Practice Advice for Litigation, from Bloomberg Law

If you're facing an externship, a summer clerkship, or your first job after law school, there's a good chance that you'll suddenly realize that you'd like to improve your skills. It's not that you learned nothing in law school—just that there's an awful lot to know, and you haven't been in a setting where you need to do a lot of things. How do you serve papers? How do you manage privileged documents? What's the deal with document review?

Bloomberg Law now offers you a suite of very practical documents to help fill that gap. In the Litigation Intelligence Center, choose the Core Litigation Skills Toolkit.

The documents are divided into Litigation Research, Litigation Writing, Motions Practice, Serving and Filing Documents, Using BLAW Research Tools, Document Review, and Privilege Review. Just from that list, you can imagine how helpful the toolkit can be!

Some of the documents and checklists are by Bloomberg staff. "Perspectives" pieces are by guest authors. For instance, the documents on writing memos and writing persuasive briefs are by a lawyers from from big firms (Baker McKenzie and Goodwin, respectively). 

Maya Swanes

Being a librarian, I'm always eager for students to understand the terrific resources and services that libraries offer. And there's a Perspectives piece on just that: Understanding Law School Library Resources. Hey, look! It's by my colleague, Maya Swanes, who offers tips on making the most of what's available to you. 

These resources are not "all Bloomberg, all the time." In fact, most of them are just about the nuts and bolts of practice, without promoting Bloomberg Law's databases--although Bloomberg does have some material that can be really helpful.

UW Law students, if you've never gotten around to setting up your Bloomberg account, see our page on acccess to restricted databases (you will need to use your UW NetID and password to access this page). We even have videos to help you register: check out our Registering for and Using Legal Databases page on our guide, Gallagher Basics: Welcome to Law School! 

Diverse Voices: Websites

This post in our Diverse Voices blog series highlights selected websites for exploring African American history, literature, and culture. Happy browsing! 

Portrait of Ella Fitzgerald.

BlackPast

The BlackPast website was created by a UW History Professor Emeritus named Quintard Taylor, whose academic interests include African American, Nationalism, Race and Ethnicity, and Urban History. This website is dedicated to providing the general public with accurate and first-hand accounts of African American history and of African descendants around the world. Spend some time browsing through the African American History or Global African History sections. Each has a wealth of knowledge that can be found in primary documents, institutions, speeches, and perspectives. The Special Features section includes topics on 101 African American Firsts, Black Inventors and Inventions, Historical Black Churches, and more! 

African American History Month

Although February is over, that doesn't mean we can't continue to learn about African American History. This website hosts a wide variety of exhibits and collections, audio and video, and images collected from multiple libraries, archives, and museums. The goal of this website is to pay tribute to generations of Black Americans who struggled with adversity to be recognized as full-fledged Americans. Explore exhibits on African American Educators, Education, and Schools. Find resources on African American Jazz artists like Ella Fitzgerald and Eric Dolphy. Listen to a video or audio recording on African American Poetry and Literature. There are even resources for teachers! 

African American Intellectual History Society 

In 2014 the African American Intellectual History Society (AAIHS) was started by Christorpher Cameron as a blog. Today, AAIHS is a flourishing scholarly organization that hosts communication regarding writing, researching, and teaching black thought and culture. AAIHS also publishes Black Perspectives, which is a popular blog that focuses on global Black history, culture, and thought. The AAIHS website also provides an in-depth collection of resources which are subdivided by topic. Read up on the Civil Rights-Black Power Era or find your next book club reading under the African American Literature section.

Northwest African American Museum

Looking to do something with the family one evening? Then look no further than Seattle's own Northwest African American Museum. This museum's website includes virtual exhibits and events. Join NAAM every 2nd Sunday of the month on their YouTube channel for interactive storytime. Take some time to look through their Educational section which includes their blog and a Think Like Malcolm section. There are activities and resources for the whole family!

Want to do more than browse through websites? Think about supporting Black-owned businesses by visiting the Support Black Owned website. Use the website's directory to find items on sale by category or by location. Know a Black-owned business and don't see it on the website? Become an SBO member and add a business to the website. 

Image Citation: Gottlieb, William P. Portrait of Ella Fitzgerald, New York, N.Y., ca. Nov. United States, 1946., Monographic. Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/gottlieb.02871/.

Observe International Women's Day with an Oxford Handbook or a UN Database

March 8 is International Women's Day, a good time to feature some resources about women in international development.

Oxford Handbooks Online (licensed for UW users) are edited by prominent scholars. Chapters—also by prominent scholars—can give you a good start on a topic, with overviews and bibliographies.  For International Women's Day, you could search for specific topics (e.g., education or reproductive health) or browse:

• The Oxford Handbook of Women, Peace, and Security
• The Oxford Handbook of Transnational Feminist Movements 
• The Oxford Handbook of Gender and Politics

Interested in the legal and economic conditions in different countries? Check out the UN Food and Agricultural Organization's Gender and Land Rights Database. For family law issues, see the UN Women's Family Law Database, hosted by Penn Law.

For more on researching sustainable international development, see our recent guide.

Diverse Voices - Art & Activism

As Nina Simone opined “[a]n artist’s duty, as far as I’m concerned, is to reflect the times.” That reflection can capture not only the joy and beauty of the world, but also the pain, anger, and injustice. Ms. Simone’s statement has held true throughout many periods of social upheaval, including this past year when artists came out in full force to document and participate in the racial justice movement that spread throughout the country and world. No single type of medium has been used to depict and explore the movement's messages, and works range from photography to poetry to dance to street art and beyond. With the near-instantaneous availability to share photos and videos social media, many of these works, such as the now-iconic mural at the George Floyd Memorial depicted below, have been captured and spread widely. 

Some types of media are ephemeral and can be difficult to preserve and this is particularly true for murals and street art. Given the impermanent nature of these pieces, museums and others are working to insure that they are collected and maintained for future generations. One such project from the Urban Art Mapping project is the George Floyd & Anti-Racist street art database. This database documents and catalogs the work of street artists and members of the public are encouraged to submit photos of the art they see on the streets in their neighborhoods to add to the collection.

Even those who do not necessarily think of themselves as “artists” are able to contribute to story of this movement through tangible items used in protests and demonstrations. For example, pieces on display at the National Museum of African American History & Culture include a t-shirt worn by Rahiel Tesfamariam at a protest commemorating Michael Brown in 2015 and a protest sign from 2015, both shown below. You can explore the Museum's entire collection of objects related to activism from various times in history here.

These pieces, together with the more traditional works, help paint a broad picture of this movement and the many ways that people participate, express themselves, and make their voices heard.

Want to further explore the interplay of art, protest, and activism? Check out the following:

Read:

• Thessaly La Force, Zoe Lescaze, Nancy Hass & M.H. Miller, The 25 Most Influential Works of American Protest Art Since World War II, N.Y. Times Style Magazine (Oct. 15, 2020)
• Liz McQuiston, Protest! A History of Social and Political Protest Graphics (2019)
• Makeda Best & Miguel de Baca, Conflict, Identity, and Protest in American Art (2015)

Listen:

• Art, Activism, Race and the Law, Nasher Museum of Art (April 18, 2017)
• Who We Be: Superpanel on Art, Protest and Racial Justice, Bay Area Society for Art & Activism (April 4, 2015)

Watch:

• Marcus Ellswoth, Art as Activism, TEDx (Nov. 15, 2014)

Credit for mural image: munshots on Unsplash