Legal Writing and Research Commons^™

Supreme Verbosity: The Roberts Court's Expanding Legacy

Marquette Law Review

The link between courts and the public is the written word. With rare exceptions, it is through judicial opinions that courts communicate with litigants, lawyers, other courts, and the community. Whatever the court’s statutory and constitutional status, the written word, in the end, is the source and the measure of the court’s authority.

It is therefore not enough that a decision be correct—it must also be fair and reasonable and readily understood. The burden of the judicial opinion is to explain and to persuade and to satisfy the world that the decision is principled and sound. What the court says, …

You Could Have Told Me That In The First Place: Five Tips That Might Have Saved A Young Lawyer A Lot Of Trouble, Jay O'Keeffe

University of Richmond Law Review

I will open with a confession: I have very, very little to contribute to legal scholarship. My day-to-day work as a lawyer and a parent keeps me busy. My career to date as a generalist has not led me to develop any great substantive expertise in a particular area of the law. Even my war stories are boring because they cluster around briefs, procedural defaults, and oral arguments. But I do have one thing to offer. I have been lucky in my career to work in “Biglaw,” then at a medium-sized firm of about fifty lawyers, and most recently at …

Reclaiming A Great Judge's Legacy, Frank M. Coffin

Maine Law Review

In the legal profession a deep sigh of relief is heard over the land. After roughly two decades of incubation, the long-awaited biography of the great judge has arrived, Learned Hand: The Man and the Judge, by Stanford Law Professor Gerald Gunther. The book, in my opinion, is well worth the wait. Nearly 700 pages, plus a hundred more for footnotes, it nevertheless represents a heroic condensation of some 100,000 different items on file at Harvard Law School, including no fewer than 50,000 items of correspondence, 1,000 district court opinions, and nearly 3,000 circuit court opinions. The inventory alone requires …

On Appeal: Courts, Lawyering, And Judging, Richard L. O'Meara

Maine Law Review

If one were to ask the members of the Maine legal community to define the term “judicial temperament,” many would answer the question simply by referring to Frank Coffin. Judge Coffin's newest book, On Appeal: Courts, Lawyering, and Judging, illustrates why the Judge has earned such overwhelming respect. This highly personal work permits readers a glimpse “behind the scenes” at the judicial life of a man who has forged a highly successful career of public service marked by sensitive, fair, and well-reasoned decision-making and by good-humored, collegial relationships with all of his colleagues in the legal community and beyond.

On Appeal: Courts, Lawyering, And Judging, John P. Frank

Maine Law Review

Judge Coffin, a former Chief Justice of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, a former United States Congressman, a former Executive Department administrator, is -- despite those “formers” -- presently a very bright and engaging writer. This compact volume has worthwhile things to say on every aspect of appeals, briefing, argument, deciding the cases, and getting out the opinions. It crisply touches all the appeals phases in which we practitioners are interested.

Utah’S Online Dispute Resolution Program, Deno Himonas

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

This article by Utah Supreme Court Justice Deno Himonas describes Utah’s Online Dispute Resolution or ODR system. Launched in September 2018, Utah’s ODR system is available to litigants who have small claims disputes that involve $11,000 or less. The ODR system has been designed to provide “simple, quick, inexpensive and easily accessible justice” that includes “individualized assistance and information that is accessible across a multitude of electronic platforms.”

This article describes the history and philosophy behind Utah’s ODR system and includes a number of screen shots that show what an ODR litigant will see. Utah is the first U.S. state …

Navigating The New York Courts With The Assistance Of A Non-Lawyer, Fern Fisher

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

This Article discusses a program implemented by the New York State Unified Court System in order to address the justice gap for unrepresented litigants. Part I of this Article discusses the process behind creating the New York Navigator’s Program (discussed in more detail Part II), a program designed to help non-lawyer “Navigators” to assist unrepresented litigants in a limited capacity when the litigants appear before different types of state courts. The Navigators must complete training before they are able to assist the litigants. This program has been well received, as Part IV discusses, and has helped more and more unrepresented …

A Matter Of Interpretation: Federal Courts And The Law, Charles R. Priest

Maine Law Review

Justice Scalia's engaging essay, “Common-Law Courts in a Civil-Law System: The Role of United States Federal Courts in Interpreting the Constitution and Laws,” and the four comments it provokes, should provide lawyers, judges, and other lawmakers with an interesting evening. Instead of presenting a theoretical view of the role of the federal courts in interpretation, Justice Scalia sketches out a case for “textualism.” “Textualism” is one of several currently contending methods of interpreting statutes and the United States Constitution, and is currently popular among federal judges who see their role as restricting government's powers to those expressly stated in the …

Table Of Contents

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Cardozo, Andrew L. Kaufman

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Cardozo’S Freudian Slips, Steven L. Winter

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Foreword: Benjamin N. Cardozo: Judge, Justice, Scholar, Samuel J. Levine

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Cardozo's "Law And Literature": A Guide To His Judicial Writing Style, Richard H. Weisberg

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Keeping Up With Your Sister Court: Unpublished Memorandums, No-Citation Rules, And The Superior Court Of Pennsylvania, Logan Hetherington

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

As Pennsylvania’s intermediate appellate court of general jurisdiction, the Pennsylvania Superior Court decides thousands of cases each year. The vast majority of those cases are disposed of via unpublished memorandums. These unpublished memorandums are designated as non-precedential and may not be cited by parties before the Superior Court. As a result, litigants and their counsel may not even persuasively cite an unpublished memorandum in briefs or other papers submitted to the Court. Thus, if counsel finds an unpublished memorandum deciding the identical issue of the case at hand and counsel is before the Superior Court judge who authored that opinion, …