Law Commons^™

Push, Pull, And Spill: A Transdisciplinary Case Study In Municipal Open Government, Jan Whittington, Ryan Calo, Mike Simon, Jesse Woo, Meg Young, Perter Schmiedeskamp

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Municipal open data raises hopes and concerns. The activities of cities produce a wide array of data, data that is vastly enriched by ubiquitous computing. Municipal data is opened as it is pushed to, pulled by, and spilled to the public through online portals, requests for public records, and releases by cities and their vendors, contractors, and partners. By opening data, cities hope to raise public trust and prompt innovation. Municipal data, however, is often about the people who live, work, and travel in the city. By opening data, cities raise concern for privacy and social justice.

This article presents …

Can Americans Resist Surveillance?, Ryan Calo

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This Essay analyzes the ability of everyday Americans to resist and alter the conditions of government surveillance. Americans appear to have several avenues of resistance or reform. We can vote for privacy-friendly politicians, challenge surveillance in court, adopt encryption or other technologies, and put market pressure on companies not to cooperate with law enforcement.

In practice, however, many of these avenues are limited. Reform-minded officials lack the capacity for real oversight. Litigants lack standing to invoke the Constitution in court. Encryption is not usable and can turn citizens into targets. Citizens can extract promises from companies to push back against …

Can Law Students Disrupt The Market For High-Priced Textbooks?, Jane K. Winn

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The Center for Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction (CALI) is a non-profit organization whose mission is to advance legal education through technological innovation and collaboration. With its eLangdell Press project, CALI publishes American law school textbooks in open access, royalty-free form, offering faculty authors compensation equivalent to what most law school textbook authors would earn in royalties from a traditional full-price publisher.

I am writing a new sales textbook and “agreements supplement” based on contemporary business practice that I will publish in open access form with CALI’s eLangdell Press. Relatively few other American legal academics publish in open access form, however, suggesting …

Feeling At Home: Learning, Law, Cognitive Science, And Narrative, Lea B. Vaughn

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What is the "how and why" of law's affinity for narrative? In order to explain why the use of stories is such an effective teaching and presentation strategy in the law, this paper will consider theories and accounts from cognitive as well as evolutionary psychology, neuroscience, and, briefly, cultural anthropology. This account seeks to address "how" narrative helps us learn and use the law as well as "why" we are so compelled to use stories in teaching and in practice.

Brain science, simplified here, suggests that the first task is to grab someone's attention. Emotionally charged events are more likely …

Rebuilding The Profession: Recommendations For Librarians Interested In Becoming Academic Law Library Directors, Barbara A. Bintliff, Laura N. Gasaway, Penny A. Hazelton, Frank G. Houdek, Janis L. Johnston, Martha Dragich Pearson, Charles Ten Brink, Michelle Wu

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Based on papers presented at a 2005 workshop for individuals interested in becoming academic law library directors, this article begins by exploring the duties of academic director jobs—administrative skills and faculty responsibilities—before examining how to build credentials in preparation for such jobs. It concludes by focusing on the skills and knowledge needed to interview for director jobs.

What Law Librarians Collect, Penny Hazelton

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No abstract provided.

Memorials, Marian Gould Gallagher And Melissa Sue Landers, Penny Hazelton

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No abstract provided.

The Law Library In A New Law School, Marian G. Gallagher

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Law school faculty members have a reputation for paying attention to their libraries. They achieved that collective reputation long ago through insistence on autonomous library administration by their own kind, and they have nurtured it by exhibiting greater dependence on libraries than the members of any other discipline. Expressions of their concern and involvement are recorded repeatedly in annual reports, budget justifications, fund-raising brochures, and the proceedings of ceremonial cornerstone layings. Some have gone far beyond expressions of concern, demonstrating compulsion to devote more time to the functioning of their law libraries than has seemed necessary or interesting to the …

Armchair Tour Of The University Of Washington Law Library, Marian G. Gallagher

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Bibliomania is a rare disease. Contrary to popular belief, the germ breeds, not on ancient vellum bookbindings, but on the inside pages of hard-to-locate, bound or unbound, published or unpublished, material. Consequently, the infection is not apt to spread to the practicing attorney who has too many clients and too many cases for a seven-day week. While it may be the secret hope of every librarian that years of exposure (to the bindings when help is scarce, to the inside pages when help is plentiful) will cause him to become infected, he does not lose sight of the fact that …

Law Books And Law Publishers, Arthur S. Beardsley

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There are indications that the depression, which has burdened us for the past five years, is slowly receding. In its wake will doubtless follow renewed prosperity with all the blessings of peace and contentment. A freedom from financial worry will replace the present fear, and money will be more plentifully earned and freely expended.

It remains to be seen, however, whether the problems encountered during this economic cycle will be soon forgotten. Will the members of the legal profession and the law libraries return to their former policies of, what has appeared to be, uncontrolled and ill-advised purchasing of the …

The Law School Library—A Library Of Research For Lawyer, Layman, And Legislator, Arthur S. Beardsley

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We will probably agree that the college or university as a seat of learning must develop and maintain library facilities commensurate with the standing before the world which the institution's progress has earned. The library, and of course we include the law school library, is one of the indices of an educational institution's efficiency, and as such, we expect it to grow and expand by adding to the richness of its collections, material of ever increasing importance and usefulness. We expect the college library to take the lead in gathering for future reference the materials valuable for research which, on …