Participants' Responsibilities
and Expectations
Welcome
to the Cyberspace Law Seminar
Attendance,
Exams and Grades, Summary of Requirements
Coordinates and
Assistant
Internet
and E-mail Requirements
Internet Overview
Internet Understanding,
Aspects of
Ombudsperson
Personal Bio Assignment
Seminar Overview
Hopefully this will be fun for you as well as instructive.
The information and standards which follow are kind of common sense. Do you take your legal education seriously? In the habit of preparing for class? Fairly compulsive about attending? Make every effort to meet deadlines for submission of papers? If so, you will find little in what follows that you are not already doing. There are, however, some details regarding the seminar you will need to know.
Every professor believes that his/her course is one of the most important. So you can discount a little what I am about to say. But I really do think there is nothing more (a) timely, (b) fun, (c) rapidly changing, and (d) practical for your legal career -- that is, the next 50 years -- than what we're about to do together.
The Internet embodies two of the most significant changes
going on today: (a) telecommunications innovations, convergence, networking
and expansion, and (b) the resulting globalization of everything.
The Internet is the fastest growing anything in human
history -- and there's nobody in charge. Within the past couple years most
major global business firms have created an Internet presence. Ironically,
it is the platform for both (a) a rapidly expanding multi-billion-dollar
commerce, and the ever-growing political power of global corporations,
and (b) democratization movements empowering individual citizens and grassroots
movements.
As for the legal profession, the Internet (a) impacts on the practice of law, including the legal profession's increasing globalization, (b) is a means of access to collections of legal materials, and (c) is the source of whole new bodies of legal issues, conflicts, confusion and cases.
Historically, legislators, judges and lawyers have not focused on the extent to which "the law" is tethered to a geographical "place." It was so taken for granted that no one even thought about it. The Iowa legislature, Iowa courts, or lawyers licensed to practice in Iowa, all accepted without reflection that, of course, their authority stopped at the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers' edge. Virtually every jurisdiction and area of the law made similar, unspoken, geographical assumptions.
Now we have a "new world disorder" called "cyberspace" with neither latitude nor longitude on Planet Earth. Students' CLS seminar papers (which are posted to the Web) come as quickly to computer screens in Bangkok as in Boston, they are as "local" to Warsaw as to Washington, D.C. (And they are, in fact, getting "hits" from all around the world.) To the extent there is going to be a "law of cyberspace," it requires the rethinking of every area of our centuries-old, geographically-tethered legal system.
The earlier in your career you can experience the "de-mystification" of the Internet -- what it is and how you can use it, the kinds of legal issues it raises, and the kinds of solutions lawyers can offer -- the better advantaged you will be in dealing with the world you'll face in the 21st Century.
My dictionary defines "seminar" as "a group of advanced
students studying under a professor with each doing original research and
all exchanging results through reports and discussions."
It's not bad as definitions go.
Finally, you will be "exchanging results through reports
and discussions": preparing individual seminar papers, which will be (1)
shared, in some form, with your colleagues, (2) presented orally, (3) revised/rewritten,
proof read, polished, and (4) "published" on the Web.
As soon-to-be lawyers you will, of course, want to review the "law and regulations" regarding seminars, found in University of Iowa College of Law, Student Handbook (latest edition). They spell out the requirements regarding revisions, credit hours, writing credits, and so forth.
There are a number of aspects of the Internet you will benefit from understanding. Here are some of the questions for which you will want to find the answers.
(1) What is it? How did it get started? Who runs it? How does it work? What does "hypertext" mean? How many countries are "online"? What are the relationships between phone companies, "Internet Service Providers," "browsers," and Web sites? What was the Internet before there was a "Web"? How does AOL fit into all of this? What is a "modem"? What is the difference between logging in from the law school (or other University facilities) and from home? How come sometimes the Internet is so slow; what are all the factors that can affect the speed with which a Web page appears on my screen? How can parents -- or countries -- "block" sites? How can a company "do business" over the Internet? Is any business making money from its Web site? How can so many people afford to make so much information available for free?
(2) How do I use it? What are the basics of getting an account, and the relative merits (and costs) of a local provider (like Internet Navigator) or a national/global mega-provider (like AOL) or a "free" ISP like NetZero? How do I get a "browser," log in, go to a Web page for which I know the address (URL), send and receive e-mail, participate in news groups' discussions? What are these free electronic magazines ("e-zines") and "list servers"? How do I find out what's available, and subscribe?
(3) What are the basics of making the Internet work for me; making billions of pages of information genuinely useful? What are "bookmarks" and "search engines"? Why are they so important? How do I find a site I just visited, but failed to note? How can I "save to disk" a page I find useful? How can I print a Web page? What do I have to do to save my bookmarks to a floppy disk in the A: drive rather than to the hard drive of a computer I may be using only temporarily?
(4) What do I need to know about Internet research techniques in general, and Internet legal research techniques in particular? How can I evaluate the accuracy and worth of material on the Internet? Are there special rules of citation form I need to learn ("How do you 'cite' a 'site'"?)
We all learned how to use "the library" in high school and college -- the card catalog and the Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature. Once in law school, we learned how to use the books, and then Weslaw and Lexis.
Now we have yet another set of skills to learn. As with legal research generally, this is perhaps the most practical thing you'll get out of law school. If you can do thorough, quality legal research and writing in two hours that takes others one or two days you can either go home earlier every day or charge more per hour. Not every law office will have Westlaw or Lexis; not every client can afford the extra $100-200 an hour they charge. And even if yours does, and can, there is information on the Internet that Westlaw and Lexis don't provide. Mastery of Internet legal research skills will both save, and make, you money.
(5) Begin building your own "bookmarks." What are some of the more useful mega-sites (Web sites that are organized to get you to as many as thousands of other sites)? Legal collections? Sites more specifically related to this seminar and your possible paper topics?
(6) Are there potential cyberspace law issues that occur to you as you surf around?
(7) Finally, for those of you who are interested, what resources are available, what skills are necessary, to make your own Web page? What is Hypertext Markup Language (HTML)? How can you make a Web page without learning to write in HTML?
It will come as no surprise that a seminar devoted to "cyberspace law" makes substantial reliance on e-mail and the Internet.
You will find e-mail a useful means of communicating with me and your colleagues. No telephone tag. No wondering when I'm coming back to the office. Moreover, it's the fastest way for me to get information to you. And it, and this Web site, provide you with a written record for review -- rather than trying to remember instructions provided in class.
So, one of your first obligations it to get your e-mail address to me as soon as possible. You can just send it to me at <mailbox@nicholasjohnson.org>.
However, please note that if you do not have an e-mail account, or have one but don't check it at least a couple of times a week, don't be shy. Let me know. That's OK. We'll make some other arrangements for you.
The Internet, however, is another matter. You will need to be able to "surf," use search engines, and otherwise be comfortable interacting with the Web.
There is an option available to you for creating your own Web site if you wish. This is not a requirement. Doing it will not enhance your grade -- though it will enhance your Internet skill and professional prominence. If you already have a Web site of your own I'd like to link to it from our main seminar Web site. If you don't, but would like to have one, just let me know.
In past years we have held regular Internet instruction sessions for seminar participants. With each passing year there has been less and less need for this. But, as with the e-mail account, if you are not yet Internet-savvy don't be shy in letting me know that. I am more than happy to schedule time to work with you enough to bring you up to speed -- or schedule some group time if there is more than one participant who would welcome some tips.
If you know how to use the Internet, but haven't spent many hours doing so, you are strongly encouraged to log as many hours as possible at the beginning of the semester. I know of no substitute for just spending hours in exploration as a way of coming to understand this "thing," how it can be of greatest use to you now and in the future, and what potential legal topics and issues you would most like to explore with your research paper.
We meet in Room 125. My office is in Room 446. The phone there is 335-9146. A better phone number for voice messages is 337-5555, my home office number with an answering machine. The e-mail address, noted above, is <mailbox@nicholasjohnson.org>. The personal, all-purpose Web site is at <http://www.nicholasjohnson.org>. The best postal address is: Box 1876, Iowa City IA 52244-1876. The law school fax number I use is 335-9019.
My assistant for the seminar is Jessie Kriebs. She is in Room 433. Her phone number is 335-9091. Her e-mail is <jessie-kriebs@uiowa.edu>. Feel free to communicate with me through her if you wish or leave paper drafts with her.
The following is excerpted from the January 4, 2001, hard copy memo headed "Welcome and Assignments."
1. Because of the very long waiting list, if there is a possibility/probability that you will be dropping early in the semester please let me know that now.
2. As you ponder that request, know that the seminar will consist of the following assignments and responsibilities (the details of which are, or will be, spelled out elsewhere). Because of some student misunderstandings in the past, they have been toughened up a bit and are laid out for you now.
One of the greatest resources of any law school is the intellectual quality, and diversity of background and experience, of its student body. We are particularly blessed in that respect at this law school in general and this class in particular. The more we can all know about each other, and the resources we bring to the classroom, the more each of us can take from it. Besides, it's more fun knowing who these folks are with whom you are about to be locked in a room for 14 evenings.
So, please hand in to my assistant, Ms. Jessie Kriebs,
Room 433, before January 16, a brief, one page
essay about yourself that can be shared with other members
of the class. You need not, but may, examine examples of bio booklets from
past classes, available from Ms. Kriebs. We'll put together a comparable
one for our seminar, make copies, and give you one.
Obviously, if there is anything you want to keep to yourself you are a skillful enough writer to do so. There's nothing you must include.
But while you wait for the muse to strike, be aware that the following kinds of things would be interesting and useful:
(1) something of your family, community and upbringing,Format Request. Please use:(2) early ambitions, goals or professional interests,
(3) college majors, intellectual interests, activities,
(4) work, travel or other job-related experiences,
(5) your current obligations and environment outside of law school (e.g., marital and parental status or other family responsibilities, nature and demands of outside employment, hobbies or other activities),
(6) areas of specialization in law school, student activities, or legal internships,
(7) any experiences working for (or dealing with) computer-related firms, print or electronic media, advertising, or political campaigning,
(8) future goals, expectations and plans for using your legal education,
(9) electronics hobbies (e.g., amateur radio license, computer programming or Web page design).
(1) one page maximum,
(2) single spaced,
(3) using a computer printer or typewriter,
(4) with a ribbon or cartridge sufficiently dark to make machine copies possible,
(5) one inch margins all around,
(6) a heading that includes your name and the date,
(7) any reasonable and readable font.
Every effort will be made to be open to students' questions, suggestions and complaints. There are a number of available communication channels noted under "Coordinates," above. My office door is usually open when I'm there. You should feel free to come by at any time. You can also schedule appointments if you wish; it's just not necessary to do so.
But I'm also mindful there may sometime be a concern you would like to raise without my knowing it is coming from you. So that's OK, too. And that's why I'd like the seminar participants to vote one of your number as your ombudsperson to bring such individual or group concerns on an anonymous basis.
We'll do that the second seminar session, so be thinking about whether you'd like to serve, or who else you'd like to serve in that position. The pay is lousy, but there is (usually) virtually no work to do.