Tag: interview

Interview with Spring Meeting Panelist Yasmin Sokkar Harker

We have one more panelist to feature before the Spring Meeting tomorrow. Yasmin Sokkar Harker is Student Liaison Librarian and Law Library Professor at CUNY Law. Her research interests include legal research pedagogy, critical information literacy, legal research and social justice, and information access issues. Read below for a more about Yasmin:

1.       Tell us a fun fact about yourself! I participate I am in a book club that focuses on post apocalyptic science fiction. 

2.       Do you have any pets?
Two cats.

3.       What is your favorite hobby? Reading fantasy and science fiction, trying and failing to become fluent in a second language.

4. What do you think is one of the most important aspects of critical law librarianship? How much you can broaden your own critical perspective on legal information by learning from others and having intellectual humility.

For more information about speakers, take a look at this Libguide for the Critical Law Librarianship-LLNE / SNELLA Spring 2022 Meeting!

Interview with LLNE Spring Meeting Panelist Ronald Wheeler

As we continue to get ready for the LLNE Spring Meeting, we want to share this interview with Ron Wheeler, the plenary panel moderator:

  1. Tell us a fun fact about yourself!  
Ronald E. Wheeler, Jr.
Director of Fineman & Pappas Law Libraries

I once attended a Madonna concert dressed as Madonna. 

  1. What is your favorite New England spot and why?  

Downtown Providence because it is urban and foody and cultured and full of life. 

  1. Do you have any pets?  

No, but I still hope to one day own a very large dog. 

  1. What is your favorite hobby?  

Dancing, reading, traveling 

  1. What do you enjoy most about being a law librarian?  

The people I work with. 

  1. How did you end up where you are, doing what you’re doing? How did you end up in your specialty?  

A combination of hard work, dumb luck, serendipity, and remembering to always be my true and authentic self. 

  1. What do you think is one of the most important aspects of critical law librarianship?  

The need for us to always question what is presented to us as truth. 

Interview with LLNE Spring Meeting Panelist Nicholas Mignanelli

We are so excited for the LLNE/SNELLA Spring 2022 Meeting! In anticipation of our day at Yale Law School discussing Critical Law Librarianship, we hope you enjoy this interview with one of the panelists.

Picture of Rufus looking like a good boy!
  1. Tell us a fun fact about yourself! I have always loved folklore (not the Taylor Swift album). I am especially fond of urban legends, ghost stories, and local cryptids. New England, being America’s creepy attic, is full of them.
  2. What is your favorite New England spot and why? There are so many to choose from, so I’ll highlight two spots found in our host city of New Haven. First, Center Church on the Green – The First Church of Christ in New Haven, a  church completed in 1814 that serves as the meetinghouse for a congregation that was organized in 1639. It contains a Tiffany window depicting Puritan minister John Davenport preaching his first sermon in New Haven, a Fisk organ, box pews, a crypt with 137 well-preserved headstones dating from 1687, and a friendly and welcoming congregation. Second, Lighthouse Point Park, a city park that features the iconic Five Mile Point Light, a turn-of-the-century carousel, a beach, nature trails, and magnificent views of the Long Island Sound and the New Haven skyline.
  3. Do you have any pets? No, but my parents have a German Shepard named Rufus who I adore. He is intelligent, funny, and a good boy (although I still haven’t forgiven him for the time he ate my HeinOnline facemask).
  4. What is your favorite hobby? I collect rare law books. I recently acquired a first edition of Tapping Reeve’s The Law of Baron and Femme, an early American legal treatise on “domestic relations” (family law) published here in New Haven in 1816.
  5. What do you enjoy most about being a law librarian? As Alfred, Lord Tennyson put it, “[m]astering the lawless science of our law, / That codeless myriad of precedent, / That wilderness of single instances, / Thro’ which a few, by wit or fortune led, / May beat a pathway out to wealth and fame.” I have a romantic view of legal information, and this is what brings me joy as a law librarian and legal research professor.  
  6. How did you end up where you are, doing what you’re doing? How did you end up in your specialty? I fell in love with legal research instruction as a student at UNH Franklin Pierce School of Law, where I worked as a teaching assistant in legal research. I had wonderful mentors who encouraged me to go to the University of Arizona Law Library Fellows Program, the first law library program to offer an entire graduate seminar on teaching legal research. After Arizona, I served as the reference & instructional services librarian and a lecturer in law at the University of Miami School of Law, where I first discovered Critical Legal Research and began to think about how I could integrate critical perspectives on legal information into the legal research classroom. About a year and a half ago, I was fortunate to have the opportunity to return to New England as the research & instructional services librarian and a lecturer in legal research at Yale Law School. 
  7. What do you think is one of the most important aspects of critical law librarianship? I think the heart of critical law librarianship is the theory that power structures in our society shape the organization of legal information and embed biases in legal research tools. Accordingly, we need to find ways to contend with this phenomenon, whether through the methods and strategies of Critical Legal Research or the pedagogical techniques of critical legal information literacy. 

Interview with LLNE Spring Meeting Speaker Justin Simard, Michigan State University College of Law

We are so excited for the LLNE / SNELLA Spring 2022 Meeting! In anticipation of our day at Yale Law School discussing Critical Law Librarianship, we hope you enjoy this interview with the keynote speaker:

Justin Simard is an Assistant Professor of Law at the MSU College of Law where he teaches Professional Responsibility, Commercial Law, and Legal History and directs the Citing Slavery Project. Justin has a B.A. in History from Rice University, a J.D. and a Ph.D. in history from the University of Pennsylvania.
  1. Tell us a fun fact about yourself! I’m a host for a breeding mom for Leader Dogs for the Blind. That means that I help whelp and raise future guide dogs. Here’s a link that describes our work: Voices of the Leader Dog Community: Lauren Eckberg and Justin Simard – Leader Dogs for the Blind
  2. What is your favorite Michigan spot and why? I’ve only been in Michigan for a couple of years, so I haven’t had the chance to explore as much as I’d like. Bath, a town near East Lansing, has some great dirt roads for running and trails for cross country skiing. That might be my favorite spot so far.
  3. Do you have any pets? Yes. In addition to the breeding mom, Java, who is a black lab, I have two cats: Ella and Mäusel.
  4. What is your favorite hobby? I enjoy distance running.
  5. What do you enjoy most about being a law librarian? My favorite thing about being a professor is exploring ideas that are important to me and sharing them with my students and others. I love talking with law librarians because of our shared interests in legal research and citation.
  6. How did you end up where you are, doing what you’re doing? How did you end up in your specialty? I developed an interest in American intellectual history in college thanks to Professor Thomas Haskell, whose class I took in my first semester at Rice University. I had also been interested in the law, and Professor Haskell encouraged me to pursue a J.D. in addition to a Ph.D. In graduate school, my advisor, Professor Sarah Barringer Gordon, introduced me to the graduates of the Litchfield Law School. Using them as a starting point, I ended up studying how the legal profession’s work drafting agreements, performing due diligence, securing notes, and giving advice shaped the American economy. This commercial role brought lawyers into direct contact with the law of slavery. When I found out that some of the opinions they wrote were still being cited today, I began to study that influence and catalog it at www.citingslavery.org
  7. What do you think is one of the most important aspects of critical law librarianship? It is important to examine what is often unexamined. Critical law librarianship can encourage the legal profession to reflect on what it often takes for granted.