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Articles 1 - 30 of 321
Full-Text Articles in Law
The Discipline Of Breaks: Making Time For Rest (And Revisions) In Legal Writing, Patrick Barry
The Discipline Of Breaks: Making Time For Rest (And Revisions) In Legal Writing, Patrick Barry
Other Publications
Editing your work involves the tricky business of finding the right mental distance between two versions of yourself: the version that did the drafting and the version that now needs to do the revising. Mastering that kind of cognitive division is not always an easy task.
40 More Writing Hacks For Appellate Attorneys, Brian C. Potts
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. …
Arthur Abel Memorial Competition Writing Award, Notre Dame Law Review
Arthur Abel Memorial Competition Writing Award, Notre Dame Law Review
Student, Faculty, and Staff Awards
Each spring, the Notre Dame Law Review accepts entries for the annual Arthur Abel Memorial Writing Competition. Arthur Abel was a 1985 graduate of the Law School, serving on both the Notre Dame Law Review and the Journal of Legislation. After working for several years in private practice, Arthur served as Assistant General Counsel for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. A tireless attorney possessed of a keen intellect and a wonderful sense of humor, Arthur achieved much success in a short period of time. Tragically, Arthur's life was cut short at the age of thirty-six.
Through a generous gift …
Mandatory Anti-Bias Cle: A Serious Problem Deserves A More Meaningful Response, Rima Sirota
Mandatory Anti-Bias Cle: A Serious Problem Deserves A More Meaningful Response, Rima Sirota
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
This essay addresses the problematic convergence of two recent trends: (1) the expansion of jurisdictions requiring anti-bias training (ABT) as part of mandatory continuing legal education (CLE), and (2) the growing recognition among social scientists that such training, at least as currently practiced, is of limited effectiveness.
Forty-six American states require continuing legal education (CLE), and eleven of these states now require lawyer ABT as one facet of CLE requirements. I have previously criticized the mandatory CLE system because so little evidence supports the conclusion that it results in more competent lawyers. The central question tackled by this essay is …
Advice About Written Advocacy From The Washington Court Of Appeals, Douglas E. Abrams
Advice About Written Advocacy From The Washington Court Of Appeals, Douglas E. Abrams
Faculty Publications
No abstract provided.
Flawless First Draft In Legal Writing: A Fantasy Of The Uninitiated, Patrick Barry
Flawless First Draft In Legal Writing: A Fantasy Of The Uninitiated, Patrick Barry
Other Publications
I recently received an email from a former student (now a public interest lawyer) who had just finished a major writing project. She wanted to thank me for introducing her to the psychologically liberating concept of “shitty first drafts.” Without it, she said, she probably would have never hit her deadline.
References To Beatles Songs In Advocacy And Judicial Opinions, Douglas E. Abrams
References To Beatles Songs In Advocacy And Judicial Opinions, Douglas E. Abrams
Faculty Publications
This article surveys the indelible mark that the Beatles (Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr) continue to leave on courts in the United States more than half a century after the quartet burst onto the American scene with their three television appearances on the Ed Sullivan Show in February of 1964, six years before the band’s breakup.
What Lawyers Can Teach Their Employed Law Students About 'Impactful Legal Writing', Douglas E. Abrams
What Lawyers Can Teach Their Employed Law Students About 'Impactful Legal Writing', Douglas E. Abrams
Faculty Publications
This article concerns the value of teaching employed law students about the potency of “impactful legal writing” – legal writing that can have a substantial impact on someone other than the student writer. Much of the employer’s most instructive teaching about impactful legal writing occurs at the beginning of an assignment, rather than solely during review after the student has completed the assignment. This article identifies four ways an employed law student’s impactful writing when fulfilling assignments differs from the effect of students’ academic writing in law school. Each of the four ways enables the employer to deliver practical lessons …
How Law Students' Part-Time Legal Employment Can Help Employers Improve Their Own Writing Skills, Douglas E. Abrams
How Law Students' Part-Time Legal Employment Can Help Employers Improve Their Own Writing Skills, Douglas E. Abrams
Faculty Publications
Professor Abrams authors a column, Writing it Right, in the Journal of the Missouri Bar. In a variety of contexts, the column stresses the fundamentals of quality legal writing — conciseness, precision, simplicity, and clarity.
References To Classic American Novels In Advocacy And Judicial Opinions, Douglas E. Abrams
References To Classic American Novels In Advocacy And Judicial Opinions, Douglas E. Abrams
Faculty Publications
With this Journal of the Missouri Bar article, the survey of courts’ cultural markers returns to literature – particularly American literature. Besides “To Kill a Mockingbird,” federal and state courts in their written opinions have cited and quoted from other classic novels written by American authors, including "Catch-22", "Moby-Dick", and "The Grapes of Wrath".
Reimagining Langdell's Legacy: Puncturing The Equilibrium In Law School Pedagogy, Laura A. Webb
Reimagining Langdell's Legacy: Puncturing The Equilibrium In Law School Pedagogy, Laura A. Webb
Law Faculty Publications
For more than 150 years, legal education has largely followed the course charted by Christopher Columbus Langdell when he became dean of Harvard Law School in 1870. Langdell’s innovations included the case method, high-stakes summative assessments, and preferences for faculty members with experience in “learning law” rather than practicing it. His proposals were innovative and responsive to challenges in legal education at the time, but this Article argues that taking Langdell’s approach to reform—including a willingness toimplement radical changes in the face of institutional shortcomings—requires reimagining his methods for the benefit of today’s students. We identify key deficiencies of the …
Feedback Loops: E-D-I-T, Patrick Barry
Feedback Loops: E-D-I-T, Patrick Barry
Articles
The Keep/Cut Framework we learned about back in the December 2022 Feedback Loops column is, admittedly, a bit of a blunt feedback instrument. When the only feedback you can give is “Keep” or “Cut,” there’s not a ton of room for nuance or gradation. Your comments are restricted to either endorsing what already exists or pushing for something to be removed. hat’s a pretty limited menu.
So in both this column and in the June 2023 column, we’re going to learn about a feedback framework that creates opportunities for a greater range of opinions and recommendations: “E-D-I-T.”
Feedback Loops: E-D-I-T (Continued), Patrick Barry
Feedback Loops: E-D-I-T (Continued), Patrick Barry
Articles
In the "Feedback Loops" column back in March, we introduced the "E-D-I-T" framework:
- Find something to Eliminate
- Find something to Decrease
- Find something to Increase
- Find something to Try
This new column will discuss each category more in depth.
Disrupting Data Cartels By Editing Wikipedia, Eun Hee Han, Amanda Levendowski, Jonah Perlin
Disrupting Data Cartels By Editing Wikipedia, Eun Hee Han, Amanda Levendowski, Jonah Perlin
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
Legal discourse in the digital public square is driven by memoranda, motions, briefs, contracts, legislation, testimony, and judicial opinions. And as lawyers are taught from their first day of law school, the strength of these genres of legal communication is built on authority. But finding that authority often depends on a duopoly of for-profit legal research resources: Westlaw and Lexis. Although contemporary legal practice relies on these databases, they are far from ethically neutral. Not only are these “data cartels” expensive-- creating significant access to justice challenges--they also are controlled by parent companies that profit by providing information to Immigration …
Editing, Vehicles In The Park, And The Virtue Of Clarity, Patrick Barry
Editing, Vehicles In The Park, And The Virtue Of Clarity, Patrick Barry
Articles
What is the optimal amount of advocacy?
My law students and I face that question all the time. We face it when we’re drafting motions. We face it when we’re proposing changes to contracts. We even face it when putting together key emails, text messages, and social-media posts.
In all these situations and many more, we don’t want to oversell our arguments and ideas — but we don’t want to undersell them either. Instead, we hope to hit that perfect sweet spot known as “persuasion.”
We don’t always succeed, but one thing that has significantly increased our effectiveness is the …
Exemplary Legal Writing 2020: Four Recommendations, Jed S. Rakoff, Lev Menand
Exemplary Legal Writing 2020: Four Recommendations, Jed S. Rakoff, Lev Menand
Faculty Scholarship
For some years, John Coffee of the Columbia Law School, one of the country’s leading experts on corporate and securities law, has been critical of the government’s failure to effectively prosecute corporate crime. In this book, Coffee both propounds a general theory of why such criminality is rarely prosecuted in a meaningful way, and also offers some creative solutions to such underenforcement.
Problems With Authority, Amy J. Griffin
Problems With Authority, Amy J. Griffin
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
Judicial decisionmaking rests on a foundation of unwritten rules—those that govern the weight of authority. Such rules, including the cornerstone principle of stare decisis, are created informally through the internal social practices of the judiciary. Despite the central role of such rules in judicial decisionmaking, we lack a good account of how they are created, revised, and enforced. There is something paradoxical and troubling about the notion that the rules of the game are determined by the players as they play the game according to those rules. Because weight-of-authority rules are largely informal and almost entirely unwritten, we don’t even …
Legal Citations: A Foundation Of Written Advocacy, Douglas E. Abrams
Legal Citations: A Foundation Of Written Advocacy, Douglas E. Abrams
Faculty Publications
The article advanced this formula for achieving effective appellate advocacy: “First, you seek to persuade the court of the merit of the client’s case, to create an emotional empathy for your position. Then you assist the court to reach a conclusion favorable to the client’s interest in terms of the analysis of the law and the procedural posture of the case.”
Debunking The Efficacy Of Standard Contract Boilerplate: Part V, David Spratt
Debunking The Efficacy Of Standard Contract Boilerplate: Part V, David Spratt
Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals
After five installments, we can end our discussion of contract boilerplate. We have slashed the outdated language and emerged as a clear and contemporary legal writer. Be willing to adapt what has worked well in the past because change is the foundation of human ingenuity.
References To Robert Frost's Poetry In Advocacy And Judicial Opinions, Douglas E. Abrams
References To Robert Frost's Poetry In Advocacy And Judicial Opinions, Douglas E. Abrams
Faculty Publications
This article concerns courts whose written opinions have recently cited and quoted Frost and his poetry. By profiling Frost’s enduring influence, the article fortifies a theme I have presented in earlier “Writing It Right” articles. The theme begins in the courts, which in recent years often accent their opinions’ substantive or procedural rulings by quoting or citing well-known cultural markers from literature, sports, or popular entertainment.
Improved Writing From Reading Other Writers, Douglas E. Abrams
Improved Writing From Reading Other Writers, Douglas E. Abrams
Faculty Publications
In 1954, a 12-year-old junior high school student wrote to Justice Felix Frankfurter seeking advice about how to prepare to become a lawyer. “The best way to prepare for the law,” Frankfurter answered, “is to come to the study of law as a well-read person.” Reading other writers, he explained, enables future lawyers to “acquire the capacity to use the English language on paper and in speech and with the habits of clear thinking.”
Justice Frankfurter offered his young correspondent sound advice about the intimate link among reading, writing, and lawyering. Reading works from other writers with an eye toward …
Storytelling, The Sound Of Music, And Special Teams: Revisiting Some Basic Legal Writing Techniques With Fresh Eyes, Heather Kolinsky
Storytelling, The Sound Of Music, And Special Teams: Revisiting Some Basic Legal Writing Techniques With Fresh Eyes, Heather Kolinsky
UF Law Faculty Publications
No abstract provided.
Obergefell V. Hodges—And The Use Of Oral Argument And Storytelling To Reinforce Competencies In The Legal Writing Classroom, Karin Mika
Law Faculty Articles and Essays
Legal writing professors struggle with trying to balance learning skills with the bigger picture of learning that law is ultimately about having the power to change lives. Often, learning the skills becomes completely separated from the human aspect of the law. Although we all work toward unifying the two concepts, it is not always done by having discussions about the bigger issues, or even having the students look at more traditional sources such as briefs or even law review articles. Oyez and the oral tradition of storytelling presented by radio (or other similar resources) have the potential of more fully …
Debunking The Efficacy Of Standard Contract Boilerplate: Part Iv, David Spratt
Debunking The Efficacy Of Standard Contract Boilerplate: Part Iv, David Spratt
Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals
We have belabored the archaic and prohibited use of "said" as a synonym for "the." But this paragraph needs more work. First, the phrase "irrespective of the fact that" is wordy and could be replaced with the plain language alternative of "even though." Second, "one or more of the parties now is, or may become, a resident of a different state" also could be streamlined. The phrase is easy enough to understand but cut to the chase. Replacing this phrase with "either party now or later resides in a different state" does the trick.
Guthrie's Guide To Better Legal Writing, 2nd Ed, Hannah Steeves
Guthrie's Guide To Better Legal Writing, 2nd Ed, Hannah Steeves
Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press
The second edition of Guthrie’s Guide to Better Legal Writing is Neil Guthrie’s revised anthology of email queries and blog posts. The scope of the book is in its title: it offers practical tips and advice to legal writers. Guthrie’s definition of “legal writing” addresses written communication between lawyers, law students, and the layperson, although legal drafting is addressed intermittently. The book is not intended to be a comprehensive review of grammar and punctuation. Instead, it has an approximate agenda that is enhanced by the author’s personal narrative.
The author follows their own advice as outlined in the suggestions for …
Swimming With Broad Strokes: Publishing And Presenting Beyond The Lw Discipline, Robin Boyle Laisure, Stephen Paskey
Swimming With Broad Strokes: Publishing And Presenting Beyond The Lw Discipline, Robin Boyle Laisure, Stephen Paskey
Faculty Publications
(Excerpt)
In our greater skills community, we share ideas, borrow and tweak theories from other disciplines, and create new approaches. It is understandable how our community may expand pedagogy to the brim of legal writing or explore topics outside of the field. Skills professors are, by nature, a creative collective who teach from the heart and enjoy writing and thinking. Our publishing pursuits can be boundless.
Both Authors of this Article share mutual experiences of dipping our toes in a pond beyond the legal writing continent. Our writing experiences have influenced our teaching, bringing these broader perspectives to our legal …
Academic Law Librarians Are Paid 47% Less Than Their Faculty Counterparts, Olivia R. Smith Schlinck
Academic Law Librarians Are Paid 47% Less Than Their Faculty Counterparts, Olivia R. Smith Schlinck
Library Staff Online Publications
In December Joe Fore, the co-director of the Legal Writing program at the University of Virginia School of Law, posted to Twitter a thread comparing tenure track and legal writing salaries. In comparing four public schools, he discovered that the average starting salary for a tenure track professor was $173,000 while the average salary for all legal writing faculty was $111,000. A few academic law librarians saw the tweet and replied that someone should do the same for law librarians, too.
Charles Dickens' Novels In The Courts, Douglas E. Abrams
Charles Dickens' Novels In The Courts, Douglas E. Abrams
Faculty Publications
This article examines written judicial opinions that contain references to novels by Charles Dickens (1812-1870), the British novelist and social critic who is widely regarded as one of the greatest writers of the Victorian Age. Americans today still read Dickens’ best-known novels, and the U.S. Supreme Court and the lower federal and state courts have cited and quoted from them.
Feedback Loops: Surviving The Feedback Desert, Patrick Barry
Feedback Loops: Surviving The Feedback Desert, Patrick Barry
Articles
I ask my law students the following set of parallel questions on the very first day of “Feedback Loops,” a course I have been teaching for the past couple of years: What did you get better at last year? How do you know? What should you get better at this year? How do you know?
Anticipatory Edits, Patrick Barry
Anticipatory Edits, Patrick Barry
Articles
Good writing, I often tell my students, is “anticipating the edits of your boss.” I then clarify that the definition of “boss” in that statement is intentionally expansive. A supervisor at work can count. A teacher in school can count. So can a valued customer or client. he key is to start thinking about two things: 1) the actual people who are going to review your writing; and 2) the likely changes they’ll make to it. By implementing those changes yourself— before the document ever hits your boss’s desk or inbox—you can save them a lot of time and cognitive …