University Times

Pitt’s law school held a day-long birthday party last week to celebrate 10 years of the JURIST web site (http://jurist.law.pitt.edu), the brainchild of law professor Bernard Hibbitts, who is the site’s publisher and editor-in-chief.

Launched as an academic clearinghouse of online legal materials for law professors, the site has evolved into a real-time, dynamic news and research service designed for the general population.

JURIST, which is staffed by volunteer Pitt law students, boasts a half-million hits weekly from more than 100,000 readers in some 170 countries. Its news archives includes more than 22,000 fully documented legal news stories.

JURIST reports are carried by Google News and regularly are cited in the national news media.

In 2006, JURIST won a Webby People’s Voice Award for the best law web site.

In addition to real-time legal news, JURIST posts analysis and commentary from policy makers, legal practitioners and scholars.

The site is non-commercial and advertising-free. No registration is required.

Last week’s celebration, dubbed “Law as a Seamless Web Site,” featured national panelists, including lawyers, legal scholars, journalists and technology experts, discussing law and war; rights and social justice; law and media in the age of the Internet, and legal education, technology and public service.

The University Times covered the law and media panel discussion and the speech of keynote presenter Charles Bierbauer, dean of the University of South Carolina College of Mass Communications and Information Sciences.