Monthly Archives: May 2014

BLS Commencement 2014

Brooklyn Law School held its 113th Commencement Ceremony on May 28, 2014 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Howard Gilman Opera House. The featured student speakers were Class of 2014 Valedictorian John David Moore and Class of 2014 Student Graduation Speaker Sabrina Margaret Bierer. Brooklyn-born and raised Barry Salzberg, Class of 1977, delivered the 2014 Commencement address and received an honorary doctor of laws degree. Salzburg, Chief Executive Officer of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited (DTTL), the largest professional services organization in the world, is an outstanding BLS alumnus, philanthropist, and highly respected business leader. All three speakers stressed that law students and lawyers do not work in isolation but are most effective when working together.

The Class of 2014 totaled approximately 400 students awarded either LL.M. of J.D. degrees. The Class of 2014 had 97 students graduating with honors: five Summa Cum Laude awards to Rebecca Jane Gannon, Douglas R. Keeton, John David Moore, John H. Runne, and Stephen A. Savoca; there were 36 students graduating Magna Cum Laude and 56 students graduating Cum Laude. For the complete list of students graduating with honors, see this link.

In his Remarks to the Graduating Class, Dean Nicholas Allard noted that this year marked a return of the BLS Commencement Ceremony to Brooklyn after 50 years saying that the last time Brooklyn Law School had its Commencement in Brooklyn was in 1964 when Judge Henry J. Friendly of the Second Circuit of the United States Court of Appeals spoke at the exercises held at the Hotel St. George in Brooklyn. Dean Allard also spoke of famous people who appeared at the Brooklyn Academy of Music including Mary Todd Lincoln who attended an opera in 1863, Mark Twain who gave a reading in 1884, Booker T. Washington delivering a speech in 1891 calling for full emancipation, a 1940 appearance by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the 1962 debut of Rudolf Nureyev, and this year’s appearance by Justice Antonin Scalia. A timeline of appearances by notable persons at the Brooklyn Academy of Music is available here.

CRS Turns 100

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The Congressional Research Service (CRS) is celebrating 100 years of service this year.

In 1914, the Library of Congress established the Legislative Reference Service (LRS).  As its name implies, the purpose of the LRS was to provide  reference information to assist Members of Congress in their legislative work.  Over 100 years, LRS evolved into today’s Congressional Research Service (CRS), with a staff of 600 that exclusively provides Congress with authoritative, confidential, objective and nonpartisan policy analysis.

CRS is known for its reports, but what makes CRS is its people—analysts, attorneys, information professionals, and management and infrastructure support staff. These staff members carry out services in support of the modern mission: to provide objective, authoritative and confidential legislative research and analysis, thereby contributing to an informed national legislature.

In recent years there has been a push to make these CRS reports freely available to the American public. Thanks to several organizations , departments and libraries many of these detailed reports are now available electronically.

Below are some recent reports on topical issues.

Nigeria’s Boko Haram: Frequently Asked Questions

Ukraine: Current Issues and U.S. Policy

Marijuana: Medical and Retail—Selected Legal Issues

Abortion: Judicial History and Legislative Response

 

 

 

 

Westlaw Classic to WestlawNext

Thomson Reuters has embedded nine short videos into Westlaw Classic to aid in the transition from Westlaw Classic to WestlawNext. The videos show how to conduct in WestlawNext those tasks currently conducted on Westlaw Classic. The videos, each about 3 minutes in length, are available until June 30, 2014. The videos cover how to do the following tasks on WestlawNext:

  • Search with Terms and Connectors
  • Find and Print a Document
  • Find and Print Multiple Citations
  • Find a Statute
  • Browse a Table of Contents
  • Search with Descriptive Terms
  • Customize Your Delivery Preferences
  • Use Folders
  • Choose a Database

To access the videos on Westlaw Classic, hover over the orange “W” and click Learn More Now.

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From Classic to Next Webinars

There is also a series of webinars for law students and faculty to ease the transition from Westlaw Classic to WestlawNext. Each week, two webinars – From Classic to Next Basic and From Classic to Next Advanced – are being held, at varying times from week-to-week. These webinars cover topics such as Boolean searching, KeyCite®, Custom Pages, and Folders. Also, at the end of each webinar users have the opportunity to ask any questions about transitioning research to WestlawNext.

The next two webinars in the series are:

From Classic to Next Basic – May 19 at 1 p.m. (Noon) ET – Register today.

From Classic to Next Advance – May 20 at 4 p.m. ET – Register today.

If these days do not work, the sessions will be repeated. Visit the webinars page for future offerings.

2014 Writing Competition: Library Sources & Hours

BLS Library offers these sources that discuss scholarly writing for law journal competitions:

Elizabeth Fajans and Mary R. Falk (BLS professors), Scholarly Writing for Law Students: Seminar Papers, Law Review Notes, and Law Review Competition Papers.  BLS Library has copies of the latest edition (4th ed., 2011) in the first-floor Reserve collection and copies of older editions (that students can check out) in the Main collection (cellar level).

Also, the Reserve collection contains the current editions of: Eugene Volokh, Academic Legal Writing: Law Review Articles, Student Notes, Seminar Papers, and Getting on Law Review and Wes Henricksen, Making Law Review: The Expert’s Guide to Mastering the Write-on Competition.

BLS Library’s 2014 Writing Competition weekend hours are:

Friday, May 16: 8 AM-10 PM

Saturday, May 17: 9 AM-2 AM

Sunday, May 18: 8 AM-2 AM

Good luck to all BLS students who will be participating in this writing competition!

 

Checked out books? Return them before May 16 to avoid fines

As you make your way through your final exams and aide-memoirepapers, don’t forget to return your library books. Students, who checked out non-reserve materials during the Spring 2014 semester, need to return them on or before May 16, 2014 to avoid accumulating fines. Also, remember to return your interlibrary loan books before the semester ends.   Log on to your library account with your BLS username and password to check if you have any Brooklyn Law School materials checked out to you, or to see if you have accumulated fines. To check if you have any interlibrary loan items checked out to you, log on to your ILLiad account using the account information you entered when you initially created your ILLiad account. If you have any questions about your library or ILLiad account, please contact the circulation desk at circdesk@brooklaw.edu.

Capers on Justice Sotomayor

Brooklyn Law School Law Professor I. Bennett Capers has posted  Reading Michigan v. Bryant, “Reading” Justice Sotomayor on SSRN. The full text of the article is available in the March 2014 edition of the Yale Law Journal Forum at this link. The abstract reads:

What are we to make of Justice Sotomayor’s criminal procedure jurisprudence? This Essay attempts to answer that question by offering three readings of her Confrontation Clause decision in Michigan v. Bryant. All three close readings, coupled with details from her memoir, serve as the basis for a “reading” of Justice Sotomayor. In toto, these readings reveal Justice Sotomayor to be precedent-bound, except when she’s not, and to be progressive, but not above using conservative methodologies to get her way. And while there is much to applaud in her jurisprudence, there are dangers too. And hope.