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The latest episode of the Wisconsin Law in Action podcast features Elizabeth Manriquez, Head of Reference and Scholarly Communication at the UW Law Library, discussing her chapter in the book Attorneys in the Baseball Hall of Fame: A Collection of Biographical Essays.

Liz’s chapter focuses on Bowie Kent Kuhn, who served as the fifth commissioner of Major League Baseball from 1969 to 1984. As she explains in the podcast, Kuhn was “one of the most polarizing figures…
Continue Reading The Polarizing Legacy of Baseball Commissioner Bowie Kent Kuhn

Legal work runs on documents. Case files, contracts, discovery materials, correspondence – they accumulate. Whether you’re building a timeline from scattered dates, searching for contradictions in witness statements, or extracting key clauses from multiple agreements, the process is often slow, meticulous, and time consuming.
In my recent Wisconsin Lawyer article, “NotebookLM for Lawyers: AI That Focuses on Your Documents”, I explore a different approach to AI in legal practice—one that focuses exclusively on your documents rather than pulling…
Continue Reading NotebookLM for Lawyers: AI That Focuses on Your Documents

Have you ever been frustrated that some important websites don’t offer email alerts or RSS feeds? Manually keeping track of changes can be very time-consuming. Fortunately, website monitoring tools solve this problem by automatically watching pages and sending notifications when changes occur.
There are many website monitoring tools available, each with different features and capabilities. While there are multiple options available, I heard the most good things about Distill and Visualping so I gave them both a try.
Continue Reading Monitoring Webpage Changes with Visualping

While WisBlawg typically focuses on resources for practicing attorneys, this post highlights a tool that may be of interest to any readers who teach legal research and writing or know faculty members preparing courses.
As spring semester approaches, law faculty face a familiar challenge: developing hypothetical assignments that effectively teach while engaging students. A well-designed hypothetical needs realistic facts, authentic documents, and just the right balance of complexity to challenge students without overwhelming them. Enter the University of Wisconsin…
Continue Reading Spring Semester Planning? Explore UW Law’s Legal Hypothetical Archive

WisconsinEye, the statewide public affairs network that broadcasts Wisconsin capitol proceedings, will stop event coverage on December 15 due to lack of funding, according to a statement on their website. Their archive of more than 30,000 hours of footage will also go offline.

Impact on Government Transparency and Legal Research
For legal practitioners conducting legislative history research or tracking statutory developments, this is significant. WisconsinEye has been an invaluable resource since it began broadcasting capitol proceedings in 2007.
Continue Reading WisconsinEye to Suspend Coverage Dec. 15 Due to Funding Shortfall

This post originally appeared in UW Law Library News and was written by Scott Park, Digital Collections and Reference Librarian.
As we approach Thanksgiving, you might assume the fourth Thursday of November has always been the designated date for this federal holiday. The actual history reveals a more contentious story involving presidential proclamations, state resistance, and congressional compromise.

The Beginning
On September 28, 1789, just before leaving for recess, the first Federal Congress passed a resolution asking that the

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Continue Reading When America Celebrated Two Thanksgivings

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For two decades, Wisconsin courts have followed the approach to statutory interpretation established in State ex rel. Kalal v. Circuit Court for Dane County, 2004 WI 58, 271 Wis. 2d 633, 681 N.W.2d 110. As noted in a recent blog post from Stafford Rosenbaum, that framework may soon change.

Kalal established a two-step methodology for interpreting statutes. Courts first examine the statute’s text using only “intrinsic sources”—the statute’s language, structure, purpose, and closely-related statutes. If the meaning…
Continue Reading Is a Change to Wisconsin’s Statutory Interpretation Framework Imminent?

The November issue of Wisconsin Lawyer features a practical guide I wrote on using generative AI effectively in legal practice. “AI Prompting for Legal Professionals: The Art of Asking the Right Question” offers a framework for attorneys looking to improve their interactions with AI tools while maintaining professional standards.
The central premise is straightforward: the same critical thinking skills lawyers use when interviewing clients or examining witnesses apply equally when working with AI. Vague information from a client…
Continue Reading A Practical Guide on AI Prompting for Legal Professionals

Lawyers who fail to verify AI-generated content do so at their own peril – and now, potentially at the peril of fee awards. A California Court of Appeals decision adds a new wrinkle to the growing body of AI hallucination cases by asking: What happens when opposing counsel fails to detect an opponent’s fake citations?

A Familiar Story with an Unexpected Twist
In Noland v. Land of the Free, L.P., the attorney used ChatGPT to enhance his appellate briefs…
Continue Reading Does Fee Denial Signal New Expectations for Detecting Opposing Counsel’s AI Hallucinations?

In case you missed it, the latest edition of the Bluebook has introduced a new rule on citing AI-generated content. While I agree that a rule addressing GenAI was needed, unfortunately, Rule 18.3’s approach misses the mark.

University of Idaho law professor Jessica Gunder has published a thorough critique of the new rule titled “Yikes! The Bluebook’s Generative AI Rule is Flawed” that lays out exactly why Rule 18.3 is problematic. Her analysis raises serious concerns that legal educators,…
Continue Reading The Bluebook’s New AI Citation Rule Misses the Mark

The Wisconsin Compliance Initiative will host “A New Era of Corporate Compliance: Opportunities, Risks, and Ethical Dimensions of Generative AI and Emerging Technologies” on Wednesday, September 17, from 4:00 to 6:00 PM. The program is available virtually or in person at UW Law School and qualifies for 2 CLE credits.  See registration information.
The program features three sessions examining how AI is affecting corporate compliance work:
Session 1: Emerging Technologies and Compliance: What Regulators Expect and What GenAI…
Continue Reading UW Law School Explores GenAI’s Role in Corporate Compliance

J. Willard Hurst, Pen & Ink Drawing
Drawing of Hurst accompanied 1990 NYT article

The University of Wisconsin Law Library is pleased to announce that the J. Willard Hurst Collection is once again available through the UW Law School Digital Repository. The collection was temporarily offline while we enhanced the metadata to improve search capabilities, providing researchers with better access to the papers and materials of the scholar generally recognized as the father of modern American legal history.
A Wisconsin Legacy
J. Willard Hurst

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Continue Reading The Father of Modern American Legal History Returns: Enhanced Access to the J. Willard Hurst Collection

The University of Wisconsin Law Library recently received a remarkable historical gift: an original April 22, 1865 Chicago Tribune newspaper documenting President Lincoln’s funeral train journey. The framed newspaper was generously donated by Tonia Neustifter, wife of the late UW Law School Professor Ralph Cagle, who passed away in 2023.

Photo of Tonia Neustifter and her daughter, Liz
Tonia Neustifter and daughter, Liz

This historic newspaper provides a firsthand account of the extraordinary funeral procession that followed Lincoln’s assassination. The President’s remains traveled over 1,700 miles…
Continue Reading A Historic Gift: 1865 Chicago Tribune Documents Lincoln’s Final Journey

This morning, received an email from Academia.edu informing me that it had created an AI-generated podcast about an article that I authored a few years ago entitled, Representing Law Faculty Scholarly Impact: Strategies for Improving Citation Metrics Accuracy and Promoting Scholarly Visibility.  If you’re not familiar with Academia.edu, it’s a commercial platform for sharing academic research.
I had the option of whether to include it on my Academia profile.  I chose to add it since it represents an…
Continue Reading Evaluating AI-Generated Podcasts of Scholarly Works: Academia.edu v. NotebookLM

Here is the latest faculty scholarship from the University of Wisconsin Law School Legal Studies Research Papers series vis SSRN.

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Continue Reading Recent UW Law Faculty Scholarship: Antitrust Market Evolution; Multiracial, Interclass Democracy; Race and Elections; and Corporate Misconduct Enforcement

People often think of generative AI tools as systems that query vast universes of training data – like asking ChatGPT to draw from its broad knowledge base trained on billions of web pages, books, and articles. These large language models can answer general questions and provide information on virtually any topic.  Sort of like a sledgehammer.  And sometimes you need a sledgehammer.
Then there are more specific LLMs like Lexis Protege or Westlaw CoCounsel that narrow that universe just…
Continue Reading Sometimes You Need the Small Hammer: Using Google’s NotebookLM for Document Analysis