Law Commons^™

Neuro-Linguistic Programming And Writing: A New Era Of Communication-Part Ii, K.K. Duvivier

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

Neuro-linguistic programming describes a method of understanding how people subjectively process information through different preferred modes or representational systems.' Generally, neuro-linguistic programming classifies perceptions into three broad categories: (1) visual, (2) auditory, and (3) kinesthetic. The September Scrivener column addressed two precepts of neuro-linguistic programming in the context of legal writing. This article addresses two more.

Legal Education, Professionalism, And The Public Interest, Alfred C. Aman Jr.

Alfred Aman Jr. (1991-2002)

No abstract provided.

Florida Professional Responsibility In 1999: The Rules Of The Game, Timothy P. Chinaris, Elizabeth Clark Tarbert

Law Faculty Scholarship

The year 1999 saw a number of changes and developments in Florida professional responsibility law. This article surveys these developments by reviewing: 1) relevant reported cases; 2) ethics opinions; 3) rules changes; and 4) disciplinary actions affecting lawyers and the practice of law in the Sunshine State. These authorities are examined in the context of the various relationships upon which a lawyer's professional life is built and within which the lawyer typically operates.

Beyond The Rhetoric Of “Dirty Laundry”: Examining The Value Of Internal Criticism Within Progressive Social Movements And Oppressed Communities, Darren Lenard Hutchinson

UF Law Faculty Publications

Several historical reasons explain opposition to the airing of internal criticism by scholars and activists within progressive social movements and by members of subordinate communities. Opponents often contend that such criticism might reinforce negative stereotypes of subordinate individuals and that reactionary movements and activists might appropriate and misuse negative portrayals of the oppressed. A related fear holds that internal criticism will dismantle political unity within oppressed communities and progressive social movements, thereby forestalling social change. While these concerns provide some context for understanding the resistance to internal criticism within progressive social movements, I argue in this essay that they do …

Neuro-Linguistic Programming And Writing: A New Era Of Communication-Part I, K.K. Duvivier

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

New methods of transmitting information now provide faster and more effective results. Similarly, neurolinguistic programming, a new approach from communication science, provides techniques for faster and more effective communication in your writing.

Mooring Modifiers, K.K. Duvivier

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

Readers can be lost at sea if your writing is foggy about what words or ideas are connected to others. Effective writing requires that every modifier be clearly moored to exactly what it is intended to describe, rather than some other word or idea. Free-floating modifiers risk conveying meaning that is, at best, ambiguous or, at worst, downright contrary to the drafter's in- tent.

Juries, Hindsight, And Punitive Damage Awards: Failures Of A Social Science Case For Change, Richard O. Lempert

Articles

In their recent Arizona Law Review article entitled What Juries Can't Do Well: The Jury's Performance As a Risk Manager,' Professors Reid Hastie and W. Kip Viscusi purport to show that juries are likely to do a poor job in setting punitive damages, largely because jurors cannot avoid the influence of what is called "hindsight bias," or the tendency to see the likelihood of an event higher in retrospect than it would have appeared before it happened. In particular, they argue that hindsight bias and other cognitive biases undermine the utility of jury-set punitive damage awards as risk management devices. …

Digital Legal Information: Ensuring Access To The "Official" Word Of The Law, Claire M. Germain

UF Law Faculty Publications

In the United States today, digital versions of current decisions, bills, statutes, and regulations issued by federal and state entities are widely available on publicly accessible Internet Web sites. Worldwide, official legal information issued by international organizations and foreign governments is also becoming available on the Web. However, there are currently no standards for the production and authentication of digital documents. Moreover, the information is sometimes available only for a short time and then disappears from the site. Most of that digital information provides only a right of access, and no ownership, or control over the data, unless it is …

Digital Legal Information: Ensuring Access To The "Official" Word Of The Law, Claire M. Germain

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Hazards Of Legal Fine Tuning: Confronting The Free Will Problem In Election Law Scholarship, Michael A. Fitts

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Digital Legal Information: Ensuring Access To The "Official" Word Of The Law, Claire M. Germain

Cornell Law Faculty Working Papers

In the United States today, digital versions of current decisions, bills, statutes, and regulations issued by federal and state entities are widely available on publicly accessible Internet Web sites. Worldwide, official legal information issued by international organizations and foreign governments is also becoming available on the Web. However, there are currently no standards for the production and authentication of digital documents. Moreover, the information is sometimes available only for a short time and then disappears from the site. Most of that digital information provides only a right of access, and no ownership, or control over the data, unless it is …

Further Saith Naught, K.K. Duvivier

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

Among professions, the law is one most bound by tradition. Not only does the law look back in time for substantive precedents, it also borrows heavily from the language of the past. Do words like "notwithstanding" and "herein" creep their way unnoticed into your legal documents? Do your affidavits contain an "ss" at the top and use alliterative wording such as "subscribed, sworn, and sealed"? These antiquated expressions are not used in standard Modem English, and before you entered law school, they probably were familiar only if you read Old or Middle English literature. To help determine which are expendable, …

Common Words With Uncommon Meanings, K.K. Duvivier

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

When President Clinton parsed words in his testimony, the response was contempt and disdain. The impeachment trial hinged on the assumption that Clinton's intent in interpreting common words with a narrow or special meaning was deceitful. We lawyers cannot speak to Clinton's intent, and we wince at the bad publicity he is giving to the profession. However, most of us would have to admit that Clinton's use of common words with special meanings is not only acceptable, but commonplace in the law

Commenting On Student Writing, Beth Cohen, Jocelyn Cuffee, Harris Freeman, Jeanne M. Kaiser, Myra G. Orlen

Faculty Scholarship

The Authors from Western New England College School of Law discuss perspectives on and approaches to responding to student writing.

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 …

The Blackletter Law Of Form, K.K. Duvivier

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

Substance, rather than form, should be the first concern of any lawyer drafting a brief. However, just as writing style can have an impact on the image we project, so can the overall impression we make be significantly impacted by the format of our brief.

Commenting On Student Writing, Beth Cohen, Jocelyn Cuffee, Harris Freeman, Jeanne Kaiser, Myra Orlen

Media Presence

This Article, written by the five-person faculty in the legal research and writing program at Western New England College, discusses the process of critiquing student work. They share some ideas they have discussed in order to promote good legal writing.

Semiotics, Analogical Legal Reasoning, And The Cf. Citation: Getting Our Signals Uncrossed, Ira P. Robbins

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

The Bluebook’s introductory citation signals are essential to effective legal discourse. The choice of signal can influence not only the interpretation of cited cases, but also the path of the law. In this Article, Professor Ira Robbins examines one commonly used signal: the cf. After exploring its semiotic function, he details the multitude of ways in which this signal has been used and misused. He argues that lawyers’ and judges’ careless use of the cf. leads to confusing and often incoherent developments in the law, and concludes by proposing a precise working definition for this irksome, but potentially powerful, citation …

Closing One Gap But Opening Another?: A Response To Dean Perritt And Comments On The Internet, Law Schools, And Legal Education, Michael Heise

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Content And Quality Of Legal Information And Data On The Internet With A Special Focus On The United States, Claire M. Germain

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

In the United States today, digital versions of current decisions, bills, statutes and regulations issued by federal and state governments are widely available on publicly accessible Web sites. Worldwide, official (defined as “authoritative,” or “the official” word of the law) legal information issued by international organizations and foreign governments is also becoming available on the Web. However, there are currently no standards for the production and authentication of digital documents. Moreover, the information is sometimes available only for a short time and then disappears from the site. No guidelines exist either to promote a uniform way to cite to digital …

Researching In An Imperfect World, Mary Whisner

Librarians' Articles

Responding to a request for assistance in using Legal Resource Index leads the author to ponder how the imperfections in the reference tools we use on a daily basis lead to the inescapable conclusion that intelligent, informed compromise is an inherent part of research.

Golf Buddy Reference Questions, Mary Whisner

Librarians' Articles

Responding to a reference question that began as a casual dispute between a golfer and his buddy about legal procedure leads Ms. Whisner to consider the appropriate way to respond to inquiries from public patrons.

Interactive Class Editing, Kathleen Elliott Vinson

Suffolk University Law School Faculty Works

Legal writing is a process. Writing, however, is not a process that occurs in a straight line. An important part of the writing process is editing. Editing during different stages of the writing process can reveal organizational as well as analytical problems, in addition to grammatical and spelling mistakes. As Justice Brandeis said, "[t]here is no such thing as good writing. There is only good rewriting.” The time and extent spent on editing skills conveys the importance of editing. Devoting class time to editing and making it interactive allows students to focus on editing and practice their editing skills. In …

Controversial Speakers On Campus: Liberties, Limitations, And Common-Sense Guidelines, Kenneth Lasson

All Faculty Scholarship

"Veritas vos liberabit," chanted the scholastics of yesteryear. The "truth will set you free," echo their latter-day counterparts in the academy, intoning the mantra reverentially but with increasingly more hope than confidence, more faith than conviction.... The real world of the academy, of course, is not quite that wonderful, nor nearly as bad as many would suggest. The ironies become palpable, however, when those self-same institutions, which almost universally view themselves as bastions of free speech, instead stifle debate that is perceived as politically incorrect or otherwise embarrassing. Academic administrators naturally shy away from conflict and contention. They shun controversy. …

Three's A Crowd: Law, Literature, And Truth, Marianne Wesson

Publications

No abstract provided.

Attorney Hit With Sanctions For Poor Brief (New York Law Journal), Deborah Pines

News Articles

No abstract provided.

The Bard And The Bench: An Opinion And Brief Writer's Guide To Shakespeare, Robert Peterson

Faculty Publications

This work is a legal brief writer's and opinion drafter's guide to Shakespeare. It collects and catalogues by topic citations to plays, poems, or passages that are actually found in judicial opinions. This essay also suggests a few uncited orphans deserving a home in brief or opinion. The catalogue is web based; the reader may search it in its electronic format or download it for old-fashioned browsing.

Sailing Through Designing Memo Assignments, Lorraine K. Bannai, Anne Enquist, Judith Maier, Susan Mcclellan

Faculty Articles

Sailing and designing memo assignments have a lot in common. At first, both can seem overwhelming - so much to learn, so much to organize sequentially, and so much to get right in a short period of time. Mistakes mean instability, lost time, and possibly capsizing. Avoiding the mistakes, a good skipper can break through to clean water and good air, and teaching writing can be exhilarating. The students and teacher both benefit from and enjoy working with an ideal memo assignment. The process is critical, but the destination is key. No memo assignment is effective if it results in …

Legal Writing Scholarship: Point/Counterpoint, Jan M. Levine, Grace C. Tonner

Articles

Perhaps because the field of legal writing has now matured enough so that we professors constitute a critical mass of experienced teachers and scholars, we find ourselves frequently embroiled in debates about legal writing scholarship. What is it? Can we do it? Should we do it? Should it be considered part and parcel of our responsibilities as members of the law school world? To help us better present our shared view that legal writing professors not only can but should produce scholarship, we sought first to take on the role of devil’s advocate, presenting all the rationales we have heard …

An Empirical Evaluation Of Specialized Law Reviews, Chris Guthrie, Tracey E. George

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

The sudden, rapid, and widespread increase in the number of specialized law reviews has attracted relatively little scholarly attention even though it is the most significant development in legal academic publishing in the second half of the twentieth century. As a consequence, there is a dearth of information about the proliferation, significance, and status of specialized reviews. In this Article, we attempt to fill this information gap by documenting the rise of the specialized review and by providing an empirical ranking of the top 100 specialized reviews.