Legal Writing and Research Commons^™

Editing Law Reviews: Some Practical Suggestions And A Moderately Revolutionary Proposal , James C. Raymond

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Commentary: Unpublication And The Judicial Concept Of Audience, Joan M. Shaughnessy

Joan M. Shaughnessy

No abstract provided.

Vencer A Crise. Ética, Psicologia E Partidos, Paulo Ferreira Da Cunha

Paulo Ferreira da Cunha

Crise e medidas de liofilização e compressão ensurdecem toda a comunicação social. Há contudo que analisar as raízes psicológicas da crise e da crise sobre a crise, e urgentemente regenerar os partidos, sob pena de sempre se ter "mais do mesmo". Ou então muito diferente, porque a obstinação de uns levará à obstinação de outros. E se a II República não mostrar que vale a pena, poderá vir (o diabo não nos oiça) uma anti-república que se chamará IV (porque contará também o Estado Novo) a tentar resolver tudo à força.

Engaging First-Year Students Through Pro Bono Collaborations In Legal Writing, Mary Bowman

Faculty Articles

This article recommends developing assignments for first-year legal writing courses through collaborations with legal services organizations. The article stems from and describes such ongoing projects at Seattle University School of Law, where several hundred first-year law students have worked on such projects so far. We have partnered with lawyers at organizations like the National Employment Law Project, the ACLU of Washington, and Northwest Justice Project to come up with live issues that they would like to have researched, and they received the best student work product from each class. The partner organizations have used the students’ work in several ways, …

Other Uses Of Legislative History, Mary Whisner

Librarians' Articles

Although we usually think of using legislative history to determine legislative intent when interpreting statutes, Ms. Whisner shows that legislative documents can be useful for other, less controversial purposes as well.

Foreign And International Legal Research, Maureen Moran

Law Faculty Publications

As you have been learning, the American legal system is only one of hundreds in the world. Each of those legal systems has its own rules, sources, and authorities. But these systems do not exist in a vacuum. What rules govern when two or more States or entities interact? What are the enforcement mechanisms? The study of these questions comprises the fields of foreign law and international law. The purpose of this chapter is not to give you a comprehensive review of all the resources available for researching this vast field of law. Rather, the goal is to give you …

Explanatory Parentheticals Can Pack A Persuasive Punch, Eric P. Voigt

McGeorge Law Review

No abstract provided.

Using Student Evaluation Data To Examine And Improve Your Program, David I.C. Thomson

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

At many schools, directing a legal writing program today is quite different than it was even 10 years ago. As LRW faculties mature and the individual faculty members grow in the profession, the need for a “top-down” director is lessening or going away in many programs. However, in many schools there remains a valuable leader/coach sort of role for a director, whether that person rotates, coordinates, or however it works in practice that is best for the school. This new sort of director is ideally someone who is able to encourage and support a culture of programmatic excellence and is …

Playing To The Audience, David Spratt

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.

Seen It All, Heard It All, Done It All. Is It All Worth It?, Julie Lim

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Why Punctuation Matters: Part Three, David Spratt

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.

Bitten By The Reading Bug, Mary Whisner

Librarians' Articles

Is reading books about law helpful to law librarians? Ms. Whisner discusses why and what she likes to read, and makes recommendations about books others might find interesting.

Motions In Motion: Teaching Advanced Legal Writing Through Collaboration, Elizabeth Shaver, Sarah Morath, Richard Strong

Akron Law Faculty Publications

Legal education is at a crossroads. Practitioners, academics, and students agree that more experiential learning opportunities are needed in law school.

In 2007, the Carnegie Foundation report, Educating Lawyers: Preparation for the Profession of Law (Carnegie Report), called for law schools to provide apprentice experiences to better prepare prospective attorneys for the world of practice. That same year, the Best Practices in Legal Education advocated for “experiential education” and “encourage[d] law school[s] to expand its use.” More recently, in August 2011, the American Bar Association adopted a resolution sponsored by the New York Bar Association summoning law schools to “focus …

Motions In Motions: Teaching Advanced Legal Writing Through Collaboration, Sarah J. Morath, Elizabeth Shaver, Richard Strong

Akron Law Faculty Publications

Legal education is at a crossroads. Practitioners, academics, and students agree that more experiential learning opportunities are needed in law school.

In 2007, the Carnegie Foundation report, Educating Lawyers: Preparation for the Profession of Law (Carnegie Report), called for law schools to provide apprentice experiences to better prepare prospective attorneys for the world of practice. That same year, the Best Practices in Legal Education advocated for “experiential education” and “encourage[d] law school[s] to expand its use.” More recently, in August 2011, the American Bar Association adopted a resolution sponsored by the New York Bar Association summoning law schools to “focus …

It's Not All Statistics: Demystifying Empirical Research, Sarah J. Morath

Akron Law Faculty Publications

Although Oliver Wendell Holmes was touting the merits of empirical research over one hundred years ago, only recently have legal academics created a journal and conference dedicated to empirical legal studies. Interestingly, topics of interest to legal writing professors have been a source for empirical research well before the emergence these specialized journals and conferences. For example, empirical research comparing the use of legal prose to plain English in appellate briefs was taking place over 25 years ago. In 1996, the second volume of The Journal of Legal Writing Institute included an empirical study evaluating which professors’ comments students found …

Motions In Motion: Teaching Advanced Legal Writing Through Collaboration, Richard Strong, Elizabeth Shaver, Sarah Morath

Akron Law Faculty Publications

Legal education is at a crossroads. Practitioners, academics, and students agree that more experiential learning opportunities are needed in law school.

In 2007, the Carnegie Foundation report, Educating Lawyers: Preparation for the Profession of Law (Carnegie Report), called for law schools to provide apprentice experiences to better prepare prospective attorneys for the world of practice. That same year, the Best Practices in Legal Education advocated for “experiential education” and “encourage[d] law school[s] to expand its use.” More recently, in August 2011, the American Bar Association adopted a resolution sponsored by the New York Bar Association summoning law schools to “focus …

Lrw's The Real World: Using Real Cases To Teach Persuasive Writing, Elizabeth Shaver

Akron Law Faculty Publications

Today’s law students approach their legal education with a clear focus on acquiring the skills needed to succeed in the “real world” of lawyering. Legal writing professors can leverage this focus on the real world by using real cases to teach the principles of persuasive writing. This article describes a “case-study” method in which students analyze materials from real cases to learn the most critical components of persuasive writing – development of a theme, organization of legal arguments, and best use of case authority. As part of this exercise, students step into the role of the practitioner and construct arguments …

Like A Glass Slipper On A Stepsister: How The One Ring Rules Them All At Trial, Cathren Koehlert-Page

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Cat, Cause, And Kant, Richard J. Peltz-Steele

Faculty Publications

These are precarious times in which to launch a new law school and a new law review. Yet here we are. The University of Massachusetts is now in its first year of operation with provisional ABA accreditation. This text is a foreword to the first general-interest issue of the University of Massachusetts Law Review. Now marks an appropriate time to take stock of what these institutions mean to accomplish in our unsettled legal world.

The Effect Of Time Of Day On Reference Interactions In Academic Law Libraries, Seth Quidachay-Swan

Law Librarian Scholarship

Libraries and librarians generally aspire to provide the best services they can to their user communities. But what does that mean? Assumptions about what is needed may not necessarily align with the actual preferences of a given user group. In this column, Seth Quidachay-Swan presents a case study that explores the interaction between time of day and medium of information delivery. Examining data gathered in a law library environment, the author concludes that modern presumptions about the diminishing need for traditional information services may not allow for effectively managing user expectations.