Legal Writing and Research Commons^™

40 More Writing Hacks For Appellate Attorneys, Brian C. Potts

Faculty Articles

Script for Trailer: “40 More Writing Hacks for Appellate Attorneys”

Fade in on aerial view of Washington, D.C.

Zoom in on Supreme Court Building. Chopper sounds. Enter helicopter fleet flying by.

Cut to Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., sitting at his desk, reading. He rubs his forehead. Tired. Anxious. Distraught.

Chief: “What a mess! This brief could have been 10 pages shorter!”

Phone rings. Chief answers on speaker.

Law clerk’s voice through phone: “Chief, turn to Appellee’s brief. You’ve got to see this!”

Chief picks up different brief. Flips it open. Zoom in on face. Eyes widen. Jaw drops. …

American Voter Turnout: The Influence Of Education Levels On Voter Participation, Jack Thomas Bunzel-Hardie

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

This study is intended to explore the relevant relationship between mistrust in government officials and voter turnout. Within a research article such as this, it is important to distinguish the dependent and independent factors from one another so as not to get them confused. This article identifies the growing sense of mistrust that many Americans feel towards their government officials as the independent factor while examining the relationship that voter turnout has with that growing fear, therefore making that the dependent variable. While this issue has been studied in the past there have been many new events taking place and …

A Human Being Wrote This Law Review Article: Gpt-3 And The Practice Of Law, Amy B. Cyphert

Law Faculty Scholarship

Artificial intelligence tools can now “write” in such a sophisticated manner that they fool people into believing that a human wrote the text. None are better at writing than GPT-3, released in 2020 for beta testing and coming to commercial markets in 2021. GPT-3 was trained on a massive dataset that included scrapes of language from sources ranging from the NYTimes to Reddit boards. And so, it comes as no surprise that researchers have already documented incidences of bias where GPT-3 spews toxic language. But because GPT-3 is so good at “writing,” and can be easily trained to write in …

A Review Of Grey Literature Cited By Food Loss Law And Policy Scholarship, Angela Hackstadt

University Libraries Faculty Scholarship

In the United States, state and federal programs, rules, and legislation attempt to address the social, economic, and environmental impacts of food waste. Research on the efficacy of these interventions rely on a variety of grey literature resources. Grey literature is valuable to policy research but may be overlooked because it is not published commercially and is often deemed unauthoritative. This review focuses on the use of grey literature in food waste law and policy scholarship to identify the most used sources and to determine what, if any, archiving strategies authors use. Recommendations for librarians and researchers are discussed.

Restatements Of Statutory Law: The Curious Case Of The Restatement Of Copyright, Shyamkrishna Balganesh, Peter S. Menell

Faculty Scholarship

For nearly a century, the American Law Institute’s (ALI) Restatements of the Law have played an important role in the American legal system. And in all of this time, they refrained from restating areas of law dominated by a uniform statute despite the proliferation and growing importance of such statutes, especially at the federal level. This omission was deliberate and in recognition of the fundamentally different nature of the judicial role and of lawmaking in areas governed by detailed statutes compared to areas governed by the common law. Then in 2015, without much deliberation, the ALI embarked on the task …

Fixing America's Founding, Maeve Glass

Faculty Scholarship

The forty-fifth presidency of the United States has sent lawyers reaching once more for the Founders’ dictionaries and legal treatises. In courtrooms, law schools, and media outlets across the country, the original meanings of the words etched into the U.S. Constitution in 1787 have become the staging ground for debates ranging from the power of a president to trademark his name in China to the rights of a legal permanent resident facing deportation. And yet, in this age when big data promises to solve potential challenges of interpretation and judges have for the most part agreed that original meaning should …

Food Waste Legislation Scholarship: A Mapping Study, Angela Hackstadt

University Libraries Faculty Scholarship

The purpose of this study is to examine research activity on food waste legislation published in law journals to identify top sources and experts cited by recent scholarship. Searches for "food loss" and "food waste" were conducted in three legal research databases for law journal articles published between January 2013 and January 2018. The core list of selected articles consists of 13 law journal articles. The citations from each of the core articles were collected to form a database, which was analyzed to determine what kinds of resources legal scholars rely on when conducting research in food waste legislation. Government …

Scaffolding On Steroids: Meeting Your Students Where They Are Is Harder Than Ever ... And Easier Than You Think, Kari L. Aamot Johnson

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Law Library Blog (November 2017): Legal Beagle's Blog Archive, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Law Library Newsletters/Blog

No abstract provided.

References To Football In Judicial Opinions And Written Advocacy, Douglas E. Abrams

Faculty Publications

Writing for the Court,Justice Elena Kagan explained that the dual bases of liability, recited in Section 11 of the Securities Act of 1933, are not "an invitation to Monday morning quarterback an issuer's opinions" if the opinions later prove incorrect. The Court thus spurned second-guessing from the relative comfort of hindsight. With her nod to football, justice Kagan employed a rhetorical technique that justices and lower federal and state judges have employed with increased frequency since the early 1970s. In cases with no claims or defenses concerning sports, written opinions help decide or explain issues of law or fact with …

Persona Non Grata: The Marginalization Of Legal Scholarship In Criminology And Criminal Justice Journals, Brenda I. Rowe, Wesley S. Mccann, Craig Hemmens

Criminology and Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

Recently, concern has been voiced within the academy regarding the marginalization of legal scholarship within the criminology and criminal justice (CCJ) discipline. Although conventional wisdom and anecdotal evidence indicate that it is difficult to get legal scholarship published in CCJ journals, there is a dearth of empirical evidence on the representation of legal scholarship in CCJ journals. The present study assesses the representation of legal scholarship in 20 CCJ journals from 2005 through 2015, examining both trends over time and variation across journals. Findings indicate legal scholarship comprises a very small portion of articles published, there has been a steep …

New Wine In Old Wineskins: Metaphor And Legal Research, Amy E. Sloan, Colin Starger

All Faculty Scholarship

We construct our conceptual world using metaphors. Yet sometimes our concepts are flawed and our metaphors do damage. This Article examines a set of metaphors currently doing damage in law – those for legal research. It shows that while technology has radically altered the material world of legal research, our dominant metaphors have remained static, and thus, become outmoded. Conceptualizing today’s reality using old metaphors fails; it is like pouring new wine in old wineskins. To address this problem, this Article first surfaces unwarranted assumptions buried in the metaphors we use when talking about research and then proposes new metaphors …

The Prospects For Change: The Question Of Justice In A Law & Society Framework, Michael W. Raphael

Graduate Student Publications and Research

What is the law and society framework and where has it gotten us? A student in a classroom might raise their hand and offer "understanding legal pluralism" as a possible answer. However, the conceptual problem with legal pluralism is the coexistence of potentially conflicting bases of justification. Given this, desiring to understand how the law shapes the structural underpinnings of whichever "legal" phenomena and its "ongoing transformation", is nevertheless an immense achievement that stops short of its underlying goal – the achievement of human dignity through human rights. For example, to talk about 'multi-stakeholder consultations' and other pithy phrases that …

Unh School Of Law Ip Library: 20th Anniversary Reflection On The Only Academic Ip Library In The United States, Jon R. Cavicchi

Law Faculty Scholarship

[Excerpt] The UNH School of Law Intellectual Property Library celebrates its twentieth anniversary this year. It is a fortuitous time for this look back and for strategic considerations for the future. This anniversary comes at a time in the history of legal education when conditions over the past few years have intensified the analysis of mission and resources for law school libraries. This article is a retrospective review of the history and dynamics surrounding the founding and first twenty years of growth. It is also an analysis of the future growth and mission of the IP Library during times that …

Enigma: A Variation On The Theme Of Legal Writing’S Place In Contemporary Legal Education, Ian Gallacher

College of Law - Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Haydn Doren's Defense In The Court Of The Jarl Of Whiterun, Balgruuf The Greater, Ryan W. Selfridge

Student Publications

This paper is a look at an American Mock Trial Association scenario placed in the world of Skyrim. The piece applies legal concepts regarding forming narratives in the courtroom, something that is absolutely necessary to a jury trial. The unique scenario the trial was held in facilitated the explanation of the rules of evidence in the footnotes, and illustrates how the evidence was admitted to the court.

Erasing Boundaries: Inter-School Collaboration And Its Pedagogical Opportunities, Ian Gallacher

College of Law - Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Lights! Camera! Law School?: Using Video Interviews To Enhance First Semester Writing Assignments, Ian Gallacher

College of Law - Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Case Law Research Using Westlaw Campus, Robert Berry

Librarian Publications

Presentation by Robert Berry on the basics of Case law research.

Talking In The Dark: Using Technology For Basic Academic Support, Ian Gallacher

College of Law - Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

A Shift To Narrativity, Derek H. Kiernan-Johnson

Publications

Slipshod, inconsistent use of core Applied Legal Storytelling terminology muddles its discourse and hampers its growth. Refining the field’s vocabulary is essential, but insufficient, as exclusive focus on the field’s objects of inquiry, such as story and narrative, and the means of creating or conveying them, such as storytelling and narrating, risks losing the “A” in ALS. We need a new focus, one unburdened by the ambiguities and negative associations of existing options that more accurately reflects Applied Legal Storytelling scholars’ unique contributions. A shift to narrativity. Narrativity, as imagined here, is a top-level quality of a legal text or …

The Durham Statement Two Years Later: Open Access In The Law School Journal Environment, Richard A. Danner, Kelly Leong, Wayne V. Miller

Faculty Scholarship

The Durham Statement on Open Access to Legal Scholarship, drafted by a group of academic law library directors, was promulgated in February 2009. It calls for two things: (1) open access publication of law school–published journals; and (2) an end to print publication of law journals, coupled with a commitment to keeping the electronic versions available in “stable, open, digital formats.” The two years since the Statement was issued have seen increased publication of law journals in openly available electronic formats, but little movement toward all-electronic publication. This article discusses the issues raised by the Durham Statement, the current state …

Defining International Law Librarianship In An Age Of Multiplicity, Knowledge, And Open Access To Law, Richard A. Danner

Faculty Scholarship

Many law librarians are experts in international law and legal research. The concept of ‘international law librarianship’, however, encompasses something more than a field of study in which a group of experts practise their profession. In the broader sense, the idea suggests a common calling, similar interests, and goals shared by librarians with a range of specialties beyond international law, working in all types of law libraries. What commonalities create and sustain the concept of international law librarianship? This paper suggests that they can be found in: law librarians’ common need to respond to the ‘multiplicity’ of information sources facing …

The Technology Of Law, Bernard J. Hibbitts

Articles

This paper argues that contemporary fascination with the law of technology (IP, cyberlaw, etc.) has led us to overlook the fundamental impact of the "technology of law," and offers suggestions for creating "neterate" lawyers more comfortable with and cognizant of technology itself. The author describes how the legal news service JURIST implements many of these suggestions and provides a unique learning experience for its law student staffers.

The Case For "Thinking Like A Filmaker": Using Lars Von Trier's Dogville As A Model For Writing A Statement Of Facts, Elyse Pepper

Faculty Publications

Part I of this Article introduces movies as a persuasive medium. Part II examines the value of movies as teaching tools in the law school context. Part III breaks down the movie Dogville and demonstrates how it might be used to create two Statements of Facts in a fictionalized criminal case. Part IV recaps the lessons learned from using a film as a model for fact writing.

Tyranny Of The Available: Under-Represented Topics, Approaches, And Viewpoints, Katherine Topulos, Marci Hoffman

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Have You Seen The New Library Bar?: Designing A Legal Research Toolbar, Jennifer L. Wondracek

UF Law Faculty Publications

It seems like more and more people today are selecting their legal research results based on ease of access rather than the completeness of the results. After hearing one too many third-year law students say "I researched my entire paper on Google," I set off to create a tool that would satisfy both the desire for speed and the need for complete and authoritative research results. The tool is a legal research toolbar that integrates into a web browser and provides constant and quick access to library-sanctioned websites and databases. This paper walks readers through the design process of the …

Law And Technology Podcasts, Roger V. Skalbeck

Law Faculty Publications

This article lists a select handful of useful podcasts covering topics such as technology policy, law, and web development.

Empiricism And International Law: Insights For Investment Treaty Dispute Resolution, Susan Franck

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

While scholars in the United States increasingly focus on the empirical dimension of legal scholarship, there have been challenges in using empiricism to explore international legal issues. Rather than relying on logic or instinct alone, empirical methodologies can provide scholars with tools to gain new facts, see existing ideas through a different lens, and engage in a more nuanced analysis of international law phenomena. There appears to be a natural synergy between empiricism and international investment treaty dispute resolution. With calls for trade time outs by U.S. presidential candidates, there is interest in how investment treaties function, whether they achieve …

Legal Scholarship, Humility, And The Scientific Method, David J. Herring

Articles

This essay responds to the question of What next for law and behavioral biology? by describing an approach to legal scholarship that relies on the scientific method. There are two steps involved in this approach to legal scholarship. First, the legal scholar must become familiar with an area of scientific research that is relevant to the development of law and policy. (This essay uses behavioral biology research as an example.) Second, the legal scholar must seek and form relationships across disciplines, becoming an active member of a scientific research team that conducts studies relevant to particular issues of law and …