Advanced Legal Research – International



Advanced Legal Research – International

Fall 2014

Prof. Wanita Scroggs

Instructor Information:

Wanita Scroggs

wscroggs@law.stetson.edu

727-562-7825

Office: Larkin Room, Gulfport campus library

Contact policy:

My office hours are generally Monday through Friday 8:30am-5:00pm in Gulfport; occasionally I spend a day in Tampa. If you would like to see me in my office, it is best to make an appointment to be sure that I can give you my undivided attention. You are always welcome to stop by and see me at any time. The best way to contact me will always be by email. I check email from both campuses, as well as while I am off campus. If you have a question that you feel other students might also have, you can post it to the class discussion board and I will answer it for everyone. You may also call me any time. If I don’t answer, please leave me a voicemail. I can check voicemail remotely through my email account.

Course description:

This course will review the basics of conducting international legal research and then explore resources for specific topics in international law. Emphasis will be placed on authoritative free online resources.

Course text:

There is no required text for this course. There will be assigned readings.

Course logistics:

The class week begins at 12:05am EST (5 minutes after midnight) each Saturday morning when the materials for the week will become available on the course webpage. You are required to watch the two videos for each week, make at least one substantive post to the course discussion board before each Wednesday at midnight, and to make a substantive response to at least one of your classmates’ posts before each Friday at midnight. Your final paper will be 10 pages minimum, double spaced, with one inch margins, Times New Roman 12 point font, and is due Tuesday November 25th before 5:00pm (the last day of classes). You may submit it via the course webpage or by emailing it directly to me at wscroggs@law.stetson.edu .

Learning objectives:

By the end of this course you will able to critically evaluate resources. You will be able to find pertinent authoritative international legal materials. You will build a research guide on a subject that interests you, that you can use in your future work, share with employers and colleagues, or present to future employers. You will learn about employment resources for international legal careers.

Course grading:

The participation portion of the grade will be for watching the video lectures and posting to the discussion board (both initial and responsive posts) by the weekly deadlines. Participation will constitute 25% of the final grade. The final paper (research guide) will constitute the remaining 75% of the final grade. In accordance with the College of Law’s grade normalization policy, I am required to grade based on an average (mean) grade between 2.90 and 3.10.

Attendance Requirements for Electronic Education:

This policy applies to any course at the College of Law offered primarily through electronic education, including courses offered for J.D., LL.M., or M.J. students. Students taking an electronic education course are required to attend class by doing the following each week:

1. Reading and preparing all assignments given by the course instructor;

2. Watching any lectures or other presentations provided on the electronic education site;

3. Participating on the electronic education site as required by the course instructor; and

4. Completing any other course requirements of the instructor.

Failure to participate in any electronic education course in one course week may only be excused by the instructor for the course, in consultation with the Associate Dean of Academics. If the failure to participate is excused, the student may be required to complete additional work to make up for the absence or the student’s grade may be reduced by the instructor for the absence, both in the instructor’s discretion. A student whose failure to participate in any electronic education course for one full week is not excused will be given a grade of “X” in the course, and the student will not receive a refund of tuition paid for that course.

The College of Law’s standard withdrawal policies apply to courses taught via electronic education. A student who registers for a course must formally withdraw from the course. Failure to attend a course for which the student is registered will be considered absence from the course. If a student withdraws from an electronic education course, the College of Law’s standard tuition refund policy will apply.

By registering to take a class via electronic education, the student certifies that he or she is performing the work for the class without outside assistance, except as approved by the instructor in writing. Representation that work done in an electronic education course is one’s own when it is not constitutes electronic dishonesty, a violation of section VIII(8) of the Academic Honor Code.

Honor Code:

The Stetson University College of Law Honor Code applies to this course. Please see the registrar’s website for the full Honor Code.

A.D.A. considerations:

If you need special accommodations to participate in this course, please contact the Office of the Academic Dean so that the appropriate accommodations can be arranged.

Practical day-to-day info:

This semester I want you to build a research guide that will be useful for you! This will be something that you can rely on in your own work in future classes, your law practice, and for you to share with colleagues and employers. You will choose a topic in international law that interests you and build a research guide specifically for that topic. The resources you include in the guide will be of all types: books, articles, journals, websites, videos, databases, organizations, courts, laws, people… whatever the most valuable sources of information happen to be for that topic. For each resource you include, you will provide an annotation that explains why the resource is important, what it offers you, how to use it, etc.

There will be two videos to watch each week. After completing the videos, you will explore for yourself the resources discussed that week and gather resources that pertain to the topic you have chosen for your research guide. After doing your own research each week, we will discuss your findings on the course webpage discussion board. Consider the discussion board to be your “research journal” where you talk about what you found, what you didn’t find, which strategies worked and which didn’t. This is an opportunity to share with your classmates what you have discovered, and ask them about what they have discovered. The most important requirement for research is curiosity! Be persistent. If it’s out there, we can find it! The discussion board is how we help each other. If you find something that might help someone else… post it to the board. If you find something unexpected or surprising, post that too.

So, here’s our semester schedule:

Week 1 basic foreign and international research

Week 2 evaluating resources

Week 3 foreign and comparative law

Week 4 international agreements

Week 5 customary international law, general principles of law, international case law

Week 6 European Union

Week 7 United Nations

Week 8 other international organizations

Week 9 international environmental law

Week 10 international human rights law

Week 11 international commercial law, arbitration

Week 12 international criminal law

Week 13 guest speaker

Week 14 optional online chat / course review

................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download