Your Westlaw/Lexis student account is for Academic Use Only

• Use your school Westlaw or Lexis IDs only for school research.
• The one exception  at TJSL is:
1. If you are a research assistant for a professor at TJSL, you may use your school Westlaw/Lexis ID to perform academic research for that professor.
• Use law firm resources to do research for a law firm.
• It is illegal and a violation of professional ethics to use your Westlaw/Lexis school ID to do law firm research.

Law Students need to be aware of the restrictions on the use of Westlaw and Lexis student accounts.

The agreement that TJSL students have with Westlaw regarding use of their accounts is provided here for your convenience. In short, it says that:

• you may not use your Westlaw account to do research for a law firm you are interning/externing with for the summer.
• you may only use your Westlaw account to do research for a class that you are enrolled in at TJSL.

The Lexis agreement says almost the same thing, and is available for you to read on the Lexis Website under Terms. In plain English their policy regarding law student use of Lexis is available at the Lexis Website, under Company Information.

Unlike Westlaw, Lexis has two specific exceptions to the rule that students may not use their accounts to do research for law firms. If the student is doing:

1. a for credit internship/externship, the student may use their academic Lexis ID to do research for the law firm.
2. an unpaid internships  for a pro bono or non-profit law firm, the student may use their student Lexis accounts to do research even if their internship/externship  is not for credit.

Westlaw and Lexis are aware that not all law firms have access to their databases. As such, they monitor student accounts during the Summertime. They are looking for unusual patterns of search, such as:

• Searching for items that are more commonly looked for by practicing attorneys than by law students.
• Searching from a law firm’s IP address.
• Warehousing material, that is, downloading and saving many items.

If students are found exhibiting these types of behaviors which give the appearance of misconduct, they will be investigated and charges may be brought against them. In addition, the California State Bar Association will be informed of the student’s violation of their user agreement and this may be grounds for refusal of admission to the California State Bar for unethical, illegal behavior.

To avoid being accused of misconduct and potentially ruining your career before it begins:

• Only use your school account to do research for your classes
• For law firm research use firm accounts, or if they do not have access, then use:
• print resources from the nearest law library
• Google scholar to search for patents, legal opinions and journals
• Do not do school research from the law firm office

If your law firm pressures you to use your school account, even after you have informed them of the terms of your agreement with the database vendors, I recommend that you inform career services at TJSL of your situation.

Be informed! Know the limitations on the use of your student Westlaw and Lexis accounts.

News You Can Use

Reliable Sources of Legal, Political and Economic News for San Diego Law Students and Legal Professionals

 

There is a new Guide to News sources for law students at TJSL created by Reference Librarian, Catherine Deane that supplements the Current Awareness page created by Interim Library Director, Patrick Meyer.

Let’s think a little about why you might want to pay attention to the news, what kinds of news you should keep an eye on, and how you can incorporate news reading into your day.

As a law student, you have already entered your profession on the first day of law school. Investing time, money and brain cells into a legal education is only the bare minimum, and once you have done this, it makes sense to back that up with an understanding of the lay of the land.

The good news is that even if you have been doing nothing in your free time but reading comic books, watching reality TV and playing Halo for the last four years of college, you still have three years to catch up with the rest of the adult world and to figure out what the lay of the land looks like. You may be a student, but you are not a kid. You are a professional in training.

Politics

This is not to say that you need to set aside Rock Band completely in favor of watching C-SPAN   and listening to NPR 24/7, but if you know what city you intend to live in when you graduate, or at the very least what state, it makes sense to start paying attention to local politics. Figure out who the key players are and what their policies are.

History and Culture

Beyond that, laws are not created in a vacuum. The law, and particularly the common law created as it is by judicial precedent and the decisions of 12 hopefully not-too-angry men, is shaped by history and culture. Not culture in the sense of museums and the ballet, but culture in the anthropological sense of how people think; what people do with their time; how they spend their money and what they think is moral. For instance, there are two sets of genital mutilation laws recently in the news, male and female. One type is culturally accepted in the U.S. the other is not. So it makes sense to pay attention to cultural battles over legal issues. And of course, you want to keep an eye on what the Supreme Court is doing, because their decisions change the law everywhere in the U.S.

Economics and Job Trends

The legal profession also does not exist in a vacuum, it is influenced by the U.S., state, and local economy. It makes sense to keep an eye on the economy, when you are ready to graduate, you may need to move to another state to find an economy that supports lawyers. Also, there are many ways to use a law degree other than being a lawyer at a law firm. You may want to keep an eye on the types of legal jobs that are cropping up. This allows you time to find and network with people who use their JDs in a nontraditional way and to see if this might be a career path that you prefer, and if it is, you can start networking in that field and shoring up the other skills that you would need for that career.

But I’m already so busy, how do I find time to gather and read more information?

Phone

Trade out a small portion of useless activities for a small portion of news acquiring activities. For example, your phone is with you all the time. If you have a smart phone, download a few news apps and trade out 10 minutes of Angry Birds for 10 minutes of listening to NPR.

Facebook

According to nielsenwire individual Facebook users spend an average of just over six hours a month on Facebook. Use 10 minutes of your FB time to read news. Just hit the like button on a few news sources and they will push news to you, all you have to do is scan your feed and read/listen/watch a few news items and you will be better informed than if you spent those ten minutes playing Farmville. It will also irritate your nonfarmville playing friends much less.

Email

You can also have news items delivered into your email by signing up for RSS feeds. Or subscribing to newsletters and blogs.

Bookmark this News Resource

Also, there is a bookmark bar at the top of your browser. I have created, especially for you, a one stop shop for any kinds of news that you might want to read, (yes, I even put some entertainment news on there, it’s important for you to be able to chat about silly things as well as being informed about that War in that far away country that that environmentalist grad student you have a crush on won’t shut up about). When you are networking, people don’t always want to talk about the heavy stuff. So it’s a good idea to bookmark into your Favourites Bar this News Link so that when you are bored, it’s just as easy to pull up the News pages crafted just for you, by your librarians, Catherine Deane and Patrick Meyer as it is to pull up Facebook.

So go ahead, check it out, bookmark it today, empower yourself, and take charge of your development as a knowledgeable, professional adult pursuing a career in law.

Resources for TJSL Alumni at TJSL Library

Gaining Entry to the Library

In order to gain access to the TJSL library, alumni must request an application for a TJSL borrower card at the 4^th Floor Circulation Desk. After that they may show this to the security guards to access the library.

In the Library

Once inside of the library, TJSL alumni may use the ThomCat Catalog to find print materials in the library

After finding the catalog entry for a particular item, they may use these Subject Guides and Maps of the library to locate the item in the stacks.

If, after consulting the ThomCat Catalog and the Library Maps, alumni are unable to find the desired print item, they may ask for help finding print materials in the library at the 4^th Floor Circulation Desk (ask for Circulation Librarians Torin Andrews or Hadas Livnat) or  at the Reference Desk during hours when it is staffed.

Databases

Alumni may access two databases from onsite, OnLaw and Westpac.

In order to access the Westpac database database, alumni must go to the 4^th floor Circulation Desk. Then the alumni should let the student library assistant know that they need the assistance of a circulation librarian, or reference librarian in order to access Westpac.

Research help

Alumni may contact the reference librarians via email. The librarians may invite you to make an appointment for a reference interview to instruct you on how to do your desired research using the print catalog, Westpac, or free online resources.

Email: June Mac Leod	Email: Catherine Deane
June Mac Leod, Part-time Reference Librarian	Catherine Deane, Full-Time Reference Librarian

Online help

You may use the Library’s virtual reference service, AskThom, to ask questions about the library or about library resources, for example:

• Do you have the book, Animal law : welfare, interests, and rights by David S. Favre?
• Are you open on Christmas Day?

For longer questions such as:

• What books do you carry on Animal Law?
• How do I find a contract covering the production of a commercial film?

You will need to send an email to one of the reference librarians, Catherine Deane or June Mac Leod to ask for instruction on how to do your research using the ThomCat catalog, or other available resources. They may in their discretion jump start your research by providing preliminary answers to your research questions by email.

New titles added to the Library in May, 2011

To request any of these titles, please send an email to circlib@tjsl.edu

New Titles for the Center for Law & Social Justice
3 titles

Handbook on Mediation
American Arbitration Association
KF9084 .H363 2010
Find this book in ThomCat
More about this title from Amazon.com

The How-to-Win Appeal Manual: Winning Appellate Advocacy in a Nutshell
Ralph Adam Fine
KF9050 .F56 2008
Find this book in ThomCat
More about this title from Amazon.com

Manual on Domestic Violence
Nancy K.D. Lemon
KFC1121.4 .L46 2009
Find this book in ThomCat

New Titles for the Center for Law & Intellectual Property
4 titles

Biotechnology and the Federal Circuit
Kenneth J. Burchfiel
KF3133.B56 B87 2009
Find this book in ThomCat
More about this title from Amazon.com

Cameras in the Courtroom: Television and the Pursuit of Justice
Marjorie Cohn and David Dow             Faculty Publication
KF8726 .C63 2011 (Lobby Display)          
Find this book in ThomCat
More about this title from Amazon.com

Counseling Clients in the Entertainment Industry
KF390.E57 C66
Find this book in ThomCat

Creative License: The Law and Culture of Digital Sampling
Kembrew McLeod and Peter DiCola; with Jenny Toomey and Kristin Thomson
KF3035 .M35 2011
Find this book in ThomCat
More about this title from Amazon.com

New Titles for the Center for Global Legal Studies
5 titles

The Evolving International Investment Regime: Expectations, Realities, Options
edited by Jose E. Alvarez and Karl P. Sauvant; with Kamil Gerard Ahmed and Gabriela P. Vizcaino
K3829.8 .C648 2007
Find this book in ThomCat
More about this title from Amazon.com

Five Masters of International Law: Conversations with R-J Dupuy, E. Jimenez de Arechaga, R. Jennings, L. Henkin, and O. Schachter
Antonio Cassese
KZ3900 .F58 2011
Find this book in ThomCat
More about this title from Amazon.com

International Law
edited by Malcolm D. Evans
KZ1242 .I573 2010
Find this book in ThomCat
More about this title from Amazon.com

National Courts and the International Rule of Law
Andre Nollkaemper
K302 .N65 2011
Find this book in ThomCat
More about this title from Amazon.com

Les Successions, Les Liberalites
Philippe Malaurie
KJV1329 .M257 2010
Find this book in ThomCat
More about this title from Amazon.com

Legal Research Help for TJSL Law Students: When to Ask, Who to ask, How to ask, What to ask for?

Click Image for Video on How to Ask Questions at the Reference Desk. Image (courtesy Kristian D.)

When to Ask?

When you:

• are doing an Internship and you are asked to research something.
• are doing a course that requires you to write a paper or a memo, ask early on in the semester, as soon as you have your writing assignment.
• are getting ready to propose an independent study class and you need to do preliminary research on your topic
• are writing a note for the Law Review
• are doing a moot court competition and you have just received the question
• don’t know where things are in the library

Who to ask

First contact the reference librarians

• By email
  • Catherine Deane, Full-time Reference Librarian, and Professor of Law (Advanced Legal Research)
  • June Mac Leod, Part-time reference librarian and Professor of Law (Advanced Legal Research)
  • Phone (for urgent questions)
    • Catherine Deane – 619.961.4339
    • June Mac Leod – 619.961.4335
    • Reference Desk – 619.961.4351
  • AskThom Virtual Chat (for questions that can be answered in one sentence, eg. What time do you close? Do you have an economics news database?)
  • In person at the 4^th Floor Reference Desk

If the reference librarians are not available because it is after normal business hours then ask for:

• Hadas Livnat, the Evenings/Reserve/Circulation Librarian
  • By email
  • Phone – 619.961.4292
  • In Person – ask for her at the 4^th Floor Circulation/Reference Desk

If the reference librarians are not available during normal business hours because they are on vacation/out sick, etc. then ask for:

• Torin Andrews, Circulation Librarian
  • By email
  • Phone – 619.961.4206
  • In Person – ask for him at the 4^th Floor Circulation Desk

If none of these are available you may contact the Acting Director of the Library:

• Patrick Meyer, Interim Library Director and Professor of Law (Advanced Legal Research)
  • By email
  • Phone – 619.961.4296
  • In Person – ask for him at the 4^th Floor Circulation Desk after you have asked for any of the other public services librarians listed above first.

How to Ask

Please be polite when asking for help.

Ask the student library assistants if what you need is:

• office supplies – look in the copy room
• directions to the bathroom or copy room – look at the touchscreen map
• help with printing or wireless issues –contact IT on the 3^rd floor
• a known book on course reserve – 4^th floor circulation desk
• to reserve a room – 4^th floor circulation desk

The student library assistants are available at the circulation desk to help you with these matters.

What to Ask For

Ask for:

• a tour of the library
• help using Practice Guides or other print items to do research
• help navigating Westlaw/Lexis or other databases
• help finding and researching your paper topic
• help coming up with a research strategy for a particular research problem
• guidance doing research in general
• help learning how to use Google more efficiently to find items
• help evaluating the validity of an information source (can I use this in my paper/memo?)

Library Highlights: Legal History

The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery
Eric Foner
E457.2 .F66 2010
From the Publisher: Selected as a Notable Book of the Year by the New York Times Book Review, this landmark work gives us a definitive account of Lincoln’s lifelong engagement with the nation’s critical issue: American slavery. A master historian, Eric Foner draws Lincoln and the broader history of the period into perfect balance. We see Lincoln, a pragmatic politician grounded in principle, deftly navi-gating the dynamic politics of antislavery, secession, and civil war. Lincoln’s greatness emerges from his capacity for moral and political growth.

America’s Death Penalty: Between Past and Present
edited by David Garland, Randall McGowen and Michael Meranze
HV8699.U5 A745 2011

From the Publisher: Over the past three decades, the United States has embraced the death penalty with tenacious enthusiasm. While most of those countries whose legal systems and cultures are nor-mally compared to the United States have abolished capital punishment, the United States continues to employ this ultimate tool of punishment. The death penalty has achieved an unparalleled prominence in our public life and left an indelible imprint on our politics and culture. It has also provoked intense scholarly debate, much of it devoted to explaining the roots of American exceptionalism.

America’s Death Penalty takes a different approach to the issue by examining the historical and theoret-ical assumptions that have underpinned the discussion of capital punishment in the United States to-day. At various times the death penalty has been portrayed as an anachronism, an inheritance, or an in-novation, with little reflection on the consequences that flow from the choice of words. This volume represents an effort to restore the sense of capital punishment as a question caught up in history. Edited by leading scholars of crime and justice, these original essays pursue different strategies for unsettling the usual terms of the debate. In particular, the authors use comparative and historical investigations of both Europe and America in order to cast fresh light on familiar questions about the meaning of capital punishment. This volume is essential reading for understanding the death penalty in America.

The Immigration Battle in American Courts
Anna O. Law
KF4819 .L39 2010

From the Publisher: This book assesses the role of the federal judiciary in immigration and the institu-tional evolution of the Supreme Court and the US Courts of Appeals. Neither court has played a static role across time. By the turn of the century, a division of labor had developed between the two courts whereby the Courts of Appeals retained their original function as error-correction courts, while the Su-preme Court was reserved for the most important policy and political questions. Law explores the con-sequences of this division for immigrant litigants, who are more likely to prevail in the Courts of Ap-peals because of advantageous institutional incentives that increase the likelihood of a favorable out-come. As this book proves, it is inaccurate to speak of an undifferentiated institution called ‘the federal courts’ or ‘the courts’, for such characterizations elide important differences in mission and function of the two highest courts in the federal judicial hierarchy.

The Constitutional Origins of the American Revolution
Jack P. Greene
KF4541 .G743 2010
From the Publisher: Using the British Empire as a case study, this succinct study argues that the estab-lishment of overseas settlements in America created a problem of constitutional organization. The fail-ure to resolve the resulting tensions led to the thirteen continental colonies seceding from the empire in 1776. Challenging those historians who have assumed that the British had the law on their side during the debates that led to the American Revolution, this volume argues that the empire had long exhibited a high degree of constitutional multiplicity, with each colony having its own discrete constitution. Con-tending that these constitutions cannot be conflated with the metropolitan British constitution, it ar-gues that British refusal to accept the legitimacy of colonial understandings of the sanctity of the many colonial constitutions and the imperial constitution was the critical element leading to the American Revolution.

Radicals in Their Own Time: Four Hundred Years of Struggle for Liberty and Equal Justice in America
Michael Anthony Lawrence
KF4749 .L39 2011
From the Publisher: [This book] explores the lives of five Americans, with lifetimes spanning four hun-dred years, who agitated for greater freedom in America. Every generation has them: individuals who speak truth to power and crave freedom from arbitrary authority. This book makes two important ob-servations in discussing Roger Williams, Thomas Paine, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, W. E. B. Du Bois and Vine Deloria, Jr. First, each believed that government must broadly tolerate individual autonomy. Se-cond, each argued that religious orthodoxy has been a major source of society’s ills – and all endured serious negative repercussions for doing so. The book challenges Christian orthodoxy and argues that part of what makes these five figures compelling is their willingness to pay the price for their convic-tions – much to the lasting benefit of liberty and equal justice in America.

Freedom Bound: Law, Labor, and Civic Identity in Colonizing English America, 1580-1865
Christopher Tomlins
HD8068 .T66 2010
From the Publisher: Freedom Bound is about the origins of modern America. It is a history of migrants and migrations, of colonizers and colonized, of households and servitude and slavery, and of the freedom all craved and some found. Above all it is a history of the law that framed the entire process. Freedom Bound tells how colonies were planted in occupied territories, how they were populated with migrants – free and unfree – to do the work of colonizing and how the newcomers secured possession. It tells of the new civic lives that seemed possible in new commonwealths and of the constraints that kept many from enjoying them. It follows the story long past the end of the eighteenth century until the American Civil War, when – just for a moment – it seemed that freedom might finally be unbound.

Degradation: What the History of Obscenity Tells us About Hate Speech
Kevin W. Saunders
K5210 .S28 2011
From the Publisher: […] In this original study of the relationship between obscenity and hate speech, First Amendment specialist Kevin W. Saunders traces the legal trajectory of degradation as it moved from sexual depiction to hateful speech. Looking closely at hate speech in several arenas, including rac-ist, homophobic, and sexist speech in the workplace, classroom, and other real-life scenarios, Saunders posits that if hate speech is today’s conceptual equivalent of obscenity, then the body of law that dictat-ed obscenity might shed some much-needed light on what may or may not qualify as punishable hate speech.

Networking Tips for Law Students

If this blog post is too long for you to read, at least take a glance at the Networking Resource Guide.

Who is Who?

So you have been invited to a dinner or cocktails with judges or with lawyers, some of whom work at a firm that you have been investigating, because it is a firm that you would like to work at. What the heck do you talk about? Beyond discussing your shared law school experience, it’s probably good for you to be able to discuss the latest news. You should know who is the Governor of California, and who is the Mayor of San Diego, and what they look like.

Attending classes in law school does not make you a lawyer. Beyond the bar exam, you need to remember that you are becoming part of a local legal community. The community has a shared history, and has its own celebrities. I am not talking about Lohan, Spears and Hilton although that sounds like the name of a law firm. I am talking about local legal celebrities and pariahs. The way to have something interesting to say to lawyers is to read the news about legal issues, especially about legal issues that local or national impact.

But before your speak, the most important thing to do is to listen.

Listen

Most of the legal history of the community is local knowledge that is only known to other lawyers and judges. The most important part of networking is listening to lawyers talk about themselves, each other and the judges. You should always be more interested in learning about other lawyers and what they do than you should be about telling them about yourself.

Pay Attention

This is your future profession. Give yourself a fighting chance when competing against other job candidates, by being able to impress your potential employers with your understanding of the lay of the land.

To make it easy for you to keep up with current events in local law, I have created a Resource Guide for you where you can go to read legal news online with your morning coffee. If you can find a way to work current awareness into your day, you will be a much stronger candidate when standing next to the summer associate or judicial intern who can only talk to the lawyers and judges about their substantive academic accomplishments.

Be Consistent

You need to be consistent about paying attention to what is going on in your State and your city. Putting in the effort now to make current awareness part of your day makes you an informed individual. This means that when it’s time to network you can just be yourself, because you will have plenty of things to talk about.

The Good News

If you haven’t been reading up on legal and political news, do not despair, you may not be able to come across as someone who knows about these kinds of things, but you can still be impressive.

Be Fun and Interesting

Lawyers don’t necessarily want to talk about legal and political news all the time. Get a hobby so you have something non-legal that you can talk about with passion with lawyers who have similar hobbies. This could be as easy as making sure you budget time in your study schedule to catch that Ball Game.

Remember, partners are not just looking for associates who can Am Jur their Torts class, they are looking for rainmakers who know how to network. If you are interesting to them, you will probably be interesting to clients. If you are not a natural extrovert, you may want to join Toastmasters or take an Improv theater class, these are the kinds of activities that will give you the skills you need to be able to  impress others when networking.

To make it easy for you to keep up on the legal news and local California Politics, I have created this Resource Guide for you. You should know what I look like too so you can come and ask me for when you need legal research help. I also recommend that you subscribe to this blog to make sure you are alerted when a new blog post is out. Below is a list of other Web resources on networking for law students.

 

References

• Ms. Prof: It All Starts in Law School! Networking Tips for Law Students – Ursula Furi-Per (Ms. JD)
• How to Network Like a Law Student – Bjorgvin Benediktsson (WorkAwesome)
• Networking Guide for Law School Students & New Attorneys – (Law Student Blog)
• Network Your Way to Success – (Bruin Briefs – UCLA School of Law Blog)
• Networking Tips – (Career Services, U of Texas School of Law –Austin)
• New Podcast Features Networking Tips for Law Students – (AUDIO) (Law Podcaster)
• Networking Tips for Lawyers: The Art of Schmoozing – Mary Kate Sheridan (Lexis Communities)
• Networking Tips For Lawyers – (The Complete Lawyer)
• Networking Tips  – (Harvard Law School)