Law Commons^™

How Laws Are Made: The Courts, Sharon Bradley

Presentations

Law, as defined in Black’s Law Dictionary, is “a body of rules of action or conduct prescribed by controlling authority and having binding legal force.” Our laws come from our three branches of Government: legislative, executive, and judicial. These webinars will focus on the law-making activities of each branch, the documents that are created during the process, and how they are used by lawyers and legal researchers.

Courts interpret statutes, determine constitutionality, and create law as part of our common law system.

How Laws Are Made: The Administrative Agencies, Sharon Bradley

Presentations

Law, as defined in Black’s Law Dictionary, is “a body of rules of action or conduct prescribed by controlling authority and having binding legal force.” Our laws come from our three branches of Government: legislative, executive, and judicial. These webinars will focus on the law-making activities of each branch, the documents that are created during the process, and how they are used by lawyers and legal researchers.

Administrative agencies are part of the executive branch of Government headed by the President. They make laws through the rule-making process, but they also enforce the rules and have quasi-judicial power.

How Laws Are Made: The Legislature, Sharon Bradley

Presentations

Law, as defined in Black’s Law Dictionary, is “a body of rules of action or conduct prescribed by controlling authority and having binding legal force.” Our laws come from our three branches of Government: legislative, executive, and judicial. These webinars will focus on the law-making activities of each branch, the documents that are created during the process, and how they are used by lawyers and legal researchers

The Open Access Advantage For American Law Reviews, Carol Watson, James M. Donovan, Caroline Osborne

Presentations

Open access within legal academia provides a case study for the effective use of digital formats to promote scholarship. The presenters review the background historical developments in this field, and consider the benefits and rationales for providing open access to legal scholarship, including the special faculty concerns arising from SSRN and its relationship to the institutional repository. Results from the presenters’ recent empirical study of the citation advantage for open access scholarship in American law reviews will be discussed and placed in broader context of the benefits of open access scholarship.

Digital Commons And Ssrn: Turning Perceived Conflict Into Real Synergy, James M. Donovan, Carol A. Watson

Presentations

Covers the history of SSRN and the development of institutional repositories, how to positively address faculty concerns about losing SSRN download statistics, statistical analysis of downloads on each platform and research behavior, and an overview of the strengths and advantages of each platform.

Formulating A Research Plan, Maureen Cahill, Tj Striepe

Presentations

Presentation, delivered to clinic and externship students on January 30 and February 1, 2012, on formulating a research plan.

Law & Reference: Answering Legal Reference Questions, Wendy Moore, Maureen Cahill

Presentations

Answering legal reference questions can be challenging, especially when you are not doing it on a daily basis. More and more legal information is available freely on the internet, but sometimes it is hard to know what the best sources are and how to make certain you are not accidentally practicing law at the reference desk. This presentation provides exposure to helpful internet resources and discussion of effective strategies to help you answer legal related reference questions in a non-law library setting with skill and confidence.

Comparing The Treatment Of Charities Under Vat And Rst, Walter Hellerstein

Presentations and Speeches

Good VAT = Good RST

Desire to assist charities should be addressed outside the RST to avoid revenue losses and administrative complexity and to maintain fiscal neutrality

Assistance should be provided by other means such as direct subsidies

Persuasive Arguments For Establishing An Institutional Repository, James M. Donovan, Carol A. Watson

Presentations

Presents the business case for creating an institutional repository (IR), including a comparison of the advantages and disadvantages with Social Science Research Network (SSRN); offers advice on obtaining faculty buy-in to the project in order to obtain content; reviews copyright right issues involved in depositing published materials into the repository; and suggests ways in which creating a repository can build relationships beyond the institution.

Institutional Repositories: Essential Infrastructure For Scholarship In The Digital Age, Carol A. Watson, James M. Donovan, Pamela Bluh

Institutional Repository Supporting Materials

Librarians from the University of Georgia Law Library and University of Maryland Law Library discuss their experiences implementing Digital Commons' institutional repository product. Issues discussed include:

- Creating a business plan to persuade law school administrators to establish an institutional repository --effect of open access on citation rates, distinguishing Digital Commons from SSRN.

- Obtaining content for the repository -- promoting the repository, building buy-in from contributors, establishing content policies, determining types of materials to be included in the repository, self-archiving versus mediated archiving

- Copyright permissions -- appending supplemental language to publication agreements, SHERPA/roMEO, keeping track of copyright permissions, …

Implementing Bepress' Digital Commons Institutional Repository Solution: Two Views From The Trenches, Carol A. Watson, James M. Donovan, Pamela Bluh

Institutional Repository Supporting Materials

Librarians from the University of Georgia Law Library and University of Maryland Law Library will discuss their experiences implementing Digital Commons' institutional repository product. Issues to be considered includes... - Creating a business plan to persuade law school administrators to establish an institutional repository -- how to justify the expenditure, distinguishing Digital Commons from SSRN, choosing Digital Commons rather than an open source solution - Obtaining content for the repository -- promoting the repository, building buy-in from contributors, establishing content policies, determining types of materials to be included in the repository, self-archiving versus mediated archiving - Copyright permissions -- appending …

Using Open Access To Increase Personal Internet Presence, James M. Donovan

Institutional Repository Supporting Materials

Discusses ways to raise internet profile by taking advantage of open access scholarship opportunities