From Law Librarian Blog:

Student lender Access Group has announced a contest entitled "One Less Worry." The contest will award $10,000 to the most deserving video posted on YouTube describing "what law students worry about."

Access Group will select the ten finalists based on "creativity, humor, quality, realism and overall appeal" and and then open up public voting on July 1. Whoever gets the most votes by July 31 will win a $10,000 scholarship for the 2008-2009 academic year.

Posted by Bonnie Shucha at 11:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The results of the 2007 CALI Legal Education Podcast survey are now available. (Well, ok - they've been available for a while now and I'm just getting around to posting about them.)

Between March and May of 2007 CALI surveyed law students who took courses in which faculty had podcast lectures as part of the Legal Education Podcasting Project. Some of the more interesting findings included:

• Although 1.7% of students surveyed did indicate that they attended class less often, the vast majority, 82.5%, attended class the same amount and 5% even indicated that they attended class more often than they would have without the podcast. I've heard that some faculty fear that if podcasted lectures are available, students would skip class knowing that they could listen later. It would seem that this fear is unfounded.
• More students used portable MP3 players to listen to podcasts than in last year's survey (24% vs. 17%), but the PC was the primary listening device.
• 75% of students rated podcasts value as EXCELLENT or ABOVE AVERAGE. This is consistent with last year's findings.

  Posted by Bonnie Shucha at 9:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The ABA Journal E-report has an interesting article on the debate surrounding the diploma privilege in Wisconsin.

Would-be lawyers who intend to practice in Wisconsin would be well-advised to attend one of the state's two law schools.

That's because Wisconsin is the only state in the country that still allows graduates of its two law schools to be admitted to practice without having to take the bar exam.

But that won't be the case for long, if State Bar of Wisconsin President Steven Levine has his way.

Posted by Bonnie Shucha at 12:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Consortium is a new law journal that "aims to explore the less-than-scholarly side of the law in an entertaining and hopefully humorous way. You're not going to find long diatribes about the recent disposition of some obscure case in some far-off jurisdiction. Instead, the diatribes focus on the social aspect of the law, law school, and lawyering." Source: LexLibris

Posted by Bonnie Shucha at 10:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Spotted on the Madison Public Library What's New blog:
Law School Students Reach Out to People at the Library

On Saturday, November 11 from 9:30 a.m. -12:00 p.m., law students from the UW Public Interest Law Foundation will be available at the Central Library with information about general legal issues.

The law students can 1) provide basic information about the law (common concerns brought up at these table sessions are landlord/tenant, unemployment and family law) and 2) find a referral for a lawyer or an agency that specializes in the appropriate area. The students can not provide opinions or advice as to what people should do in their situation or provide actual representation in court.

The University of Wisconsin Law School's Public Interest Law Foundation (PILF) is a student run organization committed to supporting law students who want to work in public interest law.

Posted by Bonnie Shucha at 11:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Highly recommended for law students is The Curmudgeon's Guide to Practicing Law. This funny guide is dead-on with its tips for new associates.

From Chapter Two, How to Fail as a New Associate:
Pt 6, Who Needs Books? This Handy Computer Will Give Me a Case On Point

If I ask you to help with legal research, and you return a half hour later insisting that there is no case on point, I will know that you did word searches on Lexis instead of doing true research. I will go to the library, skim a treatise, read the descriptions of cases in the digests, read the relevant cases, and find the precedent that we need. I will also think about having some other lawyer help me with my next case.

Ouch.

The UW Law Library's copy is available at KF300 H47 2006

Source: Law Dawg Blawg

Posted by Bonnie Shucha at 1:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

John Mayer of CALI has posted the end-of-semester survey results for the Legal Education Podcasting Project. The survey is on the perceptions of law students enrolled in courses in which the professor also podcast the lectures.

The results are quite interesting. Here are some of the findings:

• 38.4% of students listened to most or all of the podcasts
  
• The majority of students listened to the podcasts on their PCs or laptops - not on an iPod
  
• The students were asked if they skipped any classes because they knew the podcast was available. Over 80% said no. Oddly, some students reported attending the podcasted classes more than other classes.
  
• 73.8% rated the podcasts at excellent or above average value.

Posted by Bonnie Shucha at 11:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"Facing Life: The Retrial of Evan Zimmerman," a new true-crime documentary involving the University of Wisconsin Innocence Project will be broadcast on the A&E cable television network on Monday, June 5 from 8-10 p.m. central time.

From the Innocence Project press release:

"Facing Life" documents Zimmerman's decision to face the possibility of life in prison rather than accept an offer of freedom that would falsely brand him as a murderer.

When Zimmerman's former girlfriend, Kathy Thompson, was strangled on her wedding night in February 2000, her husband had a perfect alibi - one that made Evan Zimmerman the perfect suspect. Although Zimmerman proclaimed his innocence and police had no physical evidence against him, Zimmerman was investigated, arrested, convicted, and sent to prison for life.

Three years later - with help from law students and professors at the University of Wisconsin Innocence Project - Zimmerman won a new trial on appeal, and with it a second chance to clear his name. But before the retrial, the prosecution offered him a deal - plead guilty to a lesser charge and go free.

Posted by Bonnie Shucha at 2:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

UPDATE: ABC News selects Chris Ochoa as "Person of the Week"
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JS Online has a nice story about University of Wisconsin law student, Chris Ochoa, who this weekend earned his law degree, becoming only the second man in America to be freed from prison by DNA evidence to do so. He was freed from prison in 2001 with the help of the Wisconsin Innocence Project at the UW Law School.

The UW Madison News also had a nice piece which reads:

Keith Findley and John Pray, co-directors of the Wisconsin Innocence Project, says Ochoa's journey through the legal system has been remarkable. Pray was Ochoa's lead lawyer.

"Spending years in prison for a crime you didn't commit is a very damaging experience. That Chris was able to get out of prison, complete his undergraduate degree and then make it through law school speaks volumes about his character," Findley says. "We are so lucky to have had Chris as a client, a student - and soon, a colleague in the profession. He has taught us a lot about the criminal justice system, about what it means to be a lawyer, and about how to handle overwhelming adversity with strength, grace and compassion."

Posted by Bonnie Shucha at 11:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"I'm finding it hard to imagine that there's 45 minutes of stuff to see in the library. Unless they're going to have us shelve books, or complete a short research assignment while we're there," wrote one law student blogger of first year library orientations tours.

Understanding law student attitudes and behavior is key to sucessfully marketing the law library. Fortunately, as Rob Hudson of St. Thomas University School of Law writes, "many law students record their feelings as they progress through law school in Blawgs intended to inform their peers, but they also provide a wealth of information and amusement for librarians."

Law Students Write About Law Libraries (or, What Students Really Think: A Survey of Student Blawgs) is the article by Mr. Hudson that appears in the latest version of the ALL-SIS Newsletter. Highly recommended for academic law librarians.

Posted by Bonnie Shucha at 9:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)