Thursday, December 23, 2010

A (Minor) Manifesto (about American Legal Education)

A Manifesto

1. Law school courses generally focus on legal rules. But facts are just as important both for successful law practice and for an understanding of the actual workings of the law.

2. There are now some law courses that call on students to do fact investigation. For example, in litigation clinics students must often gather evidence and assemble it in preparation for trial. But fact investigation involves more than intuition and hunch. Fact investigation involves mental discipline; it involves and requires orderly thinking.

3. No method known to humankind can guarantee that a litigator (or some other sort of lawyer) will do fact investigation successfully. But some methods commonly involved in fact investigation can be identified – and they can be taught. See the course in fact investigation at Cardozo School of Law.

Monday, December 20, 2010

MarshalPlan 4.0 as a Downloaded Application

MarshalPlan.4.0, now available via your web browser (Firefox or Internet Explorer), can also be downloaded to your computer. Go here and download the version of MarshalPlan that works with your computer's operating system.
N.B: This software only illustrates how a fully developed version of MarshalPlan would work. For example, the existing version of the software does not allow the user to store data permanently. For a more expansive discussion of the limitations of the current versions of MarshalPlan, go here.

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The dynamic evidence page
It's here: the law of evidence on Spindle Law. See also this post and this post.