Discussion Description:
As part of an assignment for a team-taught upper-level course on critical legal information literacy, students were asked to critique ChatGPT’s response to a legal research question by evaluating it in light of their own legal research results. The speakers will discuss the instructional scaffolding leading up to the assignment, the results of the exercise, the students’ reactions to the possibilities of ChatGPT, and ideas for future exercises in the legal research and writing classroom.
Courtney Dalton, Data Librarian/Specialist and Adjunct Professor of Law at Cornell Law SchoolCourtney Dalton, who joined Cornell in 2022, is responsible for leading data literacy initiatives at the Law Library. As part of that role, she supports students, faculty, and other stakeholders carrying out data-oriented analysis and research and provides instruction in data skills.
Courtney holds an M.L.I.S. from Simmons University and an A.B. in linguistics from Bryn Mawr College. While a student at Simmons, she assisted with metadata tasks and data wrangling for the Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project at Northeastern University School of Law and Snell Library. Prior to becoming involved with that project, she co-taught library workshops to first-year engineering students at Northeastern and interned with the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian, where she created a wireframe representing a new website for the museum’s archaeological collections. She has presented at the annual meeting of the American Historical Association, the annual conference of the Association for Computers and the Humanities, and the Bucknell University Digital Scholarship Conference.
Kim Nayyer, Edward Cornell Law Librarian, Associate Dean for Library Services, and Professor of the Practice at Cornell Law SchoolAssociate Dean Kim Nayyer oversees the operations of Cornell Law Library and its services to the law school community. As the Edward Cornell Law Librarian, she is also responsible for representing the interests of the Law School Library within the Cornell University Library system. She is a Professor of the Practice, with extensive experience teaching legal writing and legal research courses. Associate Dean Nayyer teaches a seminar in comparative copyright; leads a colloquium on the critical evaluation of legal information; teaches legal research for the MSLS degree; and regularly supervises reading, writing, and experiential learning courses for JD and LLM students. Her research interests include critical information literacy in machine-manipulated environments; disinformation, digital citizenship, and data ownership issues and public online participation; the ethics of big data and artificial intelligence; comparative copyright and Indigenous knowledge protection; copyright and licensing issues as they affect libraries and access to legal information; and issues of inclusion, diversity, equity, and decolonization in legal education, libraries, and professional leadership.
Before joining Cornell, she was Associate University Librarian for Law and Adjunct Associate Professor at University of Victoria in Canada, where she also had administrative oversight for the Copyright Office. In her law practice career, Kim worked as a litigation and research attorney for Canadian law firms, served as legal counsel for the Alberta Court of Appeal in Edmonton and Calgary, and led knowledge management and library management services for law firms. She also provided consultation services on US and Canadian copyright issues for many years. She clerked for the late Associate Chief Justice Jerome at the Federal Court of Canada/Cour Fédérale du Canada in Ottawa.
Kim engages heavily in external activities and has held numerous leadership and advocacy roles in legal education and legal information professional communities in both Canada and the United States, including but not limited to the Association of American Law Schools, American Association of Law Libraries, and the Canadian Association of Law Libraries/Association canadienne des bibliothèques de droit. Kim acted as pro bono counsel and a client representative for three Supreme Court of Canada interventions in copyright law appeals on issues affecting legal information and libraries in Canada and the USA, representing CALL/ACBD in two cases and CALL/ACBD and Library Futures Institute in the third. She has also represented the library and legal information perspectives for a parliamentary committee studying revision to Canadian copyright law. When serving in these roles, she has used her legal practice experience to prepare and deliver pro bono written and oral submissions.
Leviell Waits, Research, Instruction, and Liaison Librarian; Adjunct Professor of Law at Cornell Law School
Leviell Waits is the Law Research, Instruction, and Liaison Librarian and an Adjunct Professor of Law here at Cornell University Law School. He is a highly experienced librarian and teacher; he teaches both J.D. and L.L.M. students.
Leviell also provides research and reference services to the law school community and participates in the faculty liaison program.
Leviell contributes to various professional associations and committees. His research interests include library systems, library management, data privacy, access to information, ethics, and student learning assessment.
Leviell Waits holds a Juris Doctor degree, a Master’s in Library and Information Science degree, and bachelor’s degrees in philosophy and biology.
Nina Scholtz, Director for Research & Instruction; Adjunct Professor of Law at Cornell Law SchoolAfter earning her J.D. and B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley, Nina Scholtz clerked for the Honorable Lawrence T. Lydick of the United States District Court, Central District of California. She practiced in civil litigation and appeals in Los Angeles for fourteen years before obtaining an M.L.I.S. from the University of California, Los Angeles in June 2011. After teaching legal research at the University of Southern California Gould School of Law, she came to Cornell, where she manages the Law Library’s research and instruction programs. Courses taught at Cornell include Administrative Law Research and Practice-Focused Research for LL.M. Students. She also teaches introductory legal research to J.D. and LL.M. students.
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Jane E. Cross, Associate Dean for Diversity, Inclusion, & Public Impact Director of the Caribbean Law Program Professor of Law at Nova Southeastern University Shepard Broad College of LawJane E. Cross is a Professor of Law and Director of the Caribbean Law Programs at Nova Southeastern University (NSU) College of Law. She received her B.A. with Honors in International Relations from the University of California Davis and her J.D. from the University of Michigan. While in law school, she was Note Editor for the Michigan Yearbook of International Legal Studies. Before entering legal education, she practiced corporate and banking law in New York City and Chicago.
Professor Cross regularly teaches the Caribbean Law Seminar, Legal Research & Writing and UCC: Negotiable Instruments. Furthermore, she has taught various courses in NSU’s Online Master of Science in Law program including Administrative Law, Electronic Commerce and Digital Trade, Federal Privacy Law, and Legal Research and Methods.
Professor Cross acts as faculty advisor to the Black Law Students Association (BLSA), the Caribbean Law Students Association, and the Nova Human Rights Organization. She also supervises the BLSA Competition teams and coaches the BLSA team for the Nelson Mandela International Negotiation Competition.
She is immediate past President, and currently an Executive Committee Member and an Advisory Board Member for the American and Caribbean Law Initiative (ACLI). In conjunction with the ACLI, she coordinates the Caribbean Law Clinic for NSU College of Law.
She has taught Comparative Caribbean Legal Systems: A Human Rights Approach as part of ACLI’s Winter Break Program at Cayman Islands Law School. She also served as the Faculty Chair of the Goodwin Seminars and organized a seminar series entitled “Tradewinds in Caribbean Law: Evolution of Legal Norms and Quest for Independent Justice.”
She is the author of various pieces including Testing in Black and White: The Use of Standardized Tests in Bar Examinations and the Implications for Minority Admissions to the Legal Profession published in the National Black Law Journal. She also authored Caribbean Law and South American and Central America: Other Colonial Laws published in The Oxford International Encyclopedia of Legal History, and A Matter of Discretion: The De Facto Abolition of the Mandatory Death Penalty in Barbados – A Study of the Boyce and Joseph Cases published in the University of Miami Inter-American Law Review.
Professor Cross has been involved in a number of other professional organizations. She has served as the Director of Human Rights Awareness Projects for and was a member of the Board of Directors for the Inter-American Center for Human Rights. She was a founding member of the Human Rights Action Network.
In addition, she serves as the treasurer and a board member of the Southeast/Southwest People of Color Legal Scholarship Conference. Professor Cross has coordinated programs and presented at regional, national and international conferences for many organizations including the American Association of Law Schools, the Legal Writing Institute, the Association of Legal Writing Directors, the Southeast Association of Law Schools, the Global Legal Skills Conference, Southeast/Southwest People of Color Legal Scholarship Conference, the National People of Color Legal Scholarship Conference, and the Jamaican Bar Association.
Professor Cross’s recent honors include being recognized in 2017 as one of the top black educators in South Florida and being selected in 2018 as one of the top 100 black lawyers by the National Black Lawyers. In 2014, she received an award from the American Society for Public Administration for being Outstanding Community Servant in South Florida. She is admitted to the Bar in New York, Illinois and Florida. She volunteers as a beginning tai chi instructor for the Taoist Tai Chi Society.
Tara Willke, Associate Dean for Academic Afairs and Associate Professor of Law at Duquesne University Thomas R. Kline School of LawTara Willke is associate dean for strategic academic programs and associate professor of law at Duquesne University School of Law. After serving four years on active duty in the United States Air Force as a command post crew commander, Willke attended Southern Illinois University. She received her undergraduate degree, summa cum laude, in 2000 with a major in history and minor in political science. She earned her J.D. from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law in 2004, where she graduated magna cum laude and was elected for membership in the Order of the Coif. While at the University of Pittsburgh, Willke served as the senior managing editor of the Law Review and was a teaching assistant for legal research and writing. After graduating from law school, Willke was a litigation associate with the Pittsburgh law firm of Babst, Calland, Clements & Zomnir, P.C., where her practice included commercial, construction and environmental litigation, as well as other types of complex litigation matters.
Willke teaches legal research and writing and, together with Julia Glencer and Erin Karsman, co-created and team-teaches Writing in Law Practice at Duquesne. She directs Duquesne’s summer program in Ireland and serves as faculty advisor to the Military Law Society and Juris; her committee work includes serving on the Curriculum and Technology Committees.
Willke lives with her husband and daughter on a farm north of Pittsburgh.
