The computer, the internet, and e-mail are an integral part of this course. You will even be asked to use the experimental software MarshalPlan. But you do not have to be a computer aficionado to take this course; you are not expected to be a computer "geek."

This will be largely a paperless course: much or all of the written work in this course will be done only in the medium of cyberspace. Furthermore, much but not all of the material that you will have to read will be available only over the internet.

Not all important written material is available online. For example, public records such as court cases, deeds and mortgages generally need to be retrieved on-site from courthouses or county clerks' offices.

Furthermore, you must often interview people in person; telephone interviews and e-mnail exchanges are often not good enough.

As you can see, the course in fact investigation has a web site. (Indeed, the course has two web sites.) The URL for the home page of one of the course's main web site is

These online discussions will be conducted in part in the "Message Boards" of the web pages reserved for this course ("Fact Investigation") at the Law School's "Angel" web site. To log in to the Law School's Angel web site go to:

After logging in at this URL, open the course web pages for "Fact Investigation," go to "Lessons," and look for the appropriate folder.

Note: After the course gets underway most of theinternet discussion will take place on Google Docs. We will give you information about this after the course gets underway. Please see also the notes found immediately below.

In this course you will collect evidence. You will need to preserve your evidence. You will record your evidence online. To deposit or record your evidence, you will go to a Google Doc [Google Document] called "Raw Evidence."

We will discuss, in class and by e-mail, how you and the investigation teams in the course will use Google Docs. If you do not already have a Google account, sign up for one here. (The account is free. You have to have a Google account to access your team's Google Docs.)

In this course you will also need to preserve your legal research. To do so, repeat the procedure outlined immediately above but, instead of depositing your results in the Raw Evidence document, put your legal material into the Google Doc "Legal Source Material."

In doing some of the assignments, you may find it useful to use drawing software. You may, if you wish, purchase drawing software and an educational license from SmartDraw at a discounted price. If you wish to purchase such a license, go to

We receive no commissions on sales of this software or educational licenses. However, P. Tillers confesses he did receive a free copy of one version of this software for his personal use.