Public Justice Foundation Writing Competition

The Roscoe Hogan Environmental Law Essay Contest is a %5,000 cash award given to the author of the winning essay. The 2009 topic is Pollution Preemption: Federal Preemption of State Tort Law and Environmental Protection. Any student currently enrolled in an accredited American law school may submit a legal essay for the competition. Essays can only be written during the academic year covered by the competition and may not be prepared as part of paid legal work outside of law school. The intent-to-enter submission deadline is January 30, 2009. The essay contest deadline is March 31, 2009. For more information, click www.publicjustice.net.

Consumer Financial Services Writing Competition

The American College of Consumer Financial Services Lawyers has announced its 2008 Writing Competition. Awards are granted for the best student case note or comment on a topic dealing with consumer financial services law. The awards include cash payments of $2500, $2000, and $1000, respectively, a Certificate of Recognition from the College, and travel expenses to attend the Spring 2009 meeting of the College.

For more information, click http://www.accfsl.org/writing-competition/.

Sarah Wedding Prize in Reproductive Rights Law

Need to get your writing requirement out of the way? Why not maximize your effort? You can sign up for an independent study with a professor (course credit cha-ching), get your AWR satisfied (graduation cha-ching), and write on a topic that's the subject of a current writing contest and submit it for prizes and/or publication (resume cha-ching).

Here's a writing competition now!

Sarah Weddington Writing Prize for New Student Scholarship in Reproductive Rights Law
CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS
WIN MONEY AND GET PUBLISHED

LSRJ is accepting submissions for its 4th annual Writing Prize.

The theme this year is “Seeking Reproductive Justice in All Places for All People.”

Law Students for Reproductive Justice is looking for fresh student scholarship that a) focuses on marginalized individuals or communities, such as people of color, immigrants, minors, poor people, prisoners, and those who identify as LGBTQQI, and b) applies a reproductive justice lens in its analysis. Papers may have a domestic or international scope. Authors are encouraged to focus their research on issues or occasions of reproductive coercion or oppression: the political, social, legal, and economic forces that limit or control the reproductive options of individuals and communities. A wide range of topics will be accepted, including but not limited to a particular community’s unique struggle against reproductive oppression; environmental conditions causing reproductive harms; coercive or forced contraception, sterilization, or birthing conditions; the shackling of pregnant prisoners during labor and delivery; discrimination against non-traditional family formation; the impact of pharmacist refusals or abortion provider shortages in geographically isolated communities; or access to the HPV vaccine.

Papers must be at least 20 pages in length, not including footnotes, double-spaced 12-point Times New Roman font. Papers submitted for publication elsewhere will be accepted; however papers previously published will not be allowed. An outside panel of attorney judges will select the winners.

Send your submission as a pdf or Word attachment to info@lsrj.org by March 2nd!

Winning authors will receive $750 (1st place) or $250 (2nd place), get published on LSRJ’s website, and perhaps be invited to present their papers at conferences.

Embryo Law Writing Competition

For information on the Embryo Law Writing Competition, go to http://www.embryolaw.org/. There are total prizes of $5,000 cash; first place is $2,500, with a possible bonus of $500 for submission prior to February 2, 2009.

RSVP for Brown Bag Advisement Sessions

The following Brown Bag Advisement Sessions are coming up. All students are welcome. Bring your lunch or dinner and find out from Touro professors about careers involving the subjects that interest you. Please RSVP to Elisa Slamm at elisas@tourolaw.edu or 631.761.7050, or just show up!

Wednesday, October 29, from 12:30 p.m. to 1:25 p.m. in room 307
Profs. Jack Graves & Meredith Miller, Business & Commercial Law

Tuesday, October 28, from 5:30 p.m. to 6:15 p.m. in room 408
Profs. Sharon Pocock and Marcy Sheinwold, Legal Writing & Research

Thursday, November 13, 12:30 p.m. to 1:25 p.m., rm 307
Prof. Ritchie Klein and Dean Ken Rosenblum, Criminal Law

Final Exams: Computers & Accommodations -- don't wait!

The deadline to sign up to take your exams on computer is next Friday, October 31. Please see the memorandum sent to your student e-mail account about taking exams on computer this semester. The opportunity to take exams on a laptop is available for all final exams scheduled during the exam period, December 11 - December 23, 2008. You must register for online exams by October 31, 2008, and you must upload the mock exam by November 21, 2008.

The deadline for requesting exam accommodations is TOMORROW, October 24. The Office of Student Services will take requests until 2:30 p.m. Anyone who requests accommodations but has not received confirmation of those accommodations by next Friday (Oct. 31) should contact me.

Welcome back from the break!

Halloween Open House at Writing Center!

Writing can be a scary proposition for law students. But getting help with your writing doesn't need to be scary. So come on down to the First Annual "Which Witch Is A Which" Open House at Touro's Writing Center (room 418). Meet Ann Nowak, the Writing Center's new director, who says that she'll be wearing her light-up red devil ears for this special occasion. If that's not a good enough reason to show up, then consider this: she'll be handing out free Halloween grab bags, each containing an assortment of candy as well as a useful bookmark listing her top 12 writing tips. And while you're there, see if you can guess which of her two witches is a "which."

Save the Date: Thursday, October 30, 4:30-6:30, and Friday, October 31, 10:00-12:00.

Deceptive E-mail

You already know that it's hard to discern tone from an e-mail. But apparently, it's even harder to discern the truth from an e-mail.

In a New York Times blog post, Tara Parker-Pope describes a study on e-mail honesty and discovered that groups of people asked to communicate information were more truthful in written communication than in typed e-mail communication:

There is a growing concern in the workplace over e-mail communications, and it comes down to trust,” said Liuba Belkin, a co-author of the study and an assistant professor of management at Lehigh University, in a press release. “You’re not afforded the luxury of seeing nonverbal and behavioral cues over e-mail. And in an organizational context, that leaves a lot of room for misinterpretation and, as we saw in our study, intentional deception.

The phone call and face-to-face meeting may need a comeback.

Save the Date! Brown Bag Advisement Sessions

We're bringing back the Brown Bag advisement sessions that were so popular last year. Come talk to professors who are "in the know" about the areas of law that you want to practice in. Don't know what area you want to practice in? Come to all of them! To accommodate varied schedules, we'll have two sessions during the day and two sessions during the evening. Information on the evening sessions will be forthcoming soon. Information on the day sessions is below.

Business & Commercial Law
Featuring Profs. Meredith Miller & Jack Graves
October 29, 2008, from 12:30-1:25 in room 307
RSVP to Elisa Slamm at elisas@tourolaw.edu or 631.761.7050 by October 27

Criminal Law
Featuring Profs. Richard Klein (for the defense) and Rosenblum (for the prosecution)
November 13, 2008, from 12:30-1:25 in room 307
RSVP to Elisa Slamm at elisas@tourolaw.edu or 631.761.7050 by November 7

Save the Date! Section Lunches, Day Students

After the holiday break, all first-year students will have an opportunity to have lunch with their professors. If you would like to come and get to know your professors better, please RSVP to Elisa Slamm at elisas@tourolaw.edu or 631.761.7050. When you call, please remember to tell her which section you're in. Following are the dates for the lunches:

Section A Professors: October 27 from 12:30-1:25 in the Faculty Conference Room
Section B Professors: October 30 from 12:30-1:25 in the Faculty Conference Room
Section C Professors: October 23 from 12:30-1:25 in the Faculty Conference Room

Study Group Collaboration with Web Apps

Google Docs

Buzzword


Office Live

Zoho

Need to Connect with a Study Group Over the Break?

Over the break, you may want to continue working with a study group so you don't lose ground, but it's hard to coordinate people who live far away. Also, sometimes students who live far away from the school or far away from their law school friends miss out on the benefits of a study group because it's just too hard to get everyone in one place.

Consider something like Free Conference Call at www.freeconferencecall.com. You can sign up for a conference call number, and the call costs no more than whatever long distance charges each participant might incur individually. With cell phone -- and even land line -- plans these days, many students pay nothing extra for long distance calls, so the conference call is entirely free.

Here's how it works:

One person sets up an account at www.freeconferencecall.com. With that account will come a conference call number that each caller can dial in to along with information on the verification code that each caller must enter when calling in. Everyone calls in at the agreed upon time, and then you can each be in front of your laptops or books or outlines and talk about whatever your study group is working on.

Upcoming posts will suggest some document sharing web applications you can use to work on hypos or outlines together as a study group without having to be together physically. These can be great when used in conjunction with a conference call. The result is a "virtual study group."