Legal Writing and Research Commons^™

God Vs. The Gavel: A Brief Rejoinder, Douglas Laycock

Michigan Law Review

I recently reviewed God vs. the Gavel by Professor Marci Hamilton, and she published a brief response. My review briefly summarized the book and then made three principal points, addressing Hamilton's institutional competence thesis, her "no-harm" principle, and the remarkable number of legal and factual errors in the book. In this reply, I will review each of these points in turn.

The Centrality Of Metaphor In Legal Analysis And Communication: An Introduction, David T. Ritchie

Mercer Law Review

Law, as a domain of human enterprise, is fundamentally discursive in nature. As such, understanding the elements of legal discourse, both analytical and communicative, is vital to understanding the nature of the enterprise. Metaphorical reasoning, and the communication of that reasoning, is one such element. Perhaps metaphor is one among many elements of legal discourse. In this view, metaphor theory would take its place alongside logic, narrative theory, rhetoric, and so on.

Levels Of Metaphor In Persuasive Legal Writing, Michael R. Smith

Mercer Law Review

No abstract provided.

Speech, Silence, And Ethical Lives In The Law, Robin West

Michigan Law Review

As his many appreciative readers know, James Boyd White brought his learning to bear on the relation between ethical living and ethical speaking, and particularly as it pertains to how we live and speak in law. His prodigious writing, teaching, and speaking career, as far as I can tell, was motivated by a singular, passionate belief: that the human capacity for language can and should serve as a bridge from mind to mind and spirit to spirit, so that we might cohabit the earth not only peaceably, but with the pleasures and grace of each other's company. Language, White taught, …

Legitimacy, Selectivity, And The Disunitary Executive: A Reply To Sally Katzen, Lisa Schultz Bressman, Michael P. Vandenbergh

Michigan Law Review

This reply addresses the thoughtful comments that former OIRA Administrator Sally Katzen has provided on our Article, Inside the Administrative State: A Critical Look at the Practice of Presidential Control. Our Article is the first to investigate the agency perspective on White House involvement in agency rule-making. We interviewed 30 of the 35 top political officials in the Environmental Protection Agency ("EPA") during the George H.W. Bush ("Bush I") and the William J. Clinton Administrations during 1989-2001. Prior to our study, empirical studies of White House involvement in agency rule-making had focused almost exclusively on the White House side, …

The Imagination Of James Boyd White, Lee C. Bollinger

Michigan Law Review

For several decades, James Boyd White has been a unique voice in the law. It is a voice of extraordinary intellectual range, of erudition and of deep commitment to a life of self-understanding and of humane values. His point of access is language - all language, in every context. Armed y a lifetime of thought about words, he justifiably has regarded no field or discipline or communicative activity as foreign and outside his ken. Whoever reads him must feel his sense of intellectual empowerment that our world, sectioned as it is by expertise, would deny us.

Educative Friendship - A Personal Note, Jeanne Gaakeer

Michigan Law Review

In 1992, when I started my doctorate research in the interdisciplinary field of Law and Literature, The Legal Imagination was one of the first books I read. To European eyes, it was a most unusual book since in continental legal theory in those days, the Anglo-analytical tradition was predominant, and French deconstruction had for some time been the up-and coming stream. Fascinated as I became with Professor White's works, I decided to try to get in contact with him in order to ask him about the genesis of his ideas. So much for the dangers of the intentional fallacy Whimsatt …

A Reality Check On An Empirical Study: Comments On "Inside The Administrative State", Sally Katzen

Michigan Law Review

Presidential control is the term used for the process (or some would say, the model) by which agency decision-making (more particularly, rulemaking) is brought under the direction of the president to "render such decision- making accountable and effective." Until now scholars, who have generally endorsed both the theory and the practice of the process, have written from the perspective of those who exercise presidential control - those at the White House or the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs ("OIRA"). In a recent article in the Michigan Law Review, Lisa Schultz Bressman and Michael Vandenbergh ("the authors") decided to …

Should Patent Infringement Require Proof Of Copying?, Mark A. Lemley

Michigan Law Review

Patent infringement is a strict liability offense. Patent law gives patent owners not just the right to prevent others from copying their ideas, but the power to control the use of their idea--even by those who independently develop a technology with no knowledge of the patent or the patentee. This is a power that exists nowhere else in intellectual property (IP) or real property law, but it is a one that patentees have had, with rare exceptions, since the inception of the Republic. In an important paper in the Michigan Law Review, Samson Vermont seeks to change this, arguing …

Young Associates In Trouble, William D. Henderson, David Zaring

Michigan Law Review

Large law firms have reputations as being tough places to work, and the larger the firm, the tougher the firm. Yet, notwithstanding the grueling hours and the shrinking prospects of partnership, these firms perennially attract a large proportion of the nation's top law school graduates. These young lawyers could go anywhere but choose to work at large firms. Why do they do so if law firms are as inhospitable as their reputations suggest? Two recent novels about the lives of young associates in large, prestigious law firms suggest that such a rational calculation misapprehends the costs. Law professor Kermit Roosevelt's …

A Syllabus Of Errors, Douglas Laycock

Michigan Law Review

Modern American society is pervasively regulated. It is also religiously diverse to a degree that is probably unprecedented in the history of the world. It is inevitable that some of these diverse religious practices will violate some of these pervasive regulations, and equally inevitable that if we ask whether all these regulations are really necessary, sometimes the answer will be no. If we take free exercise of religion seriously, sometimes it will make sense to exempt sincere religious practices from generally applicable laws - but only some laws, and only some applications. Hardly anyone thinks that human sacrifice should be …

Classic Revisited: Penal Theory In Paradise Lost, Jillisa Brittan, Richard A. Posner

Michigan Law Review

Milton's great poem can be enjoyed as a supernatural adventure story in the epic tradition-indeed almost as a science-fiction fantasy. An incredibly powerful supernatural figure-call him Father-lives on planet Heaven somewhere in outer space, surrounded by lesser supernatural beings, called Angels. Father begets Son asexually, and declares his intent to give him vice regal authority. Infuriated at Son's being promoted over him, the foremost Angel, L leads a third of the Angels in violent rebellion against Father and Son. At first it seems the rebels will best the loyal Angels. But Father sends in Son to defeat the rebels all …

Capital Defense Lawyers: The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly, Sean D. O'Brien

Michigan Law Review

Professor Welsh S. White's book Litigating in the Shadow of Death: Defense Attorneys in Capital Cases collects the compelling stories of "a new band of dedicated lawyers" that has "vigorously represented capital defendants, seeking to prevent their executions" (p.3). Sadly, Professor White passed away on New Year's Eve, 2005, days before the release of his final work. To the well-deserved accolades of Professor White that were recently published in the Ohio State Journal of Criminal Law, I can only add a poignant comment in a student blog that captures his excellence as a scholar and educator: "I wanted to …

A Response To Professor Laycock, Marci A. Hamilton

Michigan Law Review

Almost a hundred years ago, the American Association of University Professors established guidelines for civility among scholars, saying that academic exchanges "should be set forth with dignity, courtesy, and temperateness of language." I agree wholeheartedly with these principles, and I will not succumb to the temptation to respond in kind to Professor Laycock's review. Tone is much less important than having a frank exchange of views. It is well known that Professor Laycock and I have very different perspectives on the proper interpretation of the Free Exercise Clause. His review and my response should be an opportunity for us to …

Antitrust Modesty, Daniel A. Crane

Michigan Law Review

Given Hovenkamp's influence and intellect, the publication of The Antitrust Enterprise is a major event, particularly since he sets out, according to the book's jacket, to provide "the first authoritative and compact exposition of antitrust law since Robert Bork's classic The Antitrust Paradox was published more than thirty years ago." Nevertheless, one could quibble with the jacket's claim. Richard Posner substantially updated his own authoritative and compact exposition of antitrust law in 2001. In a 2003 book review, Hovenkamp called Posner's second edition a "marvelous and important book." So, before beginning a review of Hovenkamp's new work, it seems necessary …

[Insert Song Lyrics Here]: The Uses And Misuses Of Popular Music Lyrics In Legal Writing, Alex B. Long

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Retelling The Darkest Story: Mystery, Suspense, And Detectives In A Brief Written On Behalf Of A Condemned Inmate, Philip N. Meyer

Mercer Law Review

I've never used the whodunit technique, since it is concerned altogether with mystification, which diffuses and unfocuses suspense. It is possible to build up almost unbearable tension in a play or film in which the audience knows who the murderer is all the time, and from the very start they want to scream out to all the other characters in the plot, "Watch out for So-and-So! He's a killer!" There you have the real tenseness and an irresistible desire to know what happens, instead of a group of characters deployed in a human chess problem. For that reason I believe …

The Bluebook At Eighteen: Reflecting And Ratifying Current Trends In Legal Scholarship, Christine Hurt

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Secrets, Lies & Erisa: The Social Ethics Of Misrepresentations And Omissions In Summary Plan Descriptions, 40 J. Marshall L. Rev. 731 (2007), Alison Mcmorran Sulentic

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Book Review: The Battle For Social Security: From Fdr's Vision To Bush's Gamble, Nancy J. Altman, 40 J. Marshall L. Rev. 909 (2007), Kathryn L. Moore

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Zaranska V. U.S. Department Of Homeland Security, Bethany L. Ow

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

Charles Reich’S Journey From The Yale Law Journal To The New York Times Bestseller List: The Personal History Of The Greening Of America, Rodger D. Citron

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Better Tradition: Why Law Reviews Should Adopt A New Citation Format, Stacey L. Gordon

Montana Law Review

ALWD Citation Format

Bleak House: Narratives In Literature And Law Schoo, John J. Osborn

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

Reading, Writing, And Citing: In Praise Of Law Reviews, Cameron Stracher

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

Lost In Translation? Some Brief Notes On Writing About Law For The Layperson, Brandt Goldstein

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Teacher, H. Jefferson Powell

Michigan Law Review

James Boyd White is, above all, a teacher. Of course, that is in fact an inexact statement: Jim White is many things, some of them of greater or more central human importance - husband, father, friend, person of faith. But in this essay my concern is with Jim as an academic, and in that context I believe the title teacher captures best his goals and his achievement.

The Angel Is In The Big Picture: A Response To Lemley, Samson Vermont

Michigan Law Review

An invention within close reach of multiple inventors differs from an invention within distant reach of a lone inventor. The differences between these two archetypes of invention -"reinventables" and "singletons"- remain unexploited under current U.S. law. Should we reform the law to exploit the differences? Mark Lemley and I agree that we should. To date, those economists who have closely examined the issue concur. What are the differences between reinventables and singletons? First, reinventables can be brought into existence with incentives of lower magnitude. This suggests that we can obtain reinventables at a lower price than we currently pay-i.e., with …

Transactional Law In The Required Legal Writing Curriculum: An Empirical Study Of The Forgotten Future Business Lawyer, Louis N. Schulze Jr.

Cleveland State Law Review

This Article will examine whether the expansion of required LRW courses into the realm of transactional drafting is justifiable. Part II will assess the need for required transactional drafting instruction by showing, empirically, that many students lack a disposition towards litigation or have an affirmative inclination towards non-litigation work. This Part includes both a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the issue: It includes a survey of nearly one-thousand first-year law students nationwide and a set of questions and responses from a number of law students who self-identified as future transactional lawyers but who were members of traditional litigation-centric LRW courses. …

2006 Animal-Law Related Articles, Brett Cattani

Animal Law Review

Animal Law is pleased to introduce as a new annual feature a bibliography of animal law-related articles published in law reviews and law journals during the previous year. For ease of reference, each article has been placed into a relevant category and each category provides a non-exhaustive list of potential topic examples. Some articles may appear in more than one category. Although we have made every effort to be as comprehensive as possible and present a complete listing of 2006 articles, this list may not be all-inclusive. We hope this compilation will serve as a useful resource in exploring contemporary …