I also had the chance to get a personlized tour of Spindle Law today. The site organizes the law into an easily-browseable tree of topics that drill down to specific legal rules, displaying supporting authority for the rules. David Gold, one of the site’s creators, turned me on to the site after I’d tweeted about the need for a crowdsourced, legal-rule-based research system. Voila! The site is very cool, and I especially like how it displays links to authorities on free databases (Google Scholar and Public Library of Law). But they need contributors to make the site better. Currently anyone can contribute topics, rules, authorities, and can comment on others’ contributions. If this site takes off, it will be a boon to law students and a good jumping-off point for legal research of all kinds.

I’m also contributing to a couple of Blogger blogs for the firm, which will be moving over to fancy new Wordpress digs in the near future. I you want want any tidbits of general telecommunications news, check out Telecom Attorneys. Cities and government employees might appreciate our posts on Municipal Telecommunications.

I know a lot more now about the balance of equity involved in barring or allowing claims. I get that shorter statutes of limitation are good for finality, but also for judicial efficiency: keeping stale claims out of the courts. Today I learned why statutes of limitations, and the finality that they provide defendants, are absolutely critical in the criminal context, thanks to criminal defense attorney and blogger Brian Tannebaum. On the risks of removing the Florida statute of limitations for some sex offenses:

We live in a country where person after person after person is being exonerated by DNA evidence. People who were sentenced to death, and to life. Is this the time to abolish statutes of limitations on cases where a mere accusation can result in a criminal prosecution that can take away a person’s liberty for the rest of their life?…Why we are OK letting our elected leaders convince us that finality and liberty only matter in the types of cases in which they decide?

Brian’s point is that the very real and tragic victims’ stories often prevent discussion of why we have statutes of limitations in the first place: that freedom from fear of prosecution is integral to our liberty, and liberty is a fundamental American right. Thanks, Brian, for bringing this point home.

Unfortunately, I tried to apply those make-’em-think-this-is-exciting writing skills to law school. Big mistake.

First, good academic writing is not good legal writing. Second, good writing in every other context is not good legal writing. Legal writing makes you do things like label sentences that would otherwise flow just fine from one to the next with “First,” and “Second.” Legal writing wants you to use serial commas. Legal writing puts spaces between the periods in ellipses. Legal writing forces the writer to break down every possible leap of logic or twist of mystery you might hope to leave between the lines and forces them into cold, black text. Text interrupted by citations. Text with endless footnotes. Text in short sentences. Text that is redundant. Text that never varies in form. Text that is repetitious.

My current bitterness has everything nothing to do with the fact that I’m eyeballs-deep in a paper that already has 10 pages of single-spaced 10-point endnotes, all in sparkling Bluebook format. Right about now I just want to take IRAC and CRAC by the serifs and shake them until their silly, rigid bodies fall apart.

But I guess I’ll go work on my paper.

* Now that you know how much I love legal writing, you should check out my Lawyerist post on the pros and cons of writing for a law school journal.

So now the top three reasons I love Google are:

1. My brother works there and I <3 my brother.
2. Google knows more about me than I know about myself (just have to check dashboard if I forget any personal details).
3. FREE ONLINE LEGAL RESEARCH. Can’t wait to try out the extent of search functionality…. Yay!

I couldn’t have been happier with my summer job this year. I had the pleasure of working with Montana Legal Services Association, from Iowa. I was a “remote intern,” which meant I could work from my home office with secure broadband and still take care of my young daughter evenings and weekends. I was thrilled to do social media policy consultation (based largely on my Social Media Best Practices for Law Schools project) as well as a little bit of technical/web work. I was challenged to draft advice scripts for attorneys answering the statewide HelpLine, which entailed lots of statutory review and interpretation. My experience enabled me to use my web (designed Iowa Law’s new website), video, multimedia and social media experience, as well as exercise the legal side of my brain. The best part was working in the legal aid environment and meeting (albeit via GoToMeeting) so many driven and progressive people in the legal aid and legal technology fields. I learned about a few non-profits that employ people (like Kate Bladow, who used to work for Montana Legal Services) doing exactly what I would love to do.

So, this post is to let y’all know that I’m looking for a summer 2010 position. Please check out my résumé, and/or my writing at Legal Geekery or Social Media Law Student. Please contact me. Please tell your friends. Thanks.

• Having worked makes it much easier to work. I’m a research assistant to a professor who I respect very much. It’s tough enough fitting the work in between classes, other work and being a mom — but at least I know how to ask for a deadline, communicate openly about what I can and can’t do, and be efficient with my time. Serious thanks to my professional career for that one.
• Imagine what I could do if I commit myself this much to something I care deeply about. Every night I get less and less sleep, every day I slog through more and more pages and crank out ever-increasingly-efficient writing, and I think, “Wow, some day I could work this hard for a cause I truly believe in.” I’m pretty driven (who in law school isn’t??), but I didn’t know I could sustain this kind of output. It’s inspiring.
• I’m not writing for a journal, and I’m not doing OCI. These are probably the two best decisions I’ve made to date to safeguard my sanity. Enough said.
• I love copyright class. Ok, I know sooooo little about it, and there are a lot of IP-minded folks at my school (and in that class), but it’s really entertaining and informative. I’m grateful for at least one place where I feel really motivated to learn and participate.

Overall, it’s tiring, taxing, stressful and pushing me to the brink. But today I’m willing to say that the view is pretty good from the edge.

Hello Laura,

We met at the CALI conference, where we discussed some features that could be incorporated into SofTest that would be useful to students. You suggested that we add a keyboard shortcut to display the word/character count within an exam. Well, we have! I wanted you to be the first to know that the new version of SofTest released for the new academic year on September 1st will include the option of using CTRL+W to display the word/character count. Thanks for your suggestion and no there is no licensing deal for you forthcoming. :)

Bryant Weaver
Client Support Manager

I was disappointed at first that there wasn’t a big announcement on the ExamSoft website naming the ctrl+W functionality after me, but then I saw that their website doesn’t really outline any of the software’s functionality, and I felt better.

So all of you 1Ls who ctrl+W your way to a well-edited exam answer (I had two classes last semester that required word counts on the final), saving you two whole mouse clicks that it used to take to get you that same piece of information, you may not know it, but you have me to thank.

Over 65 people from law schools around the world (mostly US but a few Canadians and at least one Brit) have joined the new network at socialmediabestpractices.org to discuss questions like these. If you are a law student, librarian, professor, counselor, administrator or anyone affiliated with a law school or legal education in general, you’re invited to sign up.

If you haven’t already, review the information for law school students, staff/administrators and employers (of law students and law grads, that is) at smbp.laurabergus.com.

You’re also invited to take this 5-minute survey about social media at your law school, offered by CALI.

I want this project to be useful, so please tell me what you think!