Legal Writing and Research Commons^™

W&L Law Fall Scholarship Celebration 2022, Andrew Christensen, Michelle Cosby, Jennifer Mitchell, Christopher B. Seaman, Melanie D. Wilson

Library Events

On October 6, 2022, the Washington and Lee Law Library hosted the fourth W&L Law Fall Scholarship Celebration. The event was co-sponsored by the Frances Lewis Law Center and took place in the Law Library's main reading room from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m.

On display were dozens of scholarly articles, books, and chapters authored by the W&L Law faculty and student body between October 2019 and October 2022, with hundreds of additional works accessible online through the Scholarly Commons institutional repository.

Faculty, librarians, staff, and administrators mingled with law students over hors d'oeuvres and wine to peruse the formidable scholarly …

Student Wellness And Mental Wellbeing, Emily Bishop, Stevie Leahy

William & Mary Law School’s Conference for Excellence in Online Teaching Legal Research & Writing

This presentation will focus on centering the mental wellbeing of students for the 2020-21 academic year. The incoming cohort has unique stressors that are compounded by challenging current events - as educators, we are also challenged to engage and connect with these students in a virtual environment. This presentation will give practical strategies to engage with students that facilitate and foster mental health, with an eye to anchoring our tactics within a legal research and writing curriculum. The presentation aims to encourage healthy dialogue on how to de-stigmatize mental wellbeing and best support our students. This goal, more so now …

A Baker's Dozen Of Tips For Better Web Searches, Anne Burnett

Continuing Legal Education Presentations

Anne E. Burnett also served as Program Chair. Burnett is the Foreign and International Law Librarian for the Alexander Campbell King Law Library at the University of Georgia School of Law.

An Attorney's Guide To Business And Investigative Research, Carol A. Watson

Continuing Legal Education Presentations

Carol A. Watson is the Director of Alexander Campbell King Law Library at the University of Georgia School of Law.

Exposing The Imposter: Imposter Syndrome & Legal Writing Faculty, Sara L. Ochs

Events at Dickinson Law

Legal academics often report crippling feelings of insecurity and inadequacy, symptoms of a widespread trend labeled as “imposter syndrome.” Experts have defined this phenomenon as a “deep and sometimes paralyzing belief that we have been given something we didn’t earn and don’t deserve and that at some point we’ll be exposed.” Given the evident hierarchies in legal academia, these feelings are especially prominent among legal writing faculty, and even more so among those in untenured positions. Using empirical data acquired from law professors, this presentation will analyze the prevalence and causes of imposter syndrome among legal writing faculty and will …

Research Instruction At Yale Law School, Julie Graves Krishnaswami

Events at Dickinson Law

At Yale Law School, the Law Librarians take a holistic approach to providing legal research instruction. With that approach, we meet students where they are – academically and curricularly – through courses, reference consultations, guest lectures, and workshops. We provide elective research instruction in a variety of fora to meet the needs of our students. Our research courses are elective and are supplemented by workshops and guest lectures in clinical and doctrinal courses, and for student groups. Yale Law School students recognize the need for research instruction, and we have expanded our offerings to meet demand. The Law Library’s holistic …

Making Two Separates Equal: Combining Graduation Requirements And Research And Writing Skills, Ann Walsh Long

Events at Dickinson Law

ABA Standard 303 requires that a law school offer a curriculum that requires each student to satisfactorily complete at least one professional responsibility course, one upper-level writing course, and one or more experiential course(s) totaling at least six credit hours. While the same class cannot count toward more than one of these requirements, Interpretation 303-1 allows one course to count as "either as an upper-class writing requirement or as a simulation course provided the course meets all of the requirements of both types of courses and the law school permits a student to use the course to satisfy only one …

The Traditional Legal Analysis, Research, And Writing Course: Does Subject Synthesis Serve Students Best?, Anna Hemingway, Sherri Keene

Events at Dickinson Law

Most law schools’ first-year curriculums include a course on legal analysis, research, and writing. At many law schools, the synthesis of these subjects into one course is considered the best way to teach first-year law students basic lawyering skills. Recently, however, law schools have begun to separate the topics into stand-alone courses. This presentation will review the different models law schools are currently using and will explore additional opportunities to remix the individual topics with other first-year courses.

Incorporating Short Writing Exercises Into Traditional Exam Courses: How To Do It & How To Encourage Others To Do It Too!, Candace Centeno

Events at Dickinson Law

This presentation will discuss how to incorporate short writing exercises into a traditional exam class & how to encourage others to do the same. The presentation will first briefly discuss a sample writing exercise used in an upper level elective that also has a final examination; in sum, the writing exercise builds upon the email analysis instruction provided in the 1L Legal Writing Program. This short exercise provides an opportunity for the professor to help students refine their writing and organization & to see if the students are understanding basic concepts. The presentation will then explore ways to encourage other …

Mastering The Model Answer, Elizabeth Sherowski

Events at Dickinson Law

One way to encourage professors to assign written work across the law school curriculum is to assure them that providing feedback on the writing won't take up too much time. Giving students a post-assignment model answer is an effective way to save time on providing feedback, but most students don't know how to use model answers effectively, and many professors don't know how to draft an effective model answer. This presentation shows LRW professors how to share their pedagogical expertise with faculty across the curriculum to help their colleagues 1) devise pedagogically sound model answers and 2) train their students …

Connect 4: Student + Research + Writing + Theory, Nicole R. Chong

Events at Dickinson Law

We often see first-year law students failing to make connections between research, writing, and theory. First-year students tend to view their classes in separate silos. As students advance into the upper-level curriculum, the failed connections are exacerbated. Students are unable to connect what they learned in the first year of law school to the classes they are now taking in their last two years of law school. Additionally, upper-level faculty who assume that the students are making connections when they are not further compound this connection problem. The connection failure can result in a number of problems. How do we …

From The First Day Forward: Integrating Legal Research Into Law School Doctrinal Courses, Clanitra S. Nejdl

Events at Dickinson Law

This presentation focuses on the benefits of partnering with doctrinal professors to integrate legal research into law school doctrinal classes. The presenter will discuss best practices for the integration process. She will also share ideas and tips for developing meaningful collaborations with doctrinal faculty members and explain how she worked with Civil Procedure professors to integrate research into their classes.

Taking Collective Action To Integrate The Law School Curriculum, Sherri Thomas, Michelle Rigual

Events at Dickinson Law

Successfully dismantling the “separate but equal” paradigm to integrate Legal Research and Writing courses into the law school curriculum is a long-term proposition that is unlikely to succeed through a single campaign. At University of New Mexico, several negative hierarchical structures have stood in the way of curricular integration, including some surprising ones that arise from within the legal writing and research faculties. In this session, we’ll discuss these structures, the tools we are using to challenge them, and the successes we have experienced thus far.

The Foundational Skills And Methods That Unify All First-Year Courses, Scott Rempell

Events at Dickinson Law

Many perceive LRW courses as important for practice yet largely distinct from the core “doctrinal” courses that purport to teach students how to “think like a lawyer.” However, a remarkably consistent core of skills and methods of thought unify all first-year courses. If these core skills and methods are at the heart of all first-year courses, then the professors who should cover them in class have to acknowledge they exist and work together to teach them. In short, to break down barriers, LRW professors have to bring to the surface the framework underlying core law school learning objectives – a …

W&L Law Fall Scholarship Celebration 2019, Brant J. Hellwig, Christopher B. Seaman

Library Events

On October 15, 2019, the Washington and Lee Law Library hosted the third bi-annual W&L Law Fall Scholarship Celebration. The event was co-sponsored by the Frances Lewis Law Center and took place in the Law Library's main reading room from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m.

On display were dozens of scholarly articles, books, and chapters authored by the W&L Law faculty and student body during 2018 and 2019, with hundreds of additional works accessible online through the Scholarly Commons institutional repository.

Faculty, librarians, staff, and administrators mingled with law students over hors d'oeuvres and wine to peruse the formidable scholarly output …

Public Records Searching, Margaret Butler

Continuing Legal Education Presentations

Shared websites for searching and finding public records.

Georgia And State Research Resources, Pamela C. Brannon

Continuing Legal Education Presentations

Shares a variety of websites for gathering the state of Georgia and other state information from for legal research.

Federal Law Research Using Govinfo.Gov, Patrick Parsons

Continuing Legal Education Presentations

This session gave those in attendance information on how to use govinfo.gov as a research tool for federal law.

Advanced Internet Research Techniques, Stephen Wolfson

Continuing Legal Education Presentations

This session provided tips for conducting advanced legal research on the internet including special operators for improving Google searches.

Digital Literacy: Detecting Fake News In A Post-Truth Era, Carol A. Watson

Continuing Legal Education Presentations

Discusses the origins and impact of "fake news" and implications for a law practice.

Searching High And Low: Advanced Search Tips And Tricks, Wendy Moore

Continuing Legal Education Presentations

Searching is easy; so much so, that you can be surprised when the desired information is not retrieved in the first few search results when doing a basic Google search. A basic Google search, while a good place to begin, should not also be the end of your search. This paper gives you search strategies to apply when a basic Google search does not produce the results you

The Theory Of The Case: Competitive Intelligence Tips For Attorneys, Suzanne R. Graham

Continuing Legal Education Presentations

Explores web-based or web-hosted tools that help in three important areas of online legal research: competitive intelligence, business intelligence, and investigative research. The tools are new and shiny, but the strategizing and intellectual legwork needed to use them effectively mirrors how an attorney prepares a case for trial. Shares notable tools with guidance on shortcomings and strengths.

Using Social Media Research To Your Advantage, Endia S. Paige

Continuing Legal Education Presentations

We live in a time when Facebook, Twitter, and other social media networks have become so integrated into daily life that it is critical for attorneys to maintain a basic understanding of the most popular platforms and how they can benefit his or her legal practice.

Social media has made it easier to gather information about litigants and other professionals in the legal field. This paper provides an overview of the most popular social media platforms used by adults in the United States and gives insight into how attorneys can use them to conduct legal and investigative research.

From The Capitol To The West Wing: Making The Most Of Federal Law And U.S. Government Information On The Web, Anne Burnett

Continuing Legal Education Presentations

When searching for federal government materials and federal law on the web, researchers are more likely to encounter an overabundance of information than a lack thereof. Fortunately, free federal government and non-government sites have made great strides in improving accessibility to these materials through better organization and finding tools.

This paper directs researchers to both official and unofficial free sites providing access to federal government materials, including federal law. These sites are an alternative to fee-based services, including Westlaw, LexisNexis, Bloomberg BNA and FastCase, although most do not contain all of the bells and whistles that these commercial services offer. …

Registration, Seattle University School Of Law

Western Regional Legal Writing Conference

No abstract provided.

#Lawhacks: Websites That You Wish You’D Known About Sooner Highly-Useful Websites For Conducting Legal Research At The Local, State And National Levels, Zanada T. Joyner

Continuing Legal Education Presentations

For many of us when conducting legal research typing a few random words or phrases into a search box yields results that are wholly unusable. It is helpful to have a collection of websites on hand where legal researchers can find reliable information quickly. Herein is a listing of websites that contain useful legal information at the local, state, and national level. This list is by no means exhaustive but, instead serves as a good starting place legal researchers developing a “go-to” collection of internet resources that you can use in your practice.

Federal Law And U.S. Government Information: Exploring A Wealth Of Resources, Carol A. Watson

Continuing Legal Education Presentations

The federal government provides a plethora of free legal resources that are useful for attorneys conducting legal research tasks. In addition to providing inexpensive alternatives to commercial databases, online federal resources offer many bells and whistles such as multimedia, unique searching options, and even crowd-sourcing, that enhance their content.

Legal Research In The Age Of Social Media, Endia S. Paige

Continuing Legal Education Presentations

Provides an overview of the most popular social media platforms used by adults i the United States and gives insight into how attorneys can use them to conduct legal and investigative research.

Lucky 13: Research Resources For Georgia And The Other States, Sharon Bradley

Continuing Legal Education Presentations

The title refers to the fact that Georgia was one of the original thirteen colonies and that Georgia researchers are lucky to have access to a good number of free, online legal resources.

Don’T Worry Be “Appy” Valuable Legal And Productivity Apps For Attorneys, Thomas J. Striepe

Continuing Legal Education Presentations

Explains different types of apps, and presents helpful ones to make legal research and general office work more efficient and portable.