ZiefBrief

CALI -- Mental Windsprints for the Legal Novice

Several years ago this blog overheard a gaggle of  first year law students discussing the CALI exercise that is a required part of the Legal Writing, Research and Analysis class. It became clear that one of the   participants in the conversation was thinking of exercise in terms of calisthenics, not computer assisted legal instruction (that's what CALI stands for: "Computer Assisted Legal Instruction".) Well, CALI exercises may not build your endurance or upper-body strength but they will help hone your legal thinking to a razor edge. Using the miracle of carefully designed self-paced tutorials you can give your lawyering skills a full workout. There are over 600 exercises available on a wide range of legal topics of interest to every law student.
Access to the CALI exercise is available to all students and staff at USF through the CALI website. Registration is required and all registrants need to know the special USF password. To find out what the passcode is just send a message to shaferjAT_SYMBOL_HEREusfca.edu (replace the words AT_SYMBOL_HERE with the @ when you address your message) with your name and a brief request for the CALI password.

Zief Library Self-Guided Tour - For Non-Virtual Visitors

If you're planning a non-virtual visit to USF's Dorraine Zief Law Library, or have signed up for a hitch at the USF School of Law, you might find our Self-Guided Tour of the Zief Library [PDF; 9 pages] a helpful introduction to both the layout of the building and the arrangement of the materials. The tour takes you through all three floors of the building, and offers some insights about the different research tools that are at your disposal.

(First year USF law students will also find a copy of the tour in their Legal Research, Writing & Analysis supplementary materials.)

Succeeding in First Year - Advice from the Stacks

Last week ZiefBrief offered up some blogs on surviving the first year of law school. This week, it's on to the venerable medium of print for yet more advice.

Everybody who's ever been to law school will be happy to inundate you with well-intentioned (and sometimes conflicting) ideas about how to get through the next three (or four) years. This impulse is so strong in some that there's nothing for it but to write a book. The upshot: the Zief Library has more than a few books purporting to unlock the secret of law school success.

We've listed lots of of them (covering general advice, reading & analysis, research & writing, and taking exams) in our research guide Succeeding in Law School [PDF; 2 pages; 112K].

To give you a flavor of what's available, here are a couple of typical titles, with Zief Library call numbers showing our shelf locations:

• Atticus Falcon, Planet Law School II: What You Need to Know (Before You Go) — But Didn’t Know to Ask, and No One Else Will Tell You (Fine Print Press, c2003) KF 283 .F35 2003 LAW STACKS
• The Editors of JD Jungle, Law School Survival Guide (Jungle Media Group/Perseus Pub., c2003) KF 283 .L375 2003 LAW STACKS
• Helene S. Shapo & Marshall Shapo, Law School Without Fear: Strategies for Success (Foundation Press, 2002) KF 283 .S53 2002 LAW STACKS
• Patrick M. McFadden, A Student's Guide to Legal Analysis: Thinking Like a Lawyer (Aspen Law & Business, c2001) KF 283 .M396 2001 LAW STACKS
• John C. Dernbach, A Practical Guide to Writing Law School Essay Exams (F.B. Rothman, 2001) KF 283 .D47 2001 LAW STACKS

Is Wireless Coming to the Zief Library?

In the last couple of days ZiefBrief has noticed a mysterious influx of technicians from USF's Information Technology department. They've been staring at our ceilings and rooting  around in the telecom closets in ways consistent with the impending installation of a wireless network. We've been told that wireless will be available in the Zief Library this coming semester, so we're taking all of this activity as a good sign. As our excellent Dean often says, stay tuned…

[Update: 8.11.06] Short answer - Yes!  Wireless is here!

ZiefBrief itself wandered around with its laptop this morning, successfully surfing the internet on all three levels. (Our helpful Law IT staff ask us to remind you that, wireless being wireless, it will never be 100% secure. So please don't us it for your online banking and such!)

Succeeding in First Year: Advice From the Blogosphere

Here at ZiefBrief we're looking forward to meeting our newest group of first years, who will be arriving any day now. Our advice to you is a riff on the hoary boot-camp-style law school welcome speech:

Look to the right of you; look to the left of you. In three years (or four, for the evening division)… all three of you will be celebrating your law school graduation together! (Actually, in exactly three years you will be celebrating the end of the Bar Exam, an even happier occasion.) The law school is confident you'll succeed as a law student and as a lawyer. That's why you're here, so resist all attempts (yours or others') to work you up into a state of high anxiety over law school.

That said, you'll probably be a little nervous anyway about the new experiences and challenges of law school.

A couple of blogs out there serve up law school survival advice, for first year and beyond.

• The Academic Support Blog (by several academic support program directors) is primarily aimed at other directors of academic support programs, but lots of posts contain tips that law students will find valuable. Take a look at the categories Advice, Encouragement & Inspiration, Exams - Studying, Exams - Theory, Stress & Anxiety, and Study Tips - General

• CALI's Pre-Law Blog (by Austin Groothuis, a second year law student at Chicago-Kent).  Incoming law students will likely find some useful tidbits in the pre-law discussions category. [Thanks to Law Dawg Blawg for the tip!]

[Update: 8.9.2006] Heafey Headnotes' Annual Round-Up of Faculty's Advice for First-Years also has a good collection of links.

[Update: 8.11.2006] For books, see our new post Succeeding in Law School - Advice from the Stacks.

[Update: 8.22.2006] Prof. Paul L. Caron has compiled quite a list of blogospheric advice for new law students on his TaxProfBlog. [Thank to the Law Librarian Blog for the tip!]

Due Process and School Discipline: A New Article From Prof. Denvir

John Denvir, Research Professor of Constitutional Policy here at the USF law school, and his co-author Miriam Rokeach, a consultant in education policy, have just published "Front-loading due process: a dignity-based approach to school discipline."

The article, part of a symposium on "Meeting the Challenge of Grutter—Affirmative Action in Twenty-Five Years,"  proposes changes to school discipline that the authors assert are part of overall school reforms required in the post-Grutter era. In their introduction the authors state, in part:

If America is going to be able to abandon affirmative action in twenty-five years, we must have a wholesale reform of the American education system so that talent and perseverance, rather than family income and race, determine success in achieving entry into our elite universities. We believe that an effective disciplinary process is a small but essential part of this reform, because the cruel but clear truth is that large numbers of poor minority students are expelled from or encouraged to leave school before they have been able to reach their true academic potential.

We suggest a new approach to school discipline based on the constitutional value of human dignity. Dignity upholds the intrinsic worth of every individual; each of us deserves respect as the subject acting out our life story, not merely as an object to be acted upon by others....

We believe that the Supreme Court's opinions on procedural due process can be an important tool in fashioning a disciplinary process based on respect and fairness....

Denvir, John & Rokeach, Miriam, "Front-loading due process: a dignity-based approach to school discipline." (Symposium: Meeting the Challenge of Grutter—Affirmative Action in Twenty-Five Years) 67 Ohio State Law Journal 277 (2006) is available in print in most, if not all, U.S. academic law libraries — including the Zief Library (where it's currently at the Circulation & Reserve Desk). In addition, Lexis subscribers can retrieve the article by using "Get a Document" and entering the citation: 67 Ohio St. L.J. 277. Westlaw subscribers can use "Find by citation" or "Find & Print" and enter: 67 OHSLJ 277.

[Other publications by Professor John Denvir are listed on the Zief Library's Faculty Publications page.  The USF Law School web site has this profile of Professor Denvir.]