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Articles 1 - 17 of 17
Full-Text Articles in Law
Lights! Camera! Law School?: Using Video Interviews To Enhance First Semester Writing Assignments, Ian Gallacher
Lights! Camera! Law School?: Using Video Interviews To Enhance First Semester Writing Assignments, Ian Gallacher
Ian Gallacher
This short article discusses why the Legal Communication and Research program at Syracuse University College of Law has used video interviews between hypothetical clients and attorneys as an alternative to the traditional assignment memo. The article also discusses some of the technical issues related to this approach and suggests some techniques budding producers might use to develop effective and engaging videos to enhance traditional legal writing assignments.
Enigma: A Variation On The Theme Of Legal Writing's Place In Contemporary Legal Education, Ian Gallacher
Enigma: A Variation On The Theme Of Legal Writing's Place In Contemporary Legal Education, Ian Gallacher
Ian Gallacher
No abstract provided.
"No Country For Old Men:" Junior Associates And The Real-World Practice Of Law, Ian Gallacher
"No Country For Old Men:" Junior Associates And The Real-World Practice Of Law, Ian Gallacher
Ian Gallacher
Law schools are designed to teach students about the doctrine of law and to help them prepare their skills to practice law. There are some practical aspects of law practice, though, that are rarely if ever discussed in law school. Perhaps this is because of an assumption that law firms will make these issues clear to the students they hire as associates, or perhaps it is because of a belief that such information has no place in the curriculum of an academic institution. Whatever the reason, this is information law students should have as they begin to think about where …
Erasing Boundaries: Inter-School Collaboration And Its Pedagogical Opportunities, Ian Gallacher, Amy Stein, Robin A. Boyle, David Thomson
Erasing Boundaries: Inter-School Collaboration And Its Pedagogical Opportunities, Ian Gallacher, Amy Stein, Robin A. Boyle, David Thomson
Ian Gallacher
This short article is the product of a presentation the four authors gave at the 2014 AALS Conference in New York City. In it, we briefly examine some of the problems facing legal education and propose that legal writing programs across the country could enhance the quality and complexity of the assignments they set if they worked together. Even though each faculty would teach the problem in their own way, and grade their own students' work, the possibilities offered by this approach would allow each school to simulate more closely the reality of law practice. The article includes some suggestions …
Do Robomemos Dream Of Electric Nouns?: A Search For The Soul Of Legal Writing, Ian Gallacher
Do Robomemos Dream Of Electric Nouns?: A Search For The Soul Of Legal Writing, Ian Gallacher
Ian Gallacher
This essay considers the possibility that computers might soon be capable of writing many of the documents lawyers typically write, and considers what qualities of writing are uniquely human and whether those qualities are sufficient to render human written work superior to computer generated work. After noting that despite the claims of rhetoricians and narrative theorists, not all legal writing is persuasive writing, and that it is in the non-persuasive area of prosaic, functional documents that computer generated documents might gain a bridgehead into the legal market, the essay tracks the development of computer-generated written work, particularly in the areas …
"When Numbers Get Serious": A Study Of Plain English Usage In Briefs Filed Before The New York Court Of Appeals, Ian Gallacher
"When Numbers Get Serious": A Study Of Plain English Usage In Briefs Filed Before The New York Court Of Appeals, Ian Gallacher
Ian Gallacher
This article describes the results of a study of briefs filed in the New York Court of Appeals between 1969 and 2008. In particular, portions of these briefs were analyzed using the Flesch Reading Ease test and the Flesh-Kincaid test. The first of these tests claims to determine how "readable" a piece of text might be, and the second expresses its results in terms of the grade level a hypothetical reader should have attained before the given text becomes "readable." Both of these tests are fallible, especially when used to determine the actual "readability" of a piece of text, but …
The Count's Dilemma, Or, Harmony And Dissonance In Legal Language, Ian Gallacher
The Count's Dilemma, Or, Harmony And Dissonance In Legal Language, Ian Gallacher
Ian Gallacher
Lawyers have had a long, but ambivalent, relationship with metaphor. Viewed by some as a mere literary device, a trick of language that "adds little of substance to an argument," metaphor is seen by others as an essential component of legal language, a rhetorical device inseparable from thought. On one thing, though, all can agree: lawyers only have words to express their thoughts, so they have an obligation to use words, whether used metaphorically or not, as exactly as possible. This article offers a critique of the way lawyers meet this obligation when they use metaphors based in musical language. …
"No Country For Old Men:" Junior Associates And The Real-World Practice Of Law, Ian Gallacher
"No Country For Old Men:" Junior Associates And The Real-World Practice Of Law, Ian Gallacher
Ian Gallacher
This short essay seeks to give law students hoping to be junior associates at large, big-city law firms some information about the seemingly large salaries offered to them and discusses what life might be like for them if they take a position at one of these firms. The essay begins with a discussion of how much an associate might expect to keep, after the cost of living in a large city is accounted for, from the advertised starting salary offered by such firms. It then considers what it costs the firm to pay an associate such a large salary, how …
Thinking Like Non-Lawyers: Why Empathy Is A Core Lawyering Skill And Why Legal Education Should Change To Reflect Its Importance, Ian Gallacher
Thinking Like Non-Lawyers: Why Empathy Is A Core Lawyering Skill And Why Legal Education Should Change To Reflect Its Importance, Ian Gallacher
Ian Gallacher
This article is an exploration of some of the issues raised by the recent Carnegie Report on legal education, and contains a recommendation that law schools change the way they teach especially first year law students in order to make them more empathetically aware of the circumstances by which the court opinions they study arose and the effects those opinions will have on others. This recommendation is made not just because it will make students better people, but also because it will make them better lawyers; the article analyses in depth the dangers inherent in an overemphasis on the “logical” …
Mapping The Social Life Of The Law: An Alternative Approach To Legal Research, Ian Gallacher
Mapping The Social Life Of The Law: An Alternative Approach To Legal Research, Ian Gallacher
Ian Gallacher
As the law moves inexorably to a digital publication model in which books no longer play a role, the problem of how to continue to make the law available to all becomes more acute. Open access initiatives already exist, and more are on the way, but all are limited by their inability to provide more than self-indexed search options for their users. Self-indexing, although a powerful alternative to the traditional pre-indexed searching made possible by systems like West’s “Key Number” digests, has inherent limitations which make it a poor choice as the sole means of researching the law. But developing …
'Aux Armes, Citoyens!:' Time For Law Schools To Lead The Movement For Free And Open Access To The Law, Ian Gallacher
'Aux Armes, Citoyens!:' Time For Law Schools To Lead The Movement For Free And Open Access To The Law, Ian Gallacher
Ian Gallacher
This article is a manifesto that outlines the principles of the open access to legal information movement and sounds a call to action for law schools to become leaders in that movement. The article surveys the present legal information environment, reviews the development of computer-assisted legal information and the long-term future of book-based legal research, and discusses the problems inherent in a system where two large “information resource” corporations control access to legal information. After considering the need for open access to the law for pro se litigants, scholars from outside the legal academy, and practicing lawyers, after considering and …
Cite Unseen: How Neutral Citation And America's Law Schools Can Cure Our Strange Devotion To Bibliographical Orthodoxy And The Constriction Of Open And Equal Access To The Law, Ian Gallacher
Ian Gallacher
This article looks at the phenomenon of legal citation and its unintended consequences. After considering the reasons for the American legal system's devotion to precisely accurate and detailed citations and the history of American legal citation, the article looks at the effect the bibliographical orthodoxy promoted by the two leading citation manuals – The Bluebook and the ALWD Manual – has on open access to the law. In particular, the article looks at how the required common law citation format prescribed by both of these manuals helps to consolidate the market position of West and LexisNexis, the duopoly of legal …
Conducting The Constitution: Justice Scalia, Textualism, And The Eroica Symphony, Ian Gallacher
Conducting The Constitution: Justice Scalia, Textualism, And The Eroica Symphony, Ian Gallacher
Ian Gallacher
This article summarizes various modes of Constitutional and musical interpretation and imagines how Justice Antonin Scalia might interpret Beethoven's Eroica symphony using the Constitutional interpretative philosophy he espouses.
"Who Are Those Guys?:" The Results Of A Survey Studying The Information Literacy Of Incoming Law Students, Ian Gallacher
"Who Are Those Guys?:" The Results Of A Survey Studying The Information Literacy Of Incoming Law Students, Ian Gallacher
Ian Gallacher
This article presents the results of a summer 2006 survey of students about to begin their first year of law school. In total, 740 students from seven different law schools responded to the survey. The survey gathered general information from the students, as well as self-evaluative data on student reading, writing, and research habits in an attempt to understand how the students perceive their skills in these crucial areas. The survey data suggest that while there is some positive news to report, incoming law students overestimate their writing and research skills and come to law school inadequately trained in information …
The Beggar's Opera And Its Criminal Law Context, Ian Gallacher
The Beggar's Opera And Its Criminal Law Context, Ian Gallacher
Ian Gallacher
This chapter seeks to take the characters and situations of Gay's The Beggar's Opera and consider how closely the play's portrayal matches the historical record. Although the view offered by the play is a restricted one, the chapter concludes that the picture it offers is as close to historical reality as any other document from the period.
“Forty-Two:” A Hitchhikers Guide To Teaching Legal Research To The Google Generation, Ian Gallacher
“Forty-Two:” A Hitchhikers Guide To Teaching Legal Research To The Google Generation, Ian Gallacher
Ian Gallacher
This article seeks to answer the questions of what students should learn about legal research and who should teach them. It identifies the cultural tension between those who endorse traditional book-based research and those who embrace computer-assisted legal research, looks at the virtues and pitfalls of both approaches, and reflects on some pedagogical strategies the legal research teaching community might adopt in order to help improve law students' ability to conduct effective and efficient legal research.
Learning More Than Law From Maryland Decisions, Ian Gallacher
Learning More Than Law From Maryland Decisions, Ian Gallacher
Ian Gallacher
This short article describes the fight for freedom waged in Maryland's courts during the 1850s by two slaves, known only as Jerry and Anthony. Although their owner intended to free them, and the other slaves on his plantation, when he died, his son had his father's will declared invalid and the slaves brought a legal action to force their freedom. Although remembered in Maryland law as one of the first cases to discuss intra-state transfer from one jurisdiction to another, and although acting as Maryland's first published civil rights class action, the case also has a great deal to teach …