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Series

Legal Writing and Research

2011

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Articles 1 - 30 of 87

Full-Text Articles in Law

Where To Begin Researching Civil Rights Law, Rebecca Mattson Dec 2011

Where To Begin Researching Civil Rights Law, Rebecca Mattson

Law Library Faculty Works

In this article, the author discusses selected sources for researching civil rights law.


Splitting Hairs: What Subtle Distinctions Teach Us About Authority, Benjamin J. Keele Dec 2011

Splitting Hairs: What Subtle Distinctions Teach Us About Authority, Benjamin J. Keele

Library Staff Publications

Legal researchers constantly deal with issues of authority. Did the police have authority to search the car? Is this court of appeals decision binding authority on my case? What statutes are authoritative in my jurisdiction? These questions are important, and librarians often help find answers. The question of authority that librarians are best equipped to answer, however, is “How authoritative is this source?”


Open Access: Good For Readers, Authors, And Journals, James M. Donovan, Carol A. Watson Nov 2011

Open Access: Good For Readers, Authors, And Journals, James M. Donovan, Carol A. Watson

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Readers, authors, and even law journal publishers will all achieve their different but related interests by adopting open access principles. Readers of every kind will have more efficient access to the materials they need to pursue their intellectual and informational goals; authors will see their works read and cited by a broader audience; and law reviews and journals can raise their own profiles without injuring their revenue streams from fee-based sources. Open access works for everyone, and is the future of information creation and distribution.


Open Access: Good For Readers, Authors, And Journals, Carol Watson, James M. Donovan Nov 2011

Open Access: Good For Readers, Authors, And Journals, Carol Watson, James M. Donovan

Articles, Chapters and Online Publications

Readers, authors, and even law journal publishers will all achieve their different but related interests by adopting open access principles. Open access works for everyone, and is the future of information creation and distribution.


Book Review Of Finding The Answers To Legal Questions, Benjamin J. Keele Nov 2011

Book Review Of Finding The Answers To Legal Questions, Benjamin J. Keele

Library Staff Publications

No abstract provided.


Teaching Rule Synthesis With Real Cases, Paul Figley Nov 2011

Teaching Rule Synthesis With Real Cases, Paul Figley

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

Rule synthesis is the process of integrating a rule or principle from several cases. It is a skill attorneys and judges use on a daily basis to formulate effective arguments, develop jurisprudence, and anticipate future problems. Teaching new law students how to synthesize rules is a critical component in training them to think like lawyers. This article suggests how rule synthesis might be taught in one classroom session using real cases. It advocates a three-part approach. First, explain the nature of rule synthesis to the students. Second, do a whimsical exercise with them to show how rule synthesis works. Finally, …


Cost Effective Legal Research, Mike Martinez Jr, Katy Stein Nov 2011

Cost Effective Legal Research, Mike Martinez Jr, Katy Stein

Law Librarian Scholarship

This article discusses free and low-cost legal research resources that can help reduce the cost of litigation. A lawyer using such resources must appreciate not only the advantages of such resources, but also the disadvantages.


Checklists: Not Just For Pilots Anymore, Diane B. Kraft Nov 2011

Checklists: Not Just For Pilots Anymore, Diane B. Kraft

Law Faculty Popular Media

In this column for Kentucky Bar Association's magazine (B&B - Bench & Bar), Professor Diane B. Kraft discusses how using checklists can improve an individual's legal writing skills.


Law & Reference: Answering Legal Reference Questions, Wendy Moore, Maureen Cahill Oct 2011

Law & Reference: Answering Legal Reference Questions, Wendy Moore, Maureen Cahill

Presentations

Answering legal reference questions can be challenging, especially when you are not doing it on a daily basis. More and more legal information is available freely on the internet, but sometimes it is hard to know what the best sources are and how to make certain you are not accidentally practicing law at the reference desk. This presentation provides exposure to helpful internet resources and discussion of effective strategies to help you answer legal related reference questions in a non-law library setting with skill and confidence.


Should Laptops Be Banned? Providing A Robust Classroom Learning Experience Within Limits, Robin A. Boyle Oct 2011

Should Laptops Be Banned? Providing A Robust Classroom Learning Experience Within Limits, Robin A. Boyle

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)
Technology abounds today’s law students. Laptops, iPods, iPads, and BlackBerrys are just a few of the newly developed modes of communication, notetaking, and music-storing devices that creep into our vocabulary – and students’ backpacks. Given the competitive nature of law school, students understandably bring laptops to class hoping to maximize their performance. Unfortunately for all involved, students use their laptops beyond the task of note-taking. The distractions that present themselves in class have led law professors to complain on various fora about the frequency of laptop use in the classroom. Some posit that students’ inappropriate use of laptops in …


Citation Advantage Of Open Access Legal Scholarship, Carol Watson, James M. Donovan Oct 2011

Citation Advantage Of Open Access Legal Scholarship, Carol Watson, James M. Donovan

Articles, Chapters and Online Publications

In this study focusing on the impact of open access on legal scholarship, the authors examine open access articles from three journals at the University of Georgia School of Law and confirm that legal scholarship freely available via open access improves an article’s research impact. Open access legal scholarship—which today appears to account for almost half of the output of law faculties—can expect to receive fifty-eight percent more citations than non–open access writings of similar age from the same venue.


Citation Advantage Of Open Access Legal Scholarship, James M. Donovan, Carol A. Watson Oct 2011

Citation Advantage Of Open Access Legal Scholarship, James M. Donovan, Carol A. Watson

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

In this study focusing on the impact of open access on legal scholarship, the authors examine open access articles from three journals at the University of Georgia School of Law and confirm that legal scholarship freely available via open access improves an article’s research impact. Open access legal scholarship—which today appears to account for almost half of the output of law faculties—can expect to receive fifty-eight percent more citations than non–open access writings of similar age from the same venue.


Free Websites For Virginia Legal Research, Paul Hellyer Oct 2011

Free Websites For Virginia Legal Research, Paul Hellyer

Library Staff Publications

It’s no secret that free websites give away content sold by high-cost subscription databases, but you might not know how useful free sites are. If you think there’s always a trade-off between cost and quality, think again. Some free resources for Virginia legal research are as good as—or better than—subscription sites. And some free resources aren’t quite as good as what you can buy, but are an option.


Research Beyond The Obvious: An Overview Of Uga Law Library Databases, Sharon Bradley Sep 2011

Research Beyond The Obvious: An Overview Of Uga Law Library Databases, Sharon Bradley

Presentations

Describes several useful specialized databases available to University of Georgia law students.


Legal Citation Without Fear, Maureen Cahill Sep 2011

Legal Citation Without Fear, Maureen Cahill

Presentations

Shares tips for approaching and interpreting Bluebook instructions.


What Great Writers Can Teach Lawyers And Judges: Precise, Concise, Simple And Clear, Douglas E. Abrams Jul 2011

What Great Writers Can Teach Lawyers And Judges: Precise, Concise, Simple And Clear, Douglas E. Abrams

Faculty Publications

Despite some imperfections across disciplines, advice from well-known fiction and non-fiction writers can serve lawyers and judges well because law, in its essence, is a literary profession heavily dependent on the written word. There are only two types of writing - good writing and bad writing. As poet (and Massachusetts Bar member) Archibald MacLeish recognized, good legal writing is simply good writing about a legal subject. "Lawyers would be better off," said MacLeish, "if they stopped thinking of the language of the law as a different language and realized that the art of writing for legal purposes is in no …


Truth, Justice, And The Libertarian Way(S), Gary S. Lawson Jul 2011

Truth, Justice, And The Libertarian Way(S), Gary S. Lawson

Faculty Scholarship

More than twenty years ago, I was commissioned to write an article – my very first scholarly article – on “the ethics of insider trading” (this was hot on the heels of the Ivan Boesky insider-trading scandal of the mid-1980s).1 After tracing philosophical debates concerning the morality of exchanges based on unequal information from Cicero and Aquinas through Henry Manne and Frank Easterbrook,2 I had to decide what I could responsibly say in a scholarly work as a matter of substantive moral theory about the practice of insider trading – and derivatively what it would be appropriate to say normatively …


Improve Your Legal Writing, Christine C. Pagano Jun 2011

Improve Your Legal Writing, Christine C. Pagano

Publications

Christine Pagano of Golden Gate University School of Law suggests some helpful resources for attorneys wishing to hone their drafting skills.


Rookie Mistakes To Avoid, Edward R. Becker Jun 2011

Rookie Mistakes To Avoid, Edward R. Becker

Other Publications

I'm Ted Becker from the University of Michigan. My part of today's presentation is to fall on the sword. I say that because my topic is rookie mistakes to avoid. Many of us up here on the panel aren't rookies but I certainly am. I just completed my first semester of teaching transactional drafting so I'm new to the game, and then when it comes to mistakes, oh yes, there's a bunch of them that we can talk about. Because the semester just ended, these missteps are as fresh in my mind as they could possibly be, and I hope …


Animal Law Developments, Virginia C. Thomas May 2011

Animal Law Developments, Virginia C. Thomas

Library Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.


The Perils Of Hyperbole, Diane B. Kraft May 2011

The Perils Of Hyperbole, Diane B. Kraft

Law Faculty Popular Media

In this column for Kentucky Bar Association's magazine (B&B - Bench & Bar), Professor Diane B. Kraft makes suggestions about avoiding hyperbole in legal writing.


Securities Law Research, Adeen Postar Apr 2011

Securities Law Research, Adeen Postar

Research Guides

This research guide provides an overview of resources and search strategies for researching Securities Law: primary and secondary materials, specialized databases, and government websites. It also identifies sources for researching case law.


Abandoning Law Reports For Official Digital Case Law, Peter W. Martin Apr 2011

Abandoning Law Reports For Official Digital Case Law, Peter W. Martin

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.


Low Cost Alternatives For Legal Research: Using Casemaker And Loislaw, Emily Janoski-Haehlen Apr 2011

Low Cost Alternatives For Legal Research: Using Casemaker And Loislaw, Emily Janoski-Haehlen

Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.


A Call To Combine Rhetorical Theory And Practice In The Legal Writing Classroom, Kristen Konrad Robbins-Tiscione Apr 2011

A Call To Combine Rhetorical Theory And Practice In The Legal Writing Classroom, Kristen Konrad Robbins-Tiscione

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The theory and practice of law have been separated in legal education to their detriment since the turn of the twentieth century. As history teaches us and even the 2007 Carnegie Report perhaps suggests, teaching practice without theory is as inadequate as teaching theory without practice. Just as law students should learn how to draft a simple contract from taking Contracts, they should learn the theory of persuasion from taking a legal writing course. In an economy where law apprenticeship has reverted from employer to educator, legal writing courses should do more than teach analysis, conventional documents, and the social …


Justice Jackson And The Second Flag-Salute Case: Reason And Passion In Opinion-Writing, Douglas E. Abrams Mar 2011

Justice Jackson And The Second Flag-Salute Case: Reason And Passion In Opinion-Writing, Douglas E. Abrams

Faculty Publications

In 1943, the Supreme Court handed down West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette. With Justice Robert H. Jackson writing for the six-Justice majority, the Court upheld the First Amendment right of Jehovah's Witnesses schoolchildren to refuse to salute the flag or recite the Pledge of Allegiance, state-imposed obligations that the children and their parents contended were acts of idolatry that violated biblical commands. Judge Richard A. Posner has said that Justice Jackson's effort "may be the most eloquent majority opinion in the history of the Supreme Court."


Document Design For Lawyers: The End Of The Typewriter Era, Linda L. Berger Feb 2011

Document Design For Lawyers: The End Of The Typewriter Era, Linda L. Berger

Scholarly Works

This article discusses simple design rules that you can follow in documents that need not comply with court rules and some that you may use even in documents that must comply.


Building A Child Welfare Response To Child Trafficking Handbook (2011), Katherine Kaufka Walts Jd, Shelby French Msw, Msc, Heather Moore Msw, Sehla Ashai Jd Jan 2011

Building A Child Welfare Response To Child Trafficking Handbook (2011), Katherine Kaufka Walts Jd, Shelby French Msw, Msc, Heather Moore Msw, Sehla Ashai Jd

Center for the Human Rights of Children

In 2007, the International Organization for Adolescents (IOFA), under the leadership of Katherine Kaufka Walts the then Executive Director, developed and launched the Building Child Welfare Response to Child Trafficking project. The purpose of this project is to build the capacity of child welfare agencies and service providers to identify and respond to this often invisible and underserved population. The primary goals are to ensure that children are correctly identified as trafficked persons and that they receive the appropriate protections and referrals to specialized services to which they are entitled under federal and state laws. This project, supported by funding …


Research At Your Own Risk: Free Online Statutory Codes Are Widely Available But Are They Good Enough To Meet Users' Needs?, Paul Hellyer Jan 2011

Research At Your Own Risk: Free Online Statutory Codes Are Widely Available But Are They Good Enough To Meet Users' Needs?, Paul Hellyer

Library Staff Publications

No abstract provided.


Copyright And Research In Google Book Search, Benjamin J. Keele Jan 2011

Copyright And Research In Google Book Search, Benjamin J. Keele

Library Staff Publications

Many researchers—even trained professionals—often use the Google search engine to begin searches for information. Google’s many products enable researchers to search public websites, scholarly articles, and even patents. One vast area of information not yet thoroughly indexed by Google is print books. Google Book Search (also at times referred to as Google Books, Google Print and Google Library Project) is the company’s effort to digitize and index the world’s print literature.