Blogger News Network

Time again for our Website of the Week, when we showcase interesting and innovative online destinations.

Our Website of the Week is the place to go for news and information about the law, both here in the United States and around the world.

HIBBITTS:  "Jurist is a legal news and research website, and what we're trying to do is really provide real-time legal news and documentation for people who are interested in following serious legal developments worldwide."

Bernard Hibbitts is a law professor at the University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania and the editor-in-chief of the Jurist website, at jurist.law.pitt.edu.

Jurist provides a variety of material on key legal issues. Take one that's been in the news lately: immigration. The site's immigration page has news stories and web links.

HIBBITTS:  "Plus our commentaries that we've produced in this area, recent documents that are critical to understanding developments here, video - that kind of thing. So you're going to find a lot of background material, a lot of research resources. It's something which, I guess in that context, is also good and useful for students who are trying to understand what's going on, because they're going to get a range of material which really isn't available to them anywhere else."

Much of the site is written and assembled by a group of about 30 law students, but some of the commentaries that Professor Hibbitts mentioned are written by scholars, officials and other experts. And Jurist provides easy access to a selection of original source material, such as court decisions.

Because Jurist comes from an American law school, much of the material relates to U.S. law, but one click on the home page takes you to the international version of the site.

HIBBITTS:  "If you go to the international version, you'll get mostly international stories from various locations and you'll be able to really see what's happening in terms of recent legal developments in those places, and when you switch over from one edition to the other, you also get different topics that we're highlighting, different documents - that sort of thing - that an international audience would be most interested in."

Jurist does attract an international audience, as you can see right on the site's homepage, where they have a table listing the location of recent visitors. Legal news and research - and winner of a People's Voice Webby Award, announced just last week - check it out at jurist.law.pitt.edu, or get the link from our site, voanews.com.