Law schools have long been innovators online. It was at a law school, after all, that the first Web browser was developed for Microsoft's Windows. To begin to list some of these trailblazers would simply exclude too many others.
Recent projects launched online with the support of law schools show that there is no waning of clever and useful ideas coming from law students and faculty. Here are some examples:
IP case clearinghouse. In December, Stanford Law School launched the Intellectual Property Litigation Clearinghouse a first-of-its-kind online database that offers comprehensive information about IP disputes within the United States. Users can review real-time data, often in striking graphical formats, about legal disputes involving patents, copyrights, trademarks, antitrust and trade secrets.
It includes data summaries, industry indices and trend analysis, together with a full-text search engine. See, for example, a "heat map" showing the busiest litigation dockets. View graphs illustrating outcomes in key federal courts. Find the most-litigated patents. Browse individual case dockets.
Stanford says the clearinghouse's data will be rolled out in phased modules. The initial release focused on patent litigation, and covers more than 23,000 cases filed in U.S. district courts since 2000. It includes raw data for every district court patent case and all results, including opinions.
Law, meet journalism. The Grace Case Project is a joint undertaking of the schools of law and journalism at the University of Montana. Students from both schools teamed up to cover the federal criminal prosecution of W.R. Grace & Co. and five of its executives and managers in U.S. District Court in Missoula.
The trial started Feb. 19. Defendants are charged with engaging in a conspiracy and cover-up that risked the lives of people in Libby, Mont., by allowing them to be exposed to asbestos stirred up by the company's vermiculite mining and ore processing near the town.
At least one student from each school is in the courtroom whenever the trial is in session, but their duties differ. The journalism students, most undergraduates, are writing as journalists to tell the story that the jury hears. They also write background and explainer stories to provide context and clarity to the daily court action.
The law students, all in their second or third years, are charged with explaining the legal nuances and strategies of the trial. Their posts are meant to explain why the jurors are hearing what they are and the reasons for the legal challenges and rulings. They also provide legal background and context.
Open-access law journal. Harvard University Press recently launched the Journal of Legal Analysis an open-access law journal published in cooperation with the John M. Olin Center for Law, Economics and Business at Harvard Law School. JLA's editors say their plan is to publish "the best legal scholarship from all disciplinary perspectives and in all styles, whether verbal, formal, or empirical." Articles are faculty-edited and subject to peer review.
By describing itself as an open-access journal, the JLA is promising to maintain immediate and no-cost access to its articles via the Web. Once a year, articles published online will be gathered into bound volumes and made available for purchase. The JLA's editor-in-chief is Harvard law professor J. Mark Ramseyer.
The debut issue included an article that argues that raising judicial salaries would do nothing to improve judicial performance. Another contended that judges should be deferential in reviewing class action settlements. The articles all were written by well-known names from the world of legal academia.
Tracking bankruptcy cases. The American Bankruptcy Institute and St. John's University School of Law have teamed up to launch the ABI Bankruptcy Case Blog. The blog is written by the student editors of the American Bankruptcy Institute Law Review at St. John's, and promises to deliver in-depth research on cutting-edge bankruptcy issues.
"Each entry is the product of extensive research and constitutes a succinct analysis of the issue and holding of the particular case, how that issue is situated in the larger discourse of bankruptcy law, and why the case is important," says an introduction to the blog.
IP law podcasts. With its first program having debuted in October, the Intellectual Property Colloquium is a promising series of monthly podcasts devoted to IP law. It is produced through the UCLA School of Law with support and sponsorship from Loeb & Loeb, the consulting firm LECG and Intellectual Property Symposium.
The podcast's description says that it aspires to be "something like an NPR talk show, but focused on copyrights and patents, and aimed primarily at a legal audience." Guests are drawn from academia, the entertainment community, the judiciary and various technology industries.
Even better, the show offers CLE credit to lawyers in several states.
Life after exoneration. A new blog, Life After Innocence, serves as the online home of the Life After Innocence Project at Loyola University Chicago. It provides law students with the opportunity to offer guidance and legal assistance to recent exonerees.
Laura Caldwell, a Loyola law alumna and distinguished scholar in residence, leads the practicum. Caldwell, also a successful novelist, worked as a civil attorney when she became involved in the pro bono case of a 19-year-old suspect who was forced into a murder confession and imprisoned in a Cook County holding cell for six years without a trial.
Caldwell and criminal defense lawyer Catherine O'Daniel eventually won a not-guilty verdict for their client.
The project at Loyola will work with clients like Caldwell's who have been exonerated after serving time in a county jail, or those who have spent time in a penitentiary before having their convictions overturned.
Estate planning forum. Students at the Texas Tech University School of Law recently launched The Codicil as an online companion to the school's Estate Planning and Community Property Law Journal.
The journal is the only student-led law journal devoted to national coverage of estate planning, community property and related legal topics. Founded in 2007, it recently published its first edition.
The Codicil is intended to supplement the print journal with articles, comments, book reviews, case-law updates and other pertinent information related to estate planning and community property.
The editors hope the site will allow further discussion and exploration of articles published in the print edition and also highlight additional topics. "We hope the site will become a useful and dynamic resource," they write.
As you can see, innovation online is alive and well at law schools throughout the country.
Robert J. Ambrogi is a Massachusetts lawyer and media consultant. He writes the blogs LawSites and Media Law, and co-writes Legal Blog Watch.
