Law Commons^™

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.

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, …

Effective Appellate Brief Writing, Clyde H. Hamilton

South Carolina Law Review

No abstract provided.

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

How To Brief A Case, Christopher Pyle, Lloyd Sealy Library, Katherine Killoran

Open Educational Resources

This is a guide for students on how to brief a case. A student brief is a short summary and analysis of the case prepared for use in classroom discussion. It is a set of notes, presented in a systematic way, in order to sort out the parties, identify the issues, ascertain what was decided, and analyze the reasoning behind decisions made by the courts.

Created by Christopher Pyle, 1982
Revised by Prof. Katherine Killoran, Feb. 1999.

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.

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

Linda L. Berger

No abstract provided.

Critiquing And Evaluating Law Students' Writing: Advice From Thirty-Five Experts, Anne Enquist

Seattle University Law Review

While there are some differences of opinion about what is the best way to comment on and grade law students' writing, a consensus seems to be developing based on the experience and insights of those in the profession who have done the job the longest and survived to tell about it. To help articulate this consensus, I selected thirty-seven experienced legal writing professors and asked them to respond to a questionnaire about critiquing and evaluating law students' writing. My goal was to gather and record their wisdom, insights, and experience for other legal writing professors, particularly those who are new …

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 …

Writing And Reading In Philosophy, Law, And Poetry, James Boyd White

Book Chapters

In this paper I will treat a very general question, the nature of writing and what can be achieved by it, pursuing it in the three distinct contexts provided by philosophy, law, and poetry.

My starting-point will be Plato's Phaedrus, where, in a wellknown passage, Socrates attacks writing itself: he says that true philosophy requires the living engagement of mind with mind of a kind that writing cannot attain. Yet this is obviously a paradox, for Socrates' position is articulated and recorded by Plato in writing. How then can we make sense of what Plato is saying and doing? What …

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, …