Law Commons^™

Rhetoric, Advocacy And Ethics: Reflections On Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, Stephen A. Newman

Articles & Chapters

The rhetorical skill necessary to speaking and writing persuasively may be studied with great profit by exploring realms of knowledge far from the courtroom and the law office. Literature naturally comes to mind as a rich resource for the study of persuasion. For this essay, I have chosen a well-known set of speeches that appear in William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar to illustrate various aspects of persuasion.

In the play's most riveting scene, Marcus Brutus and Mark Antony speak before a crowd of Romans, giving their opposing views of the assassination of Caesar. Brutus claims justification for his and his co-conspirators' …

The Professional In Legal Education: Foreign Perspectives, James Maxeiner

All Faculty Scholarship

Japan is about to change its system of legal education. In April 2004 Japan will introduce law schools. Law schools are to occupy an intermediary place between the present undergraduate faculties of law and the national Legal Training and Research Institute. The law faculties are to continue to offer general undergraduate education in law, while the law schools in combination with the national Institute are to provide professional legal education. A principal goal of the change is to produce more lawyers. Law schools are charged with providing "practical education especially for fostering legal professionals." But just what is professional legal …

Generation X In Law School: The Dying Of The Light Or The Dawn Of A New Day, Tracy L. Mcgaugh

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

The Inside Scoop: What Federal Judges Really Think About The Way Lawyers Write, Kristen Konrad Robbins-Tiscione

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

A recent survey indicates that what troubles federal judges most is not what lawyers say but what they fail to say when writing briefs. Although lawyers do a good job articulating legal issues and citing controlling, relevant legal authority, they are not doing enough with the law itself. Only fifty-six percent of the judges surveyed said that lawyers “always” or “usually” make their client’s best arguments. Fifty-eight percent of the judges rated the quality of the legal analysis as just “good,” as opposed to “excellent” or “very good.” The problem seems to be that briefs lack rigorous analysis, and the …

A Reflective Rhetorical Model: The Legal Writing Teacher As Reader And Writer, Linda L. Berger

Scholarly Works

Like most writing teachers, the legal writing teacher believes that his reading and response to student work is the most important thing he does, an importance that is underscored by the amount of time it takes. Yet, despite its importance and the hours it consumes, the rhetoric of teacher reading and writing remains relatively unexplored. This article proposes that we begin to apply what we have learned about student reading and writing to our own reading and writing. Our process of reading and responding to student work should be as reflective and rhetorical as the reading and writing process that …

Avoiding Common Problems In Using Teaching Assistants: Hard Lessons Learned From Peer Teaching Theory And Experience, Edward R. Becker, Rachel Croskery-Roberts

Articles

A majority of American law schools rely on teaching assistants to help administer first-year legal writing, research, and analysis (LWRA) courses. Specifically, surveys jointly conducted by the Association of Legal Writing Directors (ALWD) and the Legal Writing Institute (LWI) consistently detail the extensive use many LWRA professors make of teaching assistants. Likewise, Julie Cheslik recognized in her article about her 1994 survey on the use of TAs in the typical LWRA course that "[o]ne of the most prevalent uses of peer teachers in the law school setting is the employment of upper-level law students as teaching assistants in the first-year …

Competent Legal Writing - A Lawyer's Professional Responsibility, Debra R. Cohen

Journal Articles

The legal profession is constantly evolving to keep pace with our increasingly complex society.' Today, the legal profession "is larger and more diverse than ever before." Despite this transformation, "the law has remained a single profession identified with a perceived common body of learning, skills and values." This common body of learning, skills, and values constitutes the fundamental elements of competent representation. Writing is one of the essential skills of competent representation.

"Law is a profession of words." Lawyers use words, both written and oral, in a wide array of contexts-to advise, to advocate, to elicit information, to establish legal …

Applying New Rhetoric To Legal Discourse: The Ebb And Flow Of Reader And Writer, Text And Context, Linda L. Berger

Scholarly Works

Applying New Rhetoric to law school pedagogy, this article suggests an ebb and flow of reader and writer, text and context drawn from New Rhetoric theory, research, and teaching practices. Almost all legal writing scholarship now focuses on some aspect of New Rhetoric. Yet it is likely that the product approach still prevails in the places where the papers are graded, in part because it is the more familiar and straightforward way that papers have always been graded. What follows is an initial attempt to more fully apply New Rhetoric theory and research to the teaching of legal reading and …

Legal Writing In The New Millennium: Lessons From A Special Teacher And A "Special Classroom", Kenneth F. Ripple

Journal Articles

After receiving the invitation to address this conference, I found my thoughts often returning to my own education in legal writing. As I recall, my legal writing experience in law school was not a very intensive—or positive—one. As was quite typical in that era (almost thirty-three years ago), the program at my law school was not very extensive: we wrote a memorandum of law and a brief under the guidance of a graduate law student.

My real legal writing education took place in the study of the Chief Justice of the United States. For the better part of five years, …

Teaching Upperclass Writing: Everything You Always Wanted To Know But Were Afraid To Ask, Lissa Griffin

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

A survey conducted as part of this project reveals that law schools generally require their students to have an upperclass writing experience taught or supervised by non-writing tenured or tenure-track faculty. These teachers currently bear the responsibility for assigning, supervising, reviewing, and evaluating most of the writing by upperclass students, either through substantive seminars or independent study projects. In almost all schools there is no major curricular planning, systematic instruction, faculty training, or institutional support for upperclass writing.

Creating Effective Legal Research Exercises, Amy E. Sloan

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Innovative Teaching Methods And Practical Uses Of Literature In Legal Education, Karin M. Mika

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

Because I believe a breadth of reading enhances one's ability to think and write, throughout the years I have tried to encourage extra curricular and diversified reading to be done in conjunction with my Legal Writing class. Unfortunately, yet understandably, law students generally only do the required work, but not more. As a consequence, I have discovered, over time, that the "readers" in my classes continue to read while the "non-readers" never take the opportunity to discover what advantage there might be in taking my advice. Because no change has occurred in students' overall attitudes, I decided to make life …

Selecting And Designing Effective Legal Writing Problems, Grace C. Tonner, Diana Pratt

Articles

Legal research and writing courses are unlike most substantive first year law school classes in that they teach using the problem method. The success of a legal writing course depends on the quality of the problems. The purpose of this article is to provide some guidance for legal writing professors in designing legal writing problems. The article addresses (1) general considerations in problem design, (2) designing expository problems, (3) designing persuasive problems, and (4) sources of problems. In the first section, we discuss problem design as it relates to the overall goals for teaching the basic forms of legal analysis, …

Writing For Judges, Pierre Schlag

Publications

No abstract provided.

Rewriting First Year Legal Writing Programs, Michael Botein

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.

Legislative Process And Drafting In U.S. Law Schools: A Close Look At The Lammers Report, Reed Dickerson

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Teaching Legal Writing In The Law Schools (With A Special Nod To Legal Drafting), Reed Dickerson

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Legal Drafting: Writing As Thinking, Or, Talk-Back From Your Draft And How To Exploit It, Reed Dickerson

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

If We Can't Teach Our Students To Write... Let's Examine Some Alternatives That May Have A Chance To Work, Michael Botein

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.

Seminar On Legal Drafting Raises Questions On Teaching, Reed Dickerson

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Professionalizing Legislative Drafting: A Realistic Goal?, Reed Dickerson

Articles by Maurer Faculty

The teaching of skills that result in sound legislative drafting is neglected in law schools, and professionalism in legislative drafting is lacking on both the federal and state fronts. With the adoption by the American Bar Association of seven major principles relating to the drafting of federal legislation, perhaps there is more hope now that there will be a move toward professionalism.

One Approach To Teaching Legal Drafting, Reed Dickerson

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Legislative Drafting And The Law Schools, Reed Dickerson

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.