Law Students

Technology in e-reading has vastly improved over the years with new advancements for the sake of convenience. First, the internet provided a revolutionary new means for almost instantaneous information search and retrieval. Eventually, computer technology began to shift and become more sophisticated. Memory storage for information and data because larger and more cost efficient. Next, using this vastly improved capabilities, the informational paradigm will shift towards e-readers.

The benefit of e-readers for law students:
Law students are burdened with a great deal of law book reading. There are dozens of extensive law books that they must learn to become familiar with the law and how it works. These books can be quite hefty, making it nearly impossible for law students to carry the law books around to read when they need them. This is where new e-reader technology comes in.

New devices that allow law students to store hundreds of law books in one lightweight enclosure are increasingly becoming popular. Electronic case books would greatly lighten a student’s heavy law books and will allow for professors to more easily modify cases in the classroom. The ability to quickly and easily retrieve information from a long list of all the law books one owns is an exciting prospect for law students, to say the least. The technology has already proven to be quite useful and popular for ordinary avid readers. Barnes and Noble and Amazon offer their own versions of e-reader devices that have sold quite well in recent months. Consumers use the devices to buy and store a collection of their favorite books.

There are quite a few concerns with the e-reader devices, however. Copyrights and piracy protection are an apparent issue within the e-reader technology, and many publishers are pushing for copy protection in electronic books. This is a case not unlike the music industry’s recent stance on song copy protection.

Conferences and meetings are being held to begin preliminary talks about a new revolution in the way a law book is used. Many law School officials hope that a shift in educational techniques will render the old style of using a law book obsolete and e-books will provide new ease and convenience the educational world is looking for.

Companies that offer e-readers already have a wide selection of law book titles in their library. Amazon.com is leading the way with such titles. Also, West launched its first electronic law book, called Civil Procedure: A Contemporary Approach and they plan to add several new titles through the year.

To avoid arguments over copyright issues from publishers, many law professors are encouraging companies to avoid porting existing law books to e-reader technology and instead create new ones that take advantage of professor customization. In this open source system, professors could create their own casebooks by using a frame already provided by a law book. This system will be free of copyright infringement and will avoid a similar disaster that took place in the music industry.