While Zief has many traditional study aid books and eBooks, like our Examples & Explanations or Glannon Guides, it also provides you with access to the CALI (the Center for Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction) website. Built by law professors and law librarians, it has 1,200 interactive lessons on law school topics, podcasts, outlines, and open-access casebooks. While your professors may assign material from CALI, you can also take full advantage of this resource on your own! This week, we’ll explore some of its resources, when you might need them, and how to access them.

CALI, who also sponsors the law school’s CALI Awards (awarded to the top earners in each law school course), is a non-profit consortium of most U.S. law schools and legal educators. For over 40 years, the organization has helped research and develop computer-mediated legal education and, today, it provides law students with a wealth of materials to help with law school success.

CALI’s most popular resource, CALI Lessons, bring you interactive lessons and quizzes on specific topics from your 1L and upper-division classes. In addition to helping you fortify your knowledge of the black-letter law, the CALI lessons also cover law school skills, with topics such as “Law School Success,” “Legal Research,” and “Bar Success and Planning.” For example, its newest lesson, “Cases & Outlining: The Basics,” offers 1Ls a step-by-step lesson in creating a course outline with content from case law. Not sure which lessons might be helpful? Check out their handy Lessons by Subject Outline to see which lessons correspond to your topics.

So, whether you’re a 1L or upper division law student, CALI’s lessons, podcasts, and open-access eBooks offer you a broad selection of resources to help you succeed in law school. While you can always check them out throughout the semester, now that we’re in a new semester, it may be most helpful to see which resources they have for your new course load. That way, you’ll be ready with access to the materials you need.

Interested in learning more? See the Zief staff to get your CALI access code, or chat with one of the research librarians for more tips on how to use CALI alongside your other favorite learning materials!