Moritz Legal Information Blog

Moritz Junior Faculty Scholarship Roundup, 2013-14 By Ryan Edmiston, Class of 2015 Over the last few years, The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law has continued to build its distinguished faculty by attracting some of the nation’s most promising entry-level law professors.  These half-dozen pre-tenure professors have advanced Moritz’s long-standing tradition of excellence with their passion in the classroom, service to the community, and numerous contributions to the academic literature.  Over the past year, each of these professors has placed or published one or more articles in a top-20 journal.  Here is a snapshot of some of their published and forthcoming work: Amna Akbar :  Professor Akbar’s interdisciplinary research focuses on the intersection of national security and criminal law.  In addition, she co-directs the Moritz Civil Law Clinic and serves on the Board of Editors of the Clinical Law Review .  Professor Akbar’s article, National Security’s Broken Win

Bob Odenkirk was recently on the Nerdist podcast to promote his new book and talk about Better Call Saul , a spin-off of Breaking Bad . Bob shared loads of career and life advice, probably unconsciously, but it seems worth repeating here. If you are good at something, surround yourself with people doing something different. You'll shine more. Bob started doing improv with Chris Farley and David Cross at Second City. On stage with these comedy giants one day, he realized he was funny but would play funnier in drama. And as dark as Breaking Bad was (and it sounds like Better Call Saul is), Bob is the levity. You don't have to be the best law student or lawyer. And "best" is relative, right? It depends on the others around you. If you're not the top of the class here, it doesn't mean you won't be an exceptional lawyer. And if you find yourself as a middle-quality attorney in a firm of 500 attorneys, consider a switch. Think about what you're truly g

Take time to vote today. The issues may not be the most scintillating to you, but boy should you care about and/or focus on the oodles of judicial candidates if you are a law student interested in a clerkship or working for the prosecutor or a defense firm. Now is the time to learn as much as possible about the candidates so you are prepared in an interview. If you need help researching potential employers, feel free to inquire about the books and databases in the law library. And if you'd like to see democracy in action, stop by the Stained Glass Lounge at the Ohio Union, where several Moritz professors will field questions and evaluate results. The Watch Night Party begins at 7 p.m.

What do archivists do? Check out #AskAnArchivist today on Twitter.  Lindy Smith, Research Services Archivist, will be answering OSU-related questions.  And archivists from around the country are answering any other questions you might have. For just a taste, check out the law library's archive of law school history in the OSU Knowledge Bank. The Moritz Law Library recently digitized several College of Law student and alumni publications, which are now available in the University's open access institutional repository, the Knowledge Bank . Browse the Buckeye Barrister (published intermittently from 1951 until 1970) and the Law Record (1958-2005) to explore news of people, programs, and events. These two publications join the current All Rise publication and the College of Law class composite photographs (1902-1996) in a growing Moritz digital archives.

Have you ever filtered out content in your Facebook feed or on a search engine because it is too sexually graphic or disturbingly violent? Ever wondered, with that First Amendment and all, who determines if your assessment of the content is accurate or somehow reflects the standards in U.S. laws like the Communications Decency Act? Wired magazine recently ran a story on the people paid relatively paltry sums to keep the Internet clean for you and me. Often these folks are overseas, and often they are vendors for the big tech giants. In other words, large tech companies pay people to look all day at stuff we can't bear to look at just once. "Employees are given a battery of psychological tests to determine their mental baseline, then interviewed and counseled regularly to minimize the effect of disturbing images. But even with the best counseling, staring into the heart of human darkness exacts a toll." Knowing this, should employers be legally obligated to do more to

Last week we brought you an interview regarding patent litigation and a podcaster. Who knew representing a small business could involve every legal issue under the sun? It's like being general counsel with the need to know everything from employment law, lease agreements, tax, intellectual property and who knows what else. If you represent small businesses (or would like to once you are admitted to the bar), help them issue spot so that you avoid litigation in the first place. Here are a few resources to get you started: The Small Business Start-Up Kit Legal Forms for Starting and Running a Small Business Legal Guide for Starting & Running a Small Business The Small Business Guide to Government Contracts Advising the Small Business Client Letters for Small Business Lawyers Advising the Small Business The ABA Legal Guide for Small Business And if helping the little guy isn't motivation enough, think about this: you could be the next John Lowe .

I (and Professors Greenbaum and Caust-Ellenbogen) would like to say Civ Pro is one of the most popular classes out there, but I just don't think or know that is true. But it should be. In the interview we mentioned on this blog last Tuesday , Mike August is clear that one reason the parties settled is because his company's counsel (i) believed dismissal with prejudice was not possible in the jurisdiction in which the suit was located, and (ii) would not agree to dismissal without prejudice. Civil procedure isn't just knowing where to file---it's trial tactics as well. And in this case, where to file was as critical to the outcome of this litigation as any other piece of the trial process. Civ Pro is the rules of the game. So check out a book to brush up on civil procedure and register for Professor Ralph's Pretrial Litigation course  to learn how to maximize the rules of the game.