Professor Pommersheim Publishes New Book, "Tribal Justice: 25 Years as a Tribal Appellate Justice"

University of South Dakota School of Law professor Frank Pommersheim has published a new book entitled Tribal Justice: 25 Years as a Tribal Appellate Justice. The work provides an in-depth review and survey of tribal appellate court jurisprudence, including jurisdiction over non-indians, enrollment and disenrollment, civil rights, elections and political participation, criminal law and procedure, rights of juveniles, tribal constitutions, and tradition and custom.  The book focuses on the procedure and substance of tribal court appellate decision making as revealed in the text of actual court opinions. A full news feature is available here on the Law School's website. 

The book includes references to a LibGuide authored by Professor Pommersheim with the assistance of the Law Library staff.  The LibGuide, available here, includes copies of tribal court opinions authored by Pommersheim, organized both by subject and by tribal court. 

Professor Pommersheim has also recently released a new poetry chapbook titled "Local Memory and Karma: The Buddha Correspondence, Vol. 2." 

The Law Library currently has both books on display on the Main Floor of the library.

Happy Holidays!

Happy holidays from the McKusick Law Library!

Winter Break Hours

Congratulations to all our December graduates!  Now that the Fall finals exam period is over, the Law Library will be adjusting its service hours for the Winter Break.  The Law Library will no longer be offering extended service hours to students during the Winter Break.  From Monday, December 14 through Thursday, December 17, the Law Library will provide circulation and reference service from 7:45 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., our normal hours of operation to the public.

From Monday, December 21 through Wednesday, December 23, the Law Library will only be open to the public from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.  The Law Library closes at noon on Thursday, December 24 and will be closed Friday, December 25.

From Monday, December 28 through Thursday, December 31, the Law Library will only be open from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.  The Law Library is closed on Friday, January 1.

The Law Library will resume its normal schedule the week of  January 4.  Spring law classes begin on Wednesday, January 6.

Law students will continue to have 24/7 access throughout the Winter Break using their University ID cards.

Happy Holidays!

Paul Otlet - Lawyer, Father of Information Science, Grandfather of Search Engines

Otlet (far left) looking like he wants to get back to work already

Today marks the 70th anniversary of Paul Otlet's death. Responsible for the standardization of the 3" x 5" index card for the card catalog, creator of the Universal Decimal System, inventor of analog Google (Repertoire Bibliographique Universel), and pioneer in microfilm's use in the library, Otlet is kind of a big deal. His vision of what a library would and could be has changed the way we research, gather, and store information. Thanks to him, you could do a quick Wikipedia search and learn more about this lawyer turned information scientist!

Legal Fiction Writing Contest

 

Call for legal fiction writing . . . just in case anyone is interested.

iPad Apps for Lawyers - Part VII: Trial Evidence Prep and Presentation

PowerPoint and KeyNote are popular go-tos for presentations, but there are other, more courtroom oriented ways of presenting your case.

ExhibitView: Useful for organizing case exhibits and presentations. ExhibitView enables users to organize, create sub folders, take notes and create white boards. Presentation tools include call-out features, highlighting, a freehand pen tool, laser pointer, and control of your output to TV or projection device. Additionally, there is a PC version! This is particularly nice, for creating presentations on your PC and saving to an iPad come trial time.

TrialDirector: With TrialDirector you can create a case folder, add exhibits to your case through OneDrive, Box, Dropbox, WebDAV or iTunes, and interact with evidence using annotation and presentation tools. As with ExhibitView, tools include call-out, freehand writing, highlighting, and laser pointer. For being FREE, it's a really powerful app and comparable to some of pricier apps that do the same thing.

TrialPad: TrialPad, obviously works very similarly to TrialDirector and ExhibitView; call-out sections of documents, highlight text, compare documents side-by-side, edit and show video clips, add exhibit stickers to documents, and search document text. File formats supported include PDF, JPG, PNG, TIF, TXT, and all audio/video formats that are supported by iPad. You can import multiple files at once, keeping file and folder structures intact, via Box, Dropbox, Citrix ShareFile, Transporter, WebDAV.

Timeline 3D: Different from the above apps, this one focuses on timelines. Enter events and images, movies, or PDFs, then Timeline 3D does the rest for you. Notes, weblinks, and tags can also be added to timelines. There's a variety of backgrounds or styles to choose from, and timelines can be exported to PowerPoint and Keynote.

And that, wraps it up! I hope that this was helpful, if even just a little. Please, feel free to borrow an iPad from us and give these apps a whirl.


Be Aware: While the apps discussed in this series are helpful tools, they are in no way meant to replace official law sources. Please, rely on your McKusick Law Library or certified government websites for reference.