozed off in a study room and shook yourself awake at midnight knowing you needed to checkout just one more study skills book? Fear not, the Law Library now has a self-checkout station located at the Circulation desk on the third floor. You can check-out and renew items using your ASU Sun Card. There are screen instructions to guide you while using the self-checkout station.  Please contact Carrie Henteleff at Carrie.Henteleff@asu.edu if you have any self-checkout questions.

books

Wolters Kluwer and West Academic Online Study Aids – Your Keys to Success

Welcome to all our new students and welcome back to our continuing students. The Law Library is pleased to make available to you two online study aids services.

New this year is the Wolters Kluwer Online Study Aids which provides unlimited online access to hundreds of titles. Some series that are available include:

  • Examples & Explanations (a law student favorite)
  • Emanuel Law Outlines
  • Glannon Guides
  • And much more!

Click here to access WK Online Study Aids. 

You must be on the ASU campus to create an account. On the WK Study Aids home page, you will see Arizona State University College of Law in the upper right corner. Click To Personalize Login to create an account. Once you create an account, your WK login will ensure off-campus access to the study aids if you use this link: https://ebooks-aspenlaw-com.ezproxy1.lib.asu.edu/bookshelf.   You will also be able to print, download, highlight, and take notes. You can download the WK Study Aids Mobile App and study anywhere. 

West Academic Study Aids offers you easy online access to hundreds of study aids, treatises, and audio lectures to help you succeed in law school. To access the collection, click here West Academic.

You must use your ASU email address to create an account. West Academic will recognize you as a member of the ASU community and allow you to create an account when you use your ASU email address as your username. Once you create an account, your West Academic login will ensure off-campus access to the study aids and will also enable you to print, download, highlight, and take notes. You can download the West Academic Library Mobile App and study anywhere.

If you have any questions, please email Leslie.Pardo@asu.edu.

Have a great semester!

Summer 2018 and Post-Graduation Use of Bloomberg Law, LexisNexis, and Westlaw

Wondering which research tools you can use this summer?  We have outlined both summer 2018 access and post-graduation use policies for Bloomberg Law, LexisNexis, and Westlaw below.

Remember that you also have unlimited access to many other legal databases in addition to hundreds of interdisciplinary databases through the ASU Library this summer! The library staff is also here all summer long to help you with research. Call, e-mail, or stop by for assistance during reference hours.

Bloomberg Law
Bloomberg Law provides unrestricted summer access to all law students for any research purpose, whether academic or commercial.  You do not need to take any additional steps to secure summer access to your registered Bloomberg Law account.

Graduating students: Graduating students will automatically have full access to Bloomberg Law for six months after graduation. You do not need to take any additional steps to secure this post-graduation access.

Please contact our Bloomberg Law representative, Tania Wilson, with questions.

LexisNexis
LexisNexis provides unrestricted summer access to all law students for any research purpose, whether academic or commercial.  You do not need to take any additional steps to secure summer access to your registered Lexis Advance account.

Graduating students: Graduating students will automatically have full access to Lexis through the end of December 2018.  You do not need to take any additional steps to secure this post-graduation access.

Please contact our LexisNexis account executive, Alan J. Mamood, with questions.

Westlaw
Westlaw offers full access to Westlaw, Practical Law, Drafting Assistant, and Doc & Form Builder to current ASU law students who are participating in select academic pursuits over the summer. Permissible uses include the following:

  • Summer classes and study abroad programs
  • Law review or journal research
  • Research assistant assignments
  • Moot court research
  • Externship sponsored by the school

You do not need to do anything to gain summer access to these tools. Students with any other type of summer employment must use their employer-provided password for Westlaw access.

Graduating students:  Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law graduates now have 60 hours a month of Westlaw access for 18 months after graduation; this access can be used for either commercial (paid) or educational purposes. Graduating students will need to activate their 18 month password extension within their Westlaw account for this extended access.

Please contact our Thomson Reuters Academic Account Manager, Jeff Brandimarte, with questions.

Prodigious Honor for Ross-Blakley Law Library Director

Dean Victoria Trotta is the 2018 recipient of the American Association of Law Libraries Marian Gould Gallagher Distinguished Service Award. The Distinguished Service Award was established in 1984 to recognize exemplary service to the Association. The Award is given in recognition of a career of outstanding, extended, and sustained service to law librarianship and to AALL. This award is the Association’s highest honor.  We are so happy for Tory and her well-deserved accolade. Tory Award Slide

Steven Perlmutter, LLM & Celeste Robertson ’19 Honored for Exemplary Student Research

The Ross-Blakley Law Library at the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law is pleased to announce the 2018 recipients of The Ross-Blakley Law Library Award for Exemplary Student Research.

Steven Perlmutter is the first place award recipient for his paper High Times Ahead: Products Liability in Medical Marijuana. Perlmutter received his JD degree from ASU Law and is now pursing an LLM degree. Celeste Robertson takes second-place honors for her paper When Bitcoins Buy Opioids: Why Amending the Federal Money Laundering Statutes is Necessary to Combat the Opioid Crisis.  Robertson is a 2L. Their papers demonstrate sophistication and originality in the use of research materials, exceptional innovation in research strategy, and skillful synthesis of research results into a comprehensive scholarly analysis.

A review panel comprised of librarians Victoria Trotta and Beth DiFelice and Clinical Professor Kimberly Holst selected the winners from a number of very competitive entries.

To read more about Steven and Celeste’s papers, please follow this link: Announcing the 2018 Recipients of the Ross-Blakley Law Library Award for Exemplary Student Research

Congratulations to our 2018 Winners!