CALI Spotlight

Today I decided to dust off my anthropology degree and do a little fieldwork in a law school class. Why? Well, if we here at CALI want to build the best possible tools for faculty and students to use, it helps to have an idea of how law courses are actually run.  And while I do have a law degree, it’s been 10 years since I was a law student and during my years teaching in law schools I was, well, busy teaching. Plus, the legal research courses I taught are slightly different than your regular doctrinal law school course.

Just to set the stage for you, this is a 1L Criminal Law class at Chicago-Kent College of Law. It has about 75 students, none obviously non-traditional.  It’s the last week before finals and the topic is Criminal Defenses. Think Bernhard Goetz.

I have to say, going into this class, I had many expectations of what I would see based on the characteristics of millennial students that we’ve been hammered with over the past few years and they didn’t really pan out.

• Almost every student had a laptop – of the 75 students, probably 90% did (and two iPads.)  Two surprising things about this: (1) easily 75% of the laptops were Macs.  When I started off as a law librarian 7 years ago, we had maybe 5 Mac users in a student body of about 400.  (2) There were still about 7 or 8 students that chose to take notes by hand.
• While just about every student with a laptop stared intently at their screen instead of the professor, they were not goofing off.  I could see about 1/3 of the students’ screens from my vantage point and NOT A SINGLE ONE was on Facebook, Twitter, ESPN, etc.  They were taking notes.  Admittedly, at about the 45 minute mark during a painful Socratic interchange, some screens began to drift to FB, email, etc.  But they came back to note taking when the professor rescued the student.
• This was a good reminder of how often law students do need to refer to the text of the cases discussed in class. Every student had a highly highlighted and annotated casebook with them that they paged through as they were taking notes on their lap top.  Since the casebooks are being carried that’s score one for the mobility of electronic books, but we need to make sure students can easily flip through them and get to their notes.
• One student did have to pass on questioning that day because her notes were lost in a computer class the night before, aka the 21st Century version of “The Dog Ate My Homework.”

My final thought is too long for a bullet point.  The professor in the class actually used the Socratic method and used it to great success. I was very impressed with the effectiveness which he used it.  But successful and effective for who?  The Socratic method is so revered because it teaches the analytical thought process – the “learning to think like a lawyer” that law schools hang their value on.  However, that only really works well for the student being questioned by the professor.  Everyone else in the class is listening and waiting for the black letter law to be revealed by the Socratic question exchange.   They’re not getting the “thought training” since they are passive observers.  Watching another person reason out a complex legal theory from the text of a case in order to figure out how to think yourself is like learning any other skill by just observing -it’s just not as effective as getting in there an practicing.   Given the size of law school classes, a student likely only has 1 or 2 opportunities for hands on practice in leaning to think like a lawyer.

How can we change that?  Well, suppose a professor turned his or her Socratic questioning of one student into a questioning of the whole class via an online system.  (CALI Author or an online poll/clicker system could be used for this.)   Each student would be engaged each class period in analytical reasoning and, assuming live results are viewable, the professor can discuss (either through lecture or more directed questioning) the reasons behind the correct answers.

Obviously, this was just one class in one course and results are not scientifcally valid.  But, it did give me some things to think about and options for educational technology.  If you have the chance, I suggest you give it a whirl and see what’s happening behind the laptop screen  the answer may surprise you.

Image credit:  Drawing by Eric Molinsky, one of the hundreds  of CC licensed images on the CALI.org Flickr.

Here at CALI we don’t do things for glory or fame and we certainly don’t do it for the money.  We do what we do because we want to make legal education and educators better and to increase access to justice.  Still, it’s nice when one of our own gets recognized for being kind of awesome.

We could not be happier to announce that CALI’s Executive Director John Mayer is a 2012 Inductee to the Fellows of the College of Law Practice Management. The College of Law Practice Management was formed in 1994 to honor and recognize distinguished law practice management professionals, to set standards of achievement for others in the profession, and to fund and assist projects that enhance the highest quality of law practice management. The College and its Fellows inspire excellence and innovation in law practice management by: honoring extraordinary achievement; developing, exchanging and disseminating knowledge and stimulating innovation in the delivery of legal services. Fellowship in the College is the highest honor bestowed upon individuals involved in law practice management.

John is being honored for his innovative use of technology in legal education and practice, especially relating to his work with the A2J Author software and assistance to legal aid organizations.   The College of Law Practice Management Fellows are an illustrious group of the most forward thinking and influential individuals in the legal practice arena. We think John will fit right in.

The official induction occurred at the College of Law Practice Management’s Futures Conference in Washington, D.C. in October.

We’re very excited by the response we’ve gotten to the Request for Proposals for the new A2J Clinic Program.  Here are some answers to frequently asked questions we’ve received.  If you have any other questions, please don’t hestiate to contact CALI Excecutive Director John Mayer at jmayer @ CALI.org

Who owns the ‘Course Kits’?

Q: After the A2J Clinical Project concludes, who will own the property rights to the “Course Kits” that are developed and used by participating faculty members?
A: The Center for Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction historically retains the copyright to all of the CALI Lessons that are developed by faculty authors in exchange for a one time payment. Similarly, we will offer a one-time payment of $5000 in exchange for the copyrights to the participating faculty members’ course kits. These course kits will be freely available for use by all CALI member-schools.

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What is a ‘Course Kit’?

Q: What is a ‘Course Kit’?
A: Defining exactly what will be included in each participants Course Kit will be determined as part of the Project. At a minimum, the course kits are likely to include a syllabus, assignments and a work plan for the student performances, as well as any tools developed or used by the faculty member to help track their students’ performance. This website is an example of the course kit developed by Prof. Ronald W. Staudt at IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law.

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When will these courses be offered?

Q: When will the courses developed as part of the Access to Justice Clinical Course Project be offered at participating law schools?
A: The A2J Clinical Course Project plans to announce selected faculty members in January and then work with that group throughout the Spring 2013 semester to develop course kits. The plan is that those course kits would then be taught by the faculty members in the Fall 2013. If a professor wanted to teach an A2J Clinic in the Spring 2013, we are eager to help with that, but the project does not require it.

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Is this project only available to Clinical Professors?

Q: Is the A2J Clinical Course Project only available to Clinical Professors?
A: No, the A2J Clinical Course Project is open to all full-time faculty members CALI-member law schools. The Project seeks to combine an academic treatment of the legal, ethical and policy issues posed by electronic lawyering with the hands-on experience of developing online tools that lower the barriers to justice for low-income people. All full time faculty members are encouraged to participate.

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Is prior technical experience required?

Q: How much prior technical experience must I have to teach an A2J Clinic?
A: No prior experience with A2J Author® or any other document assembly tools is required to participate in the Access to Justice Clinical Course Project. All participating professors will be trained in A2J Author® and HotDocs during a three-day training session in Spring 2013. Additionally, funds will be provided so that each participating clinic can hire an outside technical consultant to assist students with the software.

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What if I’m not selected?

Q. If I’m not selected to participate in the A2J Clinical Course Project, can I still adopt this course model?
A. Yes! We welcome any interested professor to adopt this course model at their law school. Financial resources limit the number of clinics we can accept into the A2J Clinic Project, but we would happily assist any professor in establishing such a clinical course offering as much as possible.

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How do I apply?

Q: How do I apply to teach an A2J Clinic at my law school?
A: To submit a course proposal, interested faculty members need to submit a Letter of Intent along with a copy of their resume/CV by email to CALI® Executive Director John Mayer at jmayer@cali.org by November 15, 2012. All submissions should include a proposed course name and description; number of credits to be offered; whether the course will be a new offering or a modification of an existing course; and whether the faculty member intends to develop the course as a permanent part of the law school’s curriculum.

Elmer Masters presenting Court Cloud and the Free Law Reporter

This past week, half of CALI traveled to Ithaca, New York to attend the Law Via the Internet Conference.   LVI is an semi-regular international conference where those involved in making primary legal materials available on the Internet meet to discuss the challenges and successes of their endeavors.

This year’s conference marks the 20 year anniversary of Friends of CALI The Legal Information Institute as well as the 10 year anniversary of the Montreal Declaration on Free Access to Law.  The conference had over 400 attendees from over 37 countries that ranged from academics to non-profits to civic minded hackers. There were five tracks and approximately4o presentations. Two CALI projects were discussed in Track 4: Application Development for Open Access and Engagement.

On Monday, Director of Internet Development Elmer Masters debuted Court Cloud as well as discussed his work on the Free Law Reporter. Court Cloud operates on a similar platform to cloud hosting service DropBox.  It would allow courts to drop word files of their court opinions into Court Cloud simply by dragging and dropping into a file on a clerk’s computer desktop.  Court Cloud will then transform the documents into html, xml and PDF.  A copy these are return to the court via the same desktop folder and the court is free to do with them what they wish.  Court Cloud is secure and is also available to store these opinions for the court.  Finally, a copy of the case is uploaded the Free Law Reporter.   It’s a win for the courts who are provided with free opinion storage and conversion and a win for the public who will be provided with free access to the laws that govern them.   This project is still in early beta, but if any court is interested in testing Court Cloud, please contact Elmer at emasters AT CALI.org .

Tuesday morning, Executive Director John Mayer discussed A2J Author, a collaborative project between CALI and the Center for Access to Justice and Technology at the Chicago-Kent School of Law.   A repeating theme of LVI was that access to primary law wasn’t enough – there need to be tools that makes the law more accessible.  A2J Author fits that need perfectly.  It is currently used by legal aid organizations to create intake forms or to assist pro se individuals to complete forms that they can then turn into the court.  It operates much like a free version of LegalZoom, except that the individuals are walked through the process step-by-step using easy to understand language and avatars to make the process less threatening.  These forms have been used over 400,000 times last year alone.  Examples of the available forms can be found on the Law Help Interactive website.  In a dovetail with CALI’s mission towards improving legal education, this software is also being used by law school clinics. In creating forms, participating students learn the primary law and procedures behind them and are exposed to cutting edge legal practice technologies.  These forms are then made available to legal aid organizations so that they are able to assist more people.  Yet another win-win situation for all involved, which we really like to faciliate here at CALI.  If you have any questions about A2J, John would be delighted to discuss it further with you.  He can be reached at jmayer AT CALI.org .