National Jurist - March 2009 - (Page 8) NEWS CaseMap in the classroom CaseMap case analysis software from LexisNexis has teammed with a number of law schools nationwide to get students prepared before graduation with a tool they’ll use in the workplace and will be beneficial to have on their resume. According to Jackie Inserra, a CaseMap specialist for law school (Lexis Nexis), legal and technology experts Bob Wiss and Greg Krehl, developed CaseMap case assessment and analysis software in the 1990s. Then as now, it was a premier litigation software tool to help litigators organize and manage the facts, figures, cast of characters, research and trends all in one location. In 2006, LexisNexis purchased CaseMap as it sought to diversify its litigation support offerings beyond e-discovery to include case assessment and analysis. With technology ever-changing, the CaseMap product has offered law students new inroads to help in gaining the knowledge they will need once they enter the workforce. “Technology is an integral part of law practice today, but has not traditionally been taught in law schools,” Inserra said. “Students had to learn about law practice tools and technology on the job. Not anymore.” LexisNexis offers law students free access to LexisNexis CaseMap so they can use the tool to help them with classes and adding proficiency in CaseMap to their resumes. the University of Denver’s Sturm College of Law. According to LP Professor and Director David Thomson, the school began using the CaseMap product in its Lawyering Process course in the fall of 2004. “It helps students organize their research and develop their thinking for the major writing assignments in the course,” Thomson said. “If students are fuzzy in their thinking, writing problems inevitably result. But if their thinking is clear — if they have organized the key aspects of the legal problem they are writing about — the written product will usually be much better. CaseMap helps us as teachers to help students in these critical pre-writing stages.” —Dave Thomas FORtheRECORD APPOINTED George R. Johnson, Jr., a distinguished lawyer with more than 30 years of experience in government service and education, was named the second dean of Elon U n i ve rs i t y S c h o o l of Law. Johnson had served as interim dean of the law school since August, when founding dean Leary Davis stepped down due to health issues. • Jennifer Rosato was appointed dean of Northern Illinois University College of Law. She begins her term in July. Rosato comes to NIU from Drexel University in Philadelphia where she was part of the administrative team that created and launched the Earle Mack School of Law. She served as acting dean during the school’s first year of operation and was a consultant on the project for a year prior. DIVERSITY INITIATIVE Dean Marti H. Belsky of the University of Akron School of Law is pleased with the results of his creative recruiting plan to add more minority law students to the University of Akron. Noticing a deficiency in diversity, Belsky decided to rewrite Akron’s recruiting plan with a new aggressive plan aimed at adding and retaining more minority first-year law students. The approach is built around options, creating a part-time, five-year track for students who can’t afford the full-time load or cost. When Belsky took over the law school in 2007, minority enrollment stood at 10.8 percent. A year later, first-year minority enrollment more than doubled to 22 percent. “Technology is an integral part of law practice today.” — Jackie Inserra, CaseMap specialist for LexisNexis MOVING The Ave Maria School of Law received a final blessing from the American Bar Association for its move to Southwest Florida and will relocate to Collier County from Ann Arbor, Mich., on July 1. SUIT FILED A former associate professor at ARRESTED A Harvard Law School student was arrested in January after he allegedly threatened Boston Police Department officers and resisted arrest. Charles C. Simpkins, a thirdyear law student, has been charged with two counts, including disorderly conduct and resisting arrest, according to Jake Wark, press secretary for the Suffolk County District Attorney. According to the police report, Simpkins drunkenly stumbled out of a bar in Boston’s Theater District and entered a parked BPD cruiser. Simpkins had been working as an intern at the Dorchester District Courthouse since September 2007. With its easy-to-use spreadsheets, CaseMap allows an attorney (or student) to keep track of all the important data in a case by creating issue outlines, fact chronologies, research logs and document indexes. CaseMap’s linking tool lets the user link a legal issue to all supporting facts, authorities and documents. Among the schools using the product is the University of Florida Levin College of Law has launched a racial and sexual discrimination lawsuit against the school and its dean, alleging that she was forced out of her job in retaliation for complaining about unfair treatment, according to The National Law Journal. The lawsuit filed by Sherrie Russell-Brown, an African-American, alleges that despite glowing reviews, a promotion and nominations for Professor of the Year in 2002 and 2003, she was passed over for tenure consideration and subsequently fired because of the school’s pervasive racism and sexism. 8 THE NATIONAL JURIST March 2009
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