Law Commons^™

Breaking The Rules, Rima Sirota

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

“Breaking the Rules” is a legal research and writing assignment that I crafted for students completing their first year of law school. The assignment honors new students’ desire for skills that will allow them to effectively challenge the status quo of settled but discriminatory legal rules. Part I of this article is an essay that contextualizes and explains the assignment; Part II provides the assignment itself.

Citation, Slavery, And The Law As Choice: Thoughts On Bluebook Rule 10.7.1(D), David J.S. Ziff

Articles

Today, more than 150 years after the end of the Civil War, lawyers and judges continue to rely on antebellum decisions that tacitly or expressly approve of slavery. This reliance often occurs without any acknowledgement of the precedent’s immoral and legally dubious provenance. Modern use of these so-called “slave cases” was the subject of Professor Justin Simard’s 2020 article, Citing Slavery. In response to Professor Simard’s article, the latest edition of The Bluebook includes Rule 10.7.1(d), which requires authors to indicate parenthetically when a decision involves an enslaved person as a party or the property at issue. Unfortunately, Rule 10.7.1(d) …

Generative Ai And Finding The Law, Paul D. Callister

Faculty Works

Legal information science requires, among other things, principles and theories. The article states five principles or considerations that any discussion of generative AI large language models and their role in finding the law must include. The article concludes that law librarianship will increasingly become legal information science and require new paradigms. In addition to the five principles, the article applies ecological holistic media theory to understand the relationship of the legal community’s cognitive authority, institutions, techné (technology, medium and method), geopolitical factors, and the past and future to understand the changes in this information milieu. The article also explains …

Rooted: Metaphors And Judicial Philosophy In Artis V. District Of Columbia, Richard L. Heppner Jr.

Law Faculty Publications

This article examines how the metaphors in judicial opinions reveal judicial theories of lawmaking and judicial philosophies, through a close reading of Justice Ginsburg’s majority opinion and Justice Gorsuch’s dissenting opinion in the Artis v. District of Columbia, 138 S. Ct. 594 (2018).

Artis was about what the phrase “shall be tolled” means in the federal supplemental jurisdiction statute, 28 U.S.C. §1367. Does a state-law claim’s statute of limitations pause or continue to run while the claim is in federal court? In holding that Congress used “stop the clock” tolling, an “off-the-shelf” legal device that pauses statute of limitations, …

Take Inventory Each Year, David Spratt

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.

Exploring Diversity With A "Culture Box" In First-Year Legal Writing, Ann N. Sinsheimer

Articles

Studying law is in many ways like studying another culture. Students often feel as though they are learning a new language with unfamiliar vocabulary and different styles of communication. Throughout their legal education, students are also exposed to a profession comprised of unique traditions and expectations. As a result, learning law takes time and energy. It can be both engaging and frustrating and may even challenge some of students’ values and belief systems. To ease her students’ transition to law school, the author starts her course each year with a “culture box” exercise, which encourages students to examine who they …

Enough Said: A Proposal For Shortening Supreme Court Opinions, Meg Penrose

Faculty Scholarship

The role of the judiciary, Chief Justice Marshall famously advised, is “to say what the law is.” Yet, how often do the justices issue a written opinion that ordinary Americans can understand? The Supreme Court increasingly issues lengthy and complex opinions, often containing multiple concurring and dissenting opinions. These opinions can be as confusing as they are verbose.

“To Say What the Law Is Succinctly: A Brief Proposal,” analyzes the justices’ legal writing. Are the justices effective in saying what the law is? Insufficient attention has been devoted to evaluating the justices’ writing and their efficacy at communicating the law. …

Practice And Fitness Making Writing Perfection More Nearly Attainable, Heather Ridenour, David Spratt

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.

Breaking Bad Briefs, Heidi K. Brown

Articles & Chapters

This article focuses on the practical effects of bad briefing on our legal process and suggests a holistic remedy: a system-wide commitment to striving to instill in law students and lawyers a respect for legal writing as, not only a fundamental competency of our chosen profession, but a talent that requires initial training, focused study, repeated practice, and conscious evolution throughout the arc of one’s legal education and career. Effective brief-writing is not as simple as a quick cut-and-paste job, a template download, or a stream-of-consciousness exercise, even for lawyers who repeatedly practice one type of case. Part I of …

Bluebook Bootcamp Spring 2017

Presentations

No abstract provided.

Not So Very Bad Beginnings: What Fiction Can Teach Lawyers About Beginning A Persuasive Legal Narrative Before A Court, Cathren Koehlert-Page

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Can't Get There From Here: Recalculate Into Better Legal Writing, Heather Ridenour

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.

The Fact Of The Matter, David Spratt

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.

"The Hindrance Of A Law Degree": Justice Kagan On Law And Experience, Laura Krugman Ray

Maryland Law Review Online

No abstract provided.

Training The Superstar Associate: Teaching Workplace Professionalism In Legal Writing Courses, Elizabeth Shaver

Akron Law Faculty Publications

This article details efforts to increase the professional workplace skills of law students by teaching professionalism skills in a first-year legal writing course. The article describes a series of videos that demonstrate how a new lawyer’s professional attributes and attitude can create either a positive or a negative impression on a supervising attorney. Nine “what not to do” videos highlight certain types of unprofessional behavior, much of which has been personally observed among students in first-year legal writing courses. The “what not to do” videos are juxtaposed with one “what to do” video that is designed to illuminate exemplary professionalism …

Speaking With Conviction: The Importance Of Effective And Precise Communications, David Spratt

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.

Legal Writing: A History From The Colonial Era To The End Of The Civil War, David R. Cleveland

Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Playing To The Audience, David Spratt

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.

Why Punctuation Matters: Part Three, David Spratt

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.

Motions In Motions: Teaching Advanced Legal Writing Through Collaboration, Sarah J. Morath, Elizabeth Shaver, Richard Strong

Akron Law Faculty Publications

Legal education is at a crossroads. Practitioners, academics, and students agree that more experiential learning opportunities are needed in law school.

In 2007, the Carnegie Foundation report, Educating Lawyers: Preparation for the Profession of Law (Carnegie Report), called for law schools to provide apprentice experiences to better prepare prospective attorneys for the world of practice. That same year, the Best Practices in Legal Education advocated for “experiential education” and “encourage[d] law school[s] to expand its use.” More recently, in August 2011, the American Bar Association adopted a resolution sponsored by the New York Bar Association summoning law schools to “focus …

Review Of Writing For Dollars, Writing To Please, Susan David Demaine

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Legal Education And Civility, Mark Niles

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.

Sometimes Putting Pen To Paper Is Tougher Than It Seems, Heather Ridenour, David Spratt

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.

Creac Scramble: An Active Self-Assessment Exercise, Meredith Aden

Popular Media

No abstract provided.

Writer's Block: The "Ins And Outs" Of Good Legal Writing, Part One, David Spratt

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.

Misplaced Modifiers - Say What, David Spratt

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.

The Past, Presence, And Future Of Legal Writing Scholarship: Rhetoric, Voice, And Community, Linda L. Berger, Linda H. Edwards, Terrill Pollman

Scholarly Works

This article welcomes a new generation of legal writing scholars. In the first generation, legal writing professors debated whether they should be engaged in legal scholarship at all. In the second generation, assuming that they should be engaged in scholarship, legal writing professors discerned and defined different genres of and topics for the scholarship in which some or all of us were or should be engaged. In this article, we map the contours of a third generation of legal writing scholarship - one that integrates the elements of our professional lives and allows us to engage more effectively with our …

A Writing Life, Linda H. Edwards

Scholarly Works

This essay was written on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the Legal Writing Institute (LWI), celebrated at Mercer University School of Law, LWI’s current home. In a sense the essay is retrospective, for it is written to honor the scholars whose work has moved us toward a vision of legal writing scholarship and all it can offer. Many of those experienced and inspiring scholars have kindly offered their advice for inclusion in this essay. That advice is probably the most important content included here, and it is placed, appropriately, at the end of the text as the essay’s …

Law And Practice, William Rhee

Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Never Too Late To Go Home Again, David Spratt

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.