Walter Johnson 2L, Grant Frazier 3L, & Jack Milligan 2L – Honored for Exemplary Student Research

 

The Ross-Blakley Law Library at the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law is pleased to announce the 2019 recipients of The Ross-Blakley Law Library Award for Exemplary Student Research.

Walter Johnson is the first place award recipient for his paper Governance Tools for the Second Quantum Revolution. Johnson is a second year student. Grant Frazier and Jack Milligan tied for second place. Frazier is a third year student and Milligan is a second year student.  Frazier’s winning paper is titled, Using Your Head: A Different Approach to Tackling the NFL’s Concussion Epidemic.  Milligan’s winning paper is titled, Malmin v. State’s Ipse Dixit: Arizona’s Article II, § 8 Is Not of the “Same General Effect and Purpose” as the Fourth Amendment. 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 Beth DiFelice and Tara Mospan and Clinical Professor Kimberly Holst selected the winners from a number of very competitive entries.

To read more about the winning papers, please follow this link: Announcing the 2019 Recipients of the Ross-Blakley Law Library Award for Exemplary Student Research

Congratulations to our 2019 Winners!

Summer 2019 and Post-Graduation Use of Bloomberg Law, LexisNexis, and Westlaw

Wondering which research tools you can use this summer?  We have outlined summer 2019 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, Heidi Stryker, with questions.

LexisNexis
LexisNexis provides unrestricted summer 2019 (May-August) 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 December 31, 2019.  You do not need to take any additional steps to secure this post-graduation access – the transition from a regular law school ID to a graduate ID will occur on July 5, 2019. Students engaged in verifiable 501(c)(3) public interest work after graduation are also eligible for a 12-month password extension through the Lexis ASPIRE program.

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.

Book Review – “First: Sandra Day O’Connor” by Evan Thomas

In First: Sandra Day O’Connor, hifirstoconnorstorian Evan Thomas describes how Ronald Reagan, who nominated Sandra Day O’Connor to the Supreme Court as the first female justice, characterized her as “a person for all seasons.” Thomas’ biography of O’Connor fleshes this description out, chronicling O’Connor’s childhood on an Arizona ranch, her time as a student at Stanford University and Stanford Law School (which included a marriage proposal from fellow student and future Supreme Court Justice William Rehnquist), the years she worked as a legislator then as a judge in Arizona, and her groundbreaking role on the Supreme Court. First also provides intimate glimpses in to O’Connor’s private life, including her marriage with John O’Connor and her relationships with her fellow Justices (the civil but cold relationship with Justice Antonin Scalia is amusingly illustrated via the description of a tense doubles tennis match). The book also delves in to O’Connor’s anguish over her cancer diagnosis in the late 80’s and sorrow over the dementia diagnosis in 2018.

First is full of insightful entries from O’Connor’s journals, her late husband’s private memoirs, and excerpts from letters to family, friends, and colleagues. It also contains engaging interviews with O’Connor herself, as well as former classmates, romantic interests, colleagues, and law clerks. Through these unique and private materials we are shown a three-dimensional portrait of O’Connor.

Thomas has written a biography of O’Connor that is distinctive in material and scope. It is an engaging history of a singular woman. We highly recommend it.

 

New Content in the Law Library’s West Academic Study Aids Subscription

There are two new pieces of content in the Law Library’s West Academic Study Aids Subscription:

1) Newly added audio books – High Court Case Summaries® on evidence, criminal law, torts and property are now available for listening.
– Access the new audio content here.

High COurt case summaries

 

 

 

 

 

 

2) The West Academic Library App is now available for phone, iPad, or computer so you can study anywhere and on any device.
– Learn more about the App here.

West Academic app

 

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.