Legal Technology Curriculum: Current Trends & Future Directions

1. Legal Technology Curriculum: Current Trends & Future Directions AlexZHANG Washington&LeeUniversityLawSchool JoanLIU InstituteofHumanitiesandSocialScienceData FudanUniversityLibrary CAFLL6thBiennialConference American University, School of Law July10,2019

2. OUTLINE • InformatizationinRealityandCurriculuminClassroominChina • IsHicks’“Teaching LegalBibliography” Method Still Relevant?  • Hicks’MethodandBeyond

3. I.InformatizationinRealityandCurriculuminClassroom • The State of CouncilissuedtheNoticefor“NationalInformatizationPlan”for2016-2020,withtasksas: • Optimization of current internet infrastructureinlegalinstitutions; • Enhancementofthe official websites byaddingmoresubstantial contents to provide information services; • Automation of the communication system and enhancedtransparency; • Digitalizationofdocuments and files tofast-movingcaseloadsand enhance the efficiency.

4. I.InformatizationinRealityandCurriculuminClassroom • Legislature • Online release legislative drafts for public review,andonline submission of legislative suggestionstoenhancetransparency forlegislative process; • Construct more laws and other content-based databases; • Usesocial media, such as Wechat, Blog, Weiboviamobile devicesto bridge the congress to the citizens;

5. I.InformatizationinRealityandCurriculuminClassroom • Judiciary–“smartcourt”: • Improve information construction standards and infrastructure: all courts are networked and the court facilities are automated; • Comprehensive coverage, archival, and system integration for judicial informationaccessnation-wide; • Explore the means of big data to improve the quality of case handling and serve judicial reform.Usesuchbig data for trial enforcement, judicial management,andjudicial services.

6. I.InformatizationinRealityandCurriculuminClassroom • Lawyers：professionally guided by Chinese lawyers associations • KnowledgeManagement:automation of firmsofficemanagementsystemanddigitalizing inhousecase materials; • ApplyingAIapplicationtoanalyzecases; • Buildingupelectronicresourcescollectionforeffectiveresearch; • Traininglawyers to access online sources(byyoungassociates);

7. I.InformatizationinRealityandCurriculuminClassroom • The status ofavailablelegalsources • Primary sources available through officialoropen access portals; • Newlawsandlegalupdatespublishedandavailableviavariousmeans; • Courtdecisionslargelyavailableviacourts’websitesandopensources; • Freelegalinformationonlineservicesstartdeveloping(无讼,Openlaw.cn,Findlaw.cn); • The scholarship in full-texts mainly through commercial publications or databases,index or table of contents available via publishers’ websites.

8. I.InformatizationinRealityandCurriculuminClassroom • Legaleducationinstitutionshavereactedtothedemandfrompracticeanddevelopedrathercomprehensiveacademicprograms; • Institutesorcentersunderlawschoolsoninformationtechnologyhavedrawnmoreinterest; • Competencyandskill-setsontechnologyandresearchwhichlegal research coursescouldofferhavereceivedmoreattention,althoughthe lawschoolcurriculumsgenerallycoverlegaldoctrines.

9. LegalEducationPrograms

10. Legal Research Related CoursesatFudanU. • Legal Info Retrieval and Academic Writing • Law school course • JM student • 1 or 2 credit; elective JM; core International JM • MLIS advisor with U Library • Academic Standards and Writing • University general elective • All level of graduate student uni-wide • 1 credit • Subject Librarians with U Library • Electronic Resources Retrieval • University general elective • Graduate students from Humanities, Social Sciences, and Arts • 2 credit • Doc Retrieval Teaching Team with U Library • Legal Literature, Analysis, and Access (part of Methodology of Jurisprudence) • Law school course • LLM • 3 credit, core • MLIS advisor with U Library • Embedded Bibliographic Instructions • Law school course • All level of students • Law Subject Librarian with U Library • Information Literacy and Scientific Discovery • University general elective • All undergraduates university-wide • 2 credit • Doc Retrieval Teaching Team with U Library

11. II.Is Hicks’“Teaching LegalBibliography” Method Still Relevant? • Hicks “Teaching legal bibliography” has atleastthreedifferent divisions (1918): • “Legal bibliographyproperwhichdealswiththerepositoriesofthelaw”; • “Methods of finding this law”; 3.“brief-making”,“orderly presentation of arguments based on authorities,andinconformitywiththerulesofthecourttowhichtheyareaddrest.” Frederick C. Hicks, The Teaching of Legal Bibliography, 11 LAW LIBR. J. 1 (1918).

12. II.IsHicks’“Teaching LegalBibliography” Method Still Relevant? • China’sdilemma(100yearafterHicks’claim) • Asinthebeginningof20thcenturyinUS,overwhelming advancement of legal publishing resulted in an urgent need for legal information specialists or law librarians; • On the other side, theaccelerationofinformation technologydeludeus.Wethoughtthatwecouldskipthetraditionalmanualprocesstoexcel.

13. II.IsHicks’“Teaching LegalBibliography” Method Still Relevant? • An unprecedented increase of legislations: • National law,2000 • Administrative regulations,7000 • Ministerial level,200,000 • More for provincial laws, regulations, rules, etc.; • An unprecedented increase of courtdecisions: Supreme People’s Court: court decisions, interpretation, guidelines, and guiding cases, ca 70,000 （Openlaw.cnstores70millionsofdecisionsforalllevelsofcourts)

14. The unprecedented increase of publications of legal scholarship • Totalpublicationtitlesforlawrelatedsubject: • 1995,ca2000titles • 2006,ca10,900titles–10yearincrease500% • 2016,ca19,000titles–10yearincrease100% • 2017,ca13,000 titles–decrease8%from2016 Coursebooks; Legal treatises; Law journals(academicjournals,180); Referencebooks; Others…

15. II.IsHicks’“Teaching Legal Bibliography” Method Still Relevant? • Thecomplexityofthelaws • Interpretation of unclearly drafted provisionsin national laws, regulations, and rules, etc. ; • Inconsistencieswithinthescheme ofthelawson specific subjects; • Ambiguousstatusofjudicialsourcesbythe SPC.

16. II.Is Hicks’“Teaching LegalBibliography” Method Still Relevant? • Thecoursestructureandthecoverageofthejurisdictions(18class) • Chineselegalmaterialsandretrieval,10 • Introofforeignlegalmaterials,3 • Intro.ofinternationallawandinternationalorganizations,3 • Academicwriting:standardsandcitations,2

17. III.Hicks’MethodandBeyond • Learningthe strategies of retrieval • FromOPAC(localtoWorldcat)toLibGuides&researchguides; • Defineandconstruct search termswithvariousthesaurus forms&Booleanlogics; • Comparesearching algorism with different databases; • Knowledge of index &abstracts; • Identify the relevance and authenticity of the search results by sorting&filtering; • Languages(i.e.ChineseandEnglish)correspondingtoeachotheronkeywords; • Citationformatsandmanuals.

18. III.Hicks’MethodandBeyond • Takehomeexamasanevaluationandsurvey • Research topics freelychosen; • Utilizeall the sources/producers in both print and digital formats; • Explainthe path of retrievalprocess(500words); • Identify the significant sources; • Usevisual effect application curve of the changes on the researchtopic; • Identifyandevaluatemost significant sourcesonthetopic; • Usesoftware tools to form citations and references.

19. III.Hicks’MethodandBeyond • Classroomsetting • Electronic laboratory classroom with high speed internet; • Hand-on practices or pop-quizzesassigned immediately after the segments of the lecture; • Teaching with online sourceslifedemomakingstudentsmoreattentive

20. III.Hicks’MethodandBeyond • “E-Learning”platformat FudanU.withmultiples capabilities • Postteaching materials, readings,andannouncements; • Carryovercommunications between professor and students; • Monitorthe levelofattentivenessof the students to the class. • Mobilecommunicationto continue teaching and learning out of classroom:Wechatgroupforeachclass

21. III.Hicks’MethodandBeyond • Furthertechnologytoolsworthtoaddtothecourse: • Findingaidforspecialcollectionandarchival; • Documentmanagementsoftware,suchasEndNote, NoteExpresscombiningreferences, citations, and publishingwhenwritingscholarlywork; • Dataandresourcesmanagement,Excel,SPSS.

22. III.Hicks’MethodandBeyond • Furtherskills… • Legal documents drafting,editing,andpublishing; • EffectivePowerPoint presentation; • Visualeffectapplications （Chinalawinfo’snewvisualizationfeatureoncasestatisticalreport).

23. ThankYou! 谢 谢!