Resources for CALI Representatives

Click Here to download the PDF version of this release.

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CALI TURNS 25
Since its inception, the nonprofit Center for Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction (CALI) has been a leader in using computers and technology for legal education purposes.

Chicago, Ill., August 28, 2007 - When CALI was founded in 1982, computers barely existed in law schools; a stark contrast to today when a majority of law school classrooms are wired for internet and nearly every student takes notes with a laptop. This year marks the 25th birthday of the nonprofit Center for Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction, or CALI (www.cali.org). And for those 25 years CALI has been an innovator, infusing technology into the very traditional world of law school and legal education.

WHAT IS CALI?
CALI is a non-profit consortium of law schools. “We’ve grown from a side project at Harvard Law School and The University of Minnesota Law School in 1982 to having nearly every US law school participate as a CALI member,” says John Mayer, CALI’s Executive Director. CALI welcomes membership from all law schools (including those outside of the US), paralegal programs, undergraduate programs, and law firms. CALI charges no membership dues for legal aid organizations, state/county libraries, and library schools that sign on as CALI members. For a list of CALI member organizations, visit cali.org/members.

CALI is best known for its Library of CALI Lessons, The Conference for Law School Computing, and CALI Excellence for the Future Awards. And with ground-breaking new projects in the works, CALI continues to advance its mission to better legal education through technology and innovation.

WHAT CALI DOES
CALI Lessons (www.cali.org/lessons) are interactive, computer-based tutorials written by law professors and librarians. Each lesson focuses on a certain aspect of a legal subject to help the user learn the law. CALI’s Library of Lessons has grown from a handful of rarely used lessons to over 675 tutorials in 33 different legal subject areas. CALI lessons were run over 925,000 times by students during the 2006-2007 school year. “Students today grew up on technology and demand to learn interactively. We meet that demand with our CALI Lessons,” says Mr. Mayer.

The CALI Conference for Law School Computing (CALI Conference), hosted by CALI at a chosen CALI member law school each year, has been advancing technology in legal education since 1991. For 15+ years, it has been the preeminent conference for law school IT professionals, librarians, and faculty. At the CALI Conference, these law school professionals collaborate and learn about innovation as it applies to legal education. The University of Maryland in Baltimore hosts the 2008 conference this summer.

Legal professionals will also find CALI’s influence listed on a number of recent law school graduates’ resumes. CALI Excellence for the Future Awards are given to the top performer in each law school course at many member schools and, thus, the awards carry a certain prestige. The awards made CALI a verb. “You’ll hear law students say ‘she CALI’ed Torts,’ or ‘he CALI’ed Property,’” says Mr. Mayer.

One of CALI’s newer projects in line with its nonprofit mission, CALI recently developed the authoring software used for the Access to Justice (A2J) Project. A2J Author software assists self-represented litigants by enabling non-technical authors to build and implement user-friendly, web-based interfaces for pro se document assembly. Several court systems throughout the US have implemented A2J to assist pro se litigants. See www.a2jauthor.org for more information.

THE FUTURE OF CALI
Moving forward, CALI hopes to expand current offerings while introducing a handful of new projects:

• Classcaster Podcasting and Blog Network (www.classcaster.org) is currently available. It offers free class blogs, podcasting, and support of such for law professors.
• MediaNotes (www.medianotes-app.com), created by Brigham Young University Law Professor Larry Farmer, is a video/audio tagging application which allows analysis and annotation of video/audio performances for use with courses like negotiations, trial advocacy, and more. CALI will work with BYU and Prof. Farmer in the distribution of MediaNotes to CALI member schools.
• ELangdell, currently in the planning stages, will be a web-based course pack and casebook assembly system for law professors.
• CALI Spaces is a personal legal education social community space for law students, faculty, and staff. CALI Spaces will be open to the public soon.
• Legal Education Commons will allow law school personnel to share legal education materials including syllabi, podcasts, presentations, and more. Faculty and librarians from CALI member schools can upload materials to the commons under a Creative Commons license that allows colleaues and students to find and use the materials.

CALI is very excited about these new projects. “We think projects like ELangdell, Legal Education Commons, and MediaNotes have a chance to fundamentally change the way law professors teach and the way law students learn for the better,” says Mr. Mayer. “It’s our job to help usher in innovation with projects like these so that schools can help students learn the law through technology.”

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ABOUT JOHN MAYER
John Mayer is an expert in the use of technology in legal education. He became the Executive Director of The Center for Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction (CALI) in 1994. Prior to CALI, John was the Director of Computing Services at Chicago-Kent College of Law for 7 years. Mr. Mayer has a BS in Computer Science from Northwestern University and an MS in Networks and Telecommunications from the Illinois Institute of Technology. Mr. Mayer is available for comments and questions related to legal education and technology. He can be reached at jmayer@cali.org.

ABOUT CALI
CALI is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit consortium of U.S. law schools. CALI’s mission is to research and develop computer-mediated legal instruction and support institutions and individuals using technology and distance learning in legal education. CALI was incorporated in 1982 and welcomes membership from law schools, paralegal programs, law firms, and individuals wishing to learn more about the law. Over 200 US law schools are a part of CALI. More information is available at www.cali.org.

Updated: July 25, 2008

One of our best CALI advocates, Andrew Pulau Evans of Washburn School of Law, drops a letter in faculty mailboxes at his school to inform them about CALI. The text below is based on, and in some cases borrowed from, his letter.

Hand out a letter or send an email like this once or twice a year to remind your professors about CALI.

Copy and paste the text below. Edit as you wish and don't forget to add authorization codes where applicable!

Dear Professor,

Our school is a member of the non-profit Center for Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction (CALI). Please see the law library for the latest CALI DVD-ROM or access CALI on the web at www.cali.org.

If you have not reviewed CALI materials in awhile (or ever), you should take a look. CALI has over 700 computer-based tutorials for students, covering 33 different legal subject areas.

In the last several years, CALI has formed fellowships consisting of your fellow law professors. These fellowships have produced a number of high-quality lessons in Crim. Law, Property, Remedies, Trademark, Copyright, Bus. Associations, Torts, and Family Law. Further, all CALI lessons are reviewed by the CALI Editorial Board, again, consisting of your peers.

Today's law students find the interactive nature of CALI lessons to be extremely helpful as a supplement to class readings. Assigning or suggesting CALI lessons that you find helpful is a fantastic way for students to learn concepts outside of class.

And students especially appreciate CALI lessons as some of the only free, high-quality educational materials available to them as law students.

Here are a few more thoughts straight from students around the country regarding CALI:

• I find the lessons to be extremely helpful in clarifying the rules of law. It is definitely a great way to help build confidence in your understanding of the legal concepts! --1L
• I have found the CALI lessons to be a great tool for review. The explanations and questions reinforce the concepts and theories corresponding to my law class. I'm very grateful to have this website. It has made real impact on my understanding of the law.
  --1L
• The CALI lessons are a great place to solidify the concepts learned in class. After I read the material and did my outline, I went to the CALI lesson and everything just gelled. Essential tool. --1L

You should consider incorporating CALI lessons in your curriculum or, at least, letting students know that these lessons are available.

To create a new online account at cali.org, our school’s authorization code for faculty is YOUR FACULTY CODE HERE. This code should not be given to students. After submitting your faculty code, you will personalize your username and password for cali.org; thus, you only need the authorization code once.

The authorization code for students is YOUR STUDENT CODE HERE. Please share this code with students. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

Thank you,

CALI has sent enough student authorization codes for all or substantially all law students at member schools this year.

Some suggestions for use:

- Hand out with CD's in orientation

- Hand out to all students in certain classes (legal writing)

- Keep a stack close to wherever CALI CD's are distributed.

- Place a stack in computer rooms or at computer workstations

- Place at library desks (circulation, reference)

- Place in student lounge

- Put on bulliten boards

- Place in or around student mailboxes

If you want to print more, you may. Don't forget to customize the cards according to your school's authorization code and to download CALI font for these files to have the proper appearance on your computer.

Files:

MS Word: AuthCodeCards.doc (Must download CALI font for this download to have the proper appearance.)

MS Publisher: AuthoCodeCards.pub (Must download CALI font for this download to have the proper appearance.)

These are similar to the student authorization code cards, but for faculty and staff. Placing faculty authorization code cards in faculty mailboxes is a great way to distribute them!

Files (you must download the CALI font for these files to appear and print properly on your computer):

Faculty AuthCode Word Document (Don't forget CALI FONT)

Faculty AuthCode Publisher File (Don't forget CALI FONT)

-Download the PDF FILE of this release

- TEXT OF RELEASE...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Austin Groothuis
CALI
565 W. Adams
Chicago, IL 60661
Phone: 312-906-5303
agroothuis@cali.org
www.cali.org

CALI Sends 140,000 CD’s to US Law Schools

• CALI wants to ensure that every law student has a chance to learn about CALI Lessons. So this year, it is sending 140,000 total CALI CD-ROM’s to its 206 member law schools for the schools to hand out to law students – enough for every law student in the United States.

Chicago, Ill., August, 03, 2007-- CALI Lessons are among the few free study aids available for law students. But getting law students to talk amongst themselves about study tips and techniques can be tricky.

“Sometimes we wonder if students are slow to tell other students about the quality of CALI lessons because a lot of law students want to keep the secret for themselves,” says John Mayer, Executive Director of The Center for Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction (CALI). “Everyone wants to be at the top of the curve in law school and CALI lessons can help.”

What are CALI CD-ROM’s?
The CALI CD-ROM contains CALI's entire catalog of exercises in 33 areas of the law, 675 lessons. The CD-ROM is available only to students from CALI member schools. It is issued every year with updated lessons and new materials to ensure that all materials contain current law. Law students should see someone in their law library to get a free CALI CD-ROM.

This fall marks the largest batch of CD’s CALI has ever sent to law schools. It first time CALI has sent its member law schools enough CD’s for all students.

What are CALI lessons?
CALI Lessons are computer-based tutorials written by law professors and are freely available to CALI member schools’ students. Students use CALI Lessons to supplement learning or for exam review. Lessons are also available at www.cali.org.

“We know students who use the lessons love them because CALI lessons were run over 925,000 times during the 2006-07 school year and we get amazing feedback from students who use the lessons,” says Mr. Mayer. “We just want to make sure all law students know that the lessons are free and available to them.”

ABOUT JOHN MAYER
John Mayer is an expert in the use of technology in legal education. He became the Executive Director of The Center for Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction (CALI) in 1994. Prior to CALI, John was the Director of Computing Services at Chicago-Kent College of Law for 7 years. Mr. Mayer has a BS in Computer Science from Northwestern University and an MS in Networks and Telecommunications from the Illinois Institute of Technology. Mr. Mayer is available for comments and questions related to legal technology. He can be reached at jmayer@cali.org.

ABOUT CALI
CALI is a 501(c)(3) non-profit consortium of U.S. law schools. CALI’s mission is to research and develop computer-mediated legal instruction and support institutions and individuals using technology and distance learning in legal education. CALI was incorporated in 1982 and welcomes membership from law schools, paralegal programs, law firms and individuals wishing to learn more about the law. Over 200 US law schools are a part of CALI. More information is available at www.cali.org.

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Contact:
Austin Groothuis
CALI
Phone: 312-906-5303
agroothuis@cali.org
www.cali.org