What started out as a simple clearinghouse of academic information for students at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law has turned into a 24-hours-a-day, ever-changing news page dedicated to legal happenings throughout the world.
Last week JURIST, the online project run by a Pitt professor and 45 dedicated students, celebrated its 10th anniversary.
The Web site, which features articles written by students pulling information from various news sources, draws more than 100,000 readers each week. Its address is www.jurist.law.pitt.edu.
"It's terrific legal training," said founder Bernard Hibbitts, a Pitt law professor, as well as the publisher and editor-in-chief of JURIST.
The Web site switched to its current, all-news format in 2003. Its mission is "Documenting law to empower people."
The writers for JURIST focus equally on domestic and international legal issues. One day last week, juxtaposed next to stories on a "shoot-first law" passed in Texas and Supreme Court arguments on an antitrust case, were articles on attempts in Poland to completely ban abortion and on judicial independence in Pakistan.
Typical law school writing, for journals and law review, can be complex and long-winded. But for JURIST, students are taught not to write for legal scholars, but for the public.
"They're learning to write concisely, accurately and quickly," Mr. Hibbitts said. "That's what makes this environment unique.
"This is going to change the way lawyers write."
One of the things Mr. Hibbitts is most proud of is that the site includes links for the primary source material in each story. That means anyone reading about oral arguments at the Supreme Court can read a transcript of the actual argument, or they can read the filings in individual cases, or read the words of a document that's referenced in an article.
Mr. Hibbitts realized how important JURIST was to the international community on Dec. 30. The students had put together commentary from Saddam Hussein's attorneys, and they had a complete package of information ready for when he was executed. But an hour before it happened -- with too many hits on the site -- the server crashed, and JURIST was down for six hours.
Just that week, the site had more than 300,000 unique readers, and more than 700,000 page views.
"It was an international event of huge proportion for us," Mr. Hibbitts said.
Even when there's not such a story breaking, JURIST has more than 100,000 individual readers each week. That, Mr. Hibbitts said, happens without any marketing and with no advertisements on the site.
JURIST is run by the university. Besides Mr. Hibbitts, there is only one full-time, paid staff person, and one part-time. The rest are all student volunteers.
The site is funded by the university and a foundation.
Mary Crossley, the law school dean, said JURIST allows Pitt to reach out to an audience around the world. It helps to strengthen democracy.
"It magnifies our ability to educate people who will never set foot in Pittsburgh," she said.
There is a standing feature on JURIST, which shows where the people reading the site are located. At any given time, there are readers from the United States and Canada, as well as across Europe and Asia.
It is often referenced by other news organizations, and Mr. Hibbits added, there are 7,000 individual Web sites that link to it. To compare, he said that only 4,900 sites link to C-SPAN.
According to Ms. Crossley, JURIST has become an integral part of life for students at Pitt's law school.
"It instills in them the sense that there's great value in using your resources and expertise for the public good," she said.
James Yoch, a second-year Pitt law student, is the president of the JURIST student staff association.
At age 28, he worked at a dot-com that produced local news, and later did corporate public relations before starting law school.
"What first drew me to it, it was the opportunity to do some writing again," said Mr. Yoch, who noted that it was JURIST that prompted him to attend Pitt's law school.
He started working for the Web site in his first year and now does three or four writing shifts each week, plus three editing shifts. Writers for JURIST normally work two hours per shift, while editors work only one.
Working for JURIST has allowed Mr. Yoch to learn even more about the law and how to apply it.
"Our whole government revolves around the law," he said. "Everything has a legal aspect."
First Published: April 2, 2007, 4:00 a.m.
