The Harris County Law Library wishes you a very Happy Thanksgiving!
Coding for Lawyers – Novelty or Necessity?
Should lawyers learn to code? Opinions differ widely. Those in favor, including David Colarusso and V. David Zvenyach, say that lawyers and computer programming are a natural fit. Lawyers are sophisticated information managers who acquire, process, organize and deliver content to meet clients' needs. They analyze, solve problems, and reverse engineer complicated issues. Lawyers have the skills and ability to read detailed instruction manuals, and they’re adept at complex file management. They deal less in abstractions and more in practice, applying the tools at their disposal to the issues they confront. At the same time, lawyers must be systems thinkers who are skilled at conceptual thinking and able to see linkages between components. All are the traits of a good programmer.
However, despite this overlap in skill sets, encouraging overworked attorneys to dedicate the time and energy that a coding boot camp or do-it-yourself course of study requires is no small recommendation. Coding may be a nice skill to possess, like bilingual fluency or a second advanced degree, but it’s not a necessity, say skeptics like Edward Hartman, and unlike language skills or an MBA, computer programming does nothing to improve a lawyer's ability to provide competent representation, or so the argument goes.
Whichever side of the debate you might support, there's no doubt that technology is significantly changing the practice of law. Whether automating routine office tasks or harvesting evidentiary data from large files, technology has a role to play. Lawyers who have a baseline understanding of technical concepts and who understand how their computers operate will be better prepared to troubleshoot problems and to communicate more knowledgeably with IT staff when those troubleshooting efforts fail.
Our nation's legal documents have been described as the operating system of our country. Understanding how the judiciary and the legislative process work is akin to understanding how the Internet works. The better familiarity one has with these critical systems, the more intuitive they become. If building that kind of intuition is something you seek to accomplish, visit the links below. They are all god places to start your journey
Hello World! Should Attorneys Learn to Code?
Online Forms Meet Local Document Automation (Cut-and-Paste Coding)
Geography and the Law -- Data Mapping to Improve Access to Justice
Today marks the last day of Geography Awareness Week, an annual event sponsored by the National Geographic Society, the National Council for Geography Education, and the American Association of Geographers. The purpose of this week is to call attention to the importance of geography as a discipline and as a field of inquiry. It is also a good opportunity to discuss the role that geography can play in the access to justice movement.
The Self-Represented Litigants Network created a geospatial story map called America's Civil Courts: Whom Do We Serve?. This analysis of publicly-available datasets from the 2014 American Community Survey, the Esri Racial Diversity Index, and the FCC Form 77 County Data on Internet Access Services examines the potential impact of social, economic, and demographic factors on access to justice in communities across the nation. Depicting the data geographically helps identify problems that contribute to the justice gap and provides insights about the need for improved access to the legal system. Those who serve low-income, self-represented litigants, can predict the prevalence of various legal problems, identify high-value collaborations, evaluate the responsiveness of providers, and assess the impact of various interventions.
Using geographic information software to examine the variables that affect diffusion of legal services to low-income litigants is just one example of how geography plays a role in law. Another dataset, The National Registry of Exonerations, has been mapped to reveal trends in the number of exonerations by state and the factors that contribute to false convictions. Several other datasets are just waiting to be mapped, including the legal data from Data.gov and the Datasets for Empirical Legal Research at Yale Law School. The White House open data initiatives are continually generating data that can be mapped to reveal trends over time in various areas of the law and legal system. The possibilities are endless!
Latest & Greatest – Slavery in America and the World: History, Culture & Law
The Harris County Law Library is excited about the latest addition to its HeinOnline subscription database: Slavery in America and the World: History, Culture & Law. Consisting of cases, statutes, scholarly articles and much more, this comprehensive library is a one-stop resource for legal and non-legal materials on slavery. Among the highlights are:
- the complete five-volume set of Judicial Cases Concerning American Slavery and the Negro
- United States Supreme Court cases from 1786-1880
- selected federal cases from the circuit courts
- anti-slavery periodicals covering topics such as abolitionist movements, black authors, colonization, emancipation, and politics
- records of Congressional debates
- slavery statutes from all states
- law review articles and legal commentary
- histories of slavery from UNC Press Publications.
There are also links to external sources and digital collections documenting American slavery from such institutions as the Library of Congress, the Law Library of Congress, and the University of North Carolina Greensboro.
As with the other libraries found on HeinOnline, Slavery in America and the World: History, Culture & Law is fully searchable. Using HeinOnline’s “Slavery Quick Finder,” you can focus your search by selecting position, e.g. anti-slavery or pro-slavery, document type, jurisdiction, and topic. Document types range from biographies and pamphlets to cases and government reports. Jurisdictional choices include not only the United States and Great Britain but also Africa and Haiti. If you’re simply looking to browse the collection, just click on the category tabs at the top of the page.
The next time you’re visiting the Harris County Law Library, be sure to have a look at this historical collection detailing the history of slavery in America and abroad. Just ask a law librarian if you need assistance.
Master Microsoft Word at the Harris County Law Library's Legal Tech Institute
The Legal Tech Institute at Harris County Law Library is offering a free CLE program this Thursday, November 17th, at 12:00 pm. Join us as we present Microsoft Word for Lawyers and Other Law Types, and ramp up your productivity in just one hour. Learn time-saving tips for drafting legal documents more efficiently. Automate routine tasks, and eliminate the frustration of using Word in your daily practice. Become a Microsoft Word power user!
This practical, skills-based presentation will be customized for the needs of today's legal professionals and is guaranteed to make your work easier. Please join us! For details and to register for this course, please visit the Legal Tech Institute Events page.