Professional Development events at QU Law

Two legal education activities at QU Law present new opportunities for professional development. For the first time, at no charge, advanced skills classes are offered to local lawyers. Similar to CLEs in the US, these are mini-sessions in advanced contract drafting, advocacy, and in-house counsel skills offered by QU and the ABA. See the announcement to register.

Secondly, QU Law is hosting a Comparative Law conference. From the Conference announcement: 

The College of Law invites you to a conference on Comparative Law scheduled for the 6^th and 7^th October, 2012 at 9:00 am till 5:00 pm . The conference, to be held in the new library auditorium (117), brings together accomplished scholars in comparative law from countries and universities where the Civil Law, Islamic Law and the Common Law are taught and practiced. 

Dean Daniel Jutras of McGill Law School, Professor Bruce Archibald of Dalhousie Law School, Professor Catherine Valcke of Toronto Law School, join Professor Hassan  Al Sayed, Professor Hassan Elbarrawy and Dean Hassan Okour of QU Law College and The Attorney General of Qatar will deliver the keynote address.

The aim is to explore the influence of Islamic Law, Common Law and Civil Law on each other. This will be done by taking a critical look at Business Law, Criminal Law, Constitutional Law and Obligations from a comparative perspective. 

New library exhibit hall

The last phase of the new Qatar University Libraries is the opening of the exhibit hall. Please come and see the first exhibit!

Law School Partnerships

Interest in legal education in the Gulf has attracted two prominent US law schools to form partnerships to develop legal education centers. In Dubai, Penn State Law announced an agreement with Dubai Judicial Institute, and in Qatar the Harvard Law School is working to develop a graduate law program to be located in Education City. The announcements indicate the clear need and good timing for enhanced legal education to serve the growing opportunities here in the GCC. Welcome! See the National Law Journal for more.

World Intellectual Property Organization depository libraries program at QU

I spent my first day back in the office hanging my degrees and opening mail. Two months of business is pending but manageable. One large box greeted me and I opened it to see seven books on intellectual property from WIPO. One of the things I want to do this month back as the QU law librarian is organize our WIPO depository material. Qatar University Libraries are part of the World Intellectual Property Organization depository libraries program. Materials include many monographs, reports, periodicals, electronic documents on CD/DVD delivered up on regular basis (essentially every new WIPO publication).

This is a task I discovered late last year but was unable to find time to understand the requirements of the depository program or propose a process. Luckily, I have some experience in UN materials as I was part of a depository UN library at NSU law library for some years in Florida. I also know it is time consuming.

I discovered in my first searches that 31 WIPO depository libraries have been created in 20 countries. I started searching for examples of WIPO organization at other libraries. For example, the National Library of Belarus is another WIPO library and is storing documents in a reading room dedicated to international organizations. In another example, Azerbaijan State Economic University joined WIPO’s depository libraries in 2012 and created a WIPO Reference Center. Both are good models.

Loving FCIL.

Back Home from Summer Vacation

My family and I are back in Qatar from the summer break and recovering from jetlag. We spent some weeks in Spain and a month in California. The kids will have some adventures to remember this summer. Here are a few pictures. Happy travels.

In Madrid

Gold Coast of Spain



Running in Barcelona



Walk of Fame, Hollywood





Law Librarian summer look





Hollywood

   



Candles in Barcelona