Law Commons^™

A Compendium Of Clever And Amusing Law Review Writings -- An Idiosyncratic Bibliography Of Miscellany With In Kind Annotations Intended As A Humorous Diversion For The Gentle Reader, Thomas E. Baker

Faculty Publications

The world of the American law review resembles Middle Earth for all its strange inhabitants, secret rituals, and foreboding folklore. The depth and breadth of law review literature defies facile characterization, but it can be stated without fear of contradiction that the truly clever or amusing law review article is the quintessential rara avis. Law review articles - and the people who write them and the people who read them - are serious to a fault.

Indeed, whenever a judge, a lawyer, a law professor, or a law student writes something truly funny he or she runs the risk …

Above The Rules: A Response To Epstein And King, Frank Cross, Michael Heise, Gregory C. Sisk

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Past, Present, And Future Of Empirical Legal Scholarship: Judicial Decision Making And The New Empiricism, Michael Heise

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Over the last century, empirical legal scholarship has joined the ranks of the mainstream within the legal academy. In this article, Professor Heise traces the history of legal empiricism and discusses its growing role within the legal academy. First, the article traces legal empiricism through the twentieth century from the legal empiricism movement of the early twentieth century, to post-World War II efforts to revive legal empiricism, including the Chicago Jury Project and large-scale foundational support for empirical legal research, through current support for legal empirical research from both the law schools and other research centers. The article then discusses …

Teamwork Builds A Modern Traditional Library, Mitchell Counts, Robert Linz

Publications

No abstract provided.

Empirical Work In Family Law, Margaret F. Brinig

Journal Articles

Until fairly recently, researchers have not done much theoretical work on the subject of family law. Although the move towards theoretical work is a positive one, unfortunately, most of the latest reforms in family law have been uninformed by empirical studies. Furthermore, the few empirical studies that have been conducted are replete with intractable problems.

In this essay, Margaret Brinig discusses some of the problems researchers have encountered in their attempts to conduct empirical work in the area of family law. For example, most researchers have used state cross-sectional data for their experiments. Reliance on this type of data can …

Three Governors: Herman Talmadge, The Georgia Supreme Court And The Gubernatorial Election Of 1946, Lucian E. Dervan

Law Faculty Scholarship

Herman Talmadge, who died March 21, 2002, was a governor, senator, and Georgia icon who controlled state politics for much of the last half of the 20th century. While many events in Talmadge’s life deserve attention, one event in particular stands out amongst the trials and tribulations, victories and scandals in this long American political life. In 1946, the Georgia gubernatorial election brought a state government to its knees, a state Supreme Court to the height of its power and Talmadge into the national spotlight as a revolver toting aspiring governor.

The Evolution Of Iranian Islamism From The Revolution Through The Contemporary Reformers, Jeffrey Omar Usman

Law Faculty Scholarship

This Note explores the evolution and maturation of Iranian Islamism from the revolutionary elites through the contemporary reformers of the 21st century. The Author examines the conflicting ideological influences that are shaping the Islamist movement in Iran. This Note begins by presenting the framework of the fundamental contradictions that underlie Iranian Islamist ideology. The analysis of the Iranian Constitution is divided into an exploration of the institutional role of the clerical elites in the form of the faqih and the Council of Guardians, the constitutionally defined role of women, the democratic elements in the Iranian Constitution, and Marxism and environmentalism …

Reflecting On The Virtual Child Porn Decision, David L. Hudson Jr.

Law Faculty Scholarship

An essay on Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition, the so-called virtual child pornography case.

Balancing Act : Public Employees And Free Speech, David L. Hudson Jr.

Law Faculty Scholarship

More than 20 million Americans work for federal, state or local governments. Sometimes these employees are disciplined for speaking out against government corruption, belonging to a particular political party, criticizing agency policy or engaging in private conduct of which the employer disapproves. Granted, government employers need some leeway when dealing with their employees. After all, the primary function of a government agency is to provide efficient services to the public, and if a government employer were second-guessed every time it disciplined a public employee, services could grind to a halt. On the other hand, such employers do not have unfettered …

Fear Of Violence In Our Schools: Is ‘Undifferentiated Fear’ In The Age Of Columbine Leading To A Suppression Of Student Speech?, David L. Hudson Jr.

Law Faculty Scholarship

An essay on the suppression of student speech in the age of mass school shootings.

The Courts’ Inconsistent Treatment Of Bethel V. Fraser And The Curtailment Of Student Rights, David L. Hudson Jr., John E. Ferguson Jr.

Law Faculty Scholarship

The majority of courts have cited Bethel v. Fraser in such a way as to give public school officials free reign to censor vulgar, lewd, or plainly offensive student speech. Some courts have gone a step further and prohibited student speech that contains offensive ideas. This article seeks to explain how the Fraser decision curtailed student rights recognized in the Supreme Court's last pure student speech case, Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District.

Justice Clarence Thomas: The Emergence Of A Commercial-Speech Protector, David L. Hudson Jr.

Law Faculty Scholarship

An examination of Justice Clarence Thomas' jurisprudence regarding commercial speech.

The University Of St. Thomas Law Library: A New Library For A New Era In Legal Education, Edmund P. Edmonds

Journal Articles

In spring 2000, the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul/Minneapolis, Minnesota, offered me an intriguing challenge: Would I be willing to help create a brand new law library at St. Thomas' new School of Law? That opportunity was, in many ways, the ultimate chance to reconsider the fundamental underlying premises that form one's basic vision of a law library. One's understanding and thinking about these basic ideas forms the foundation on which one makes critical decisions about the law library every working day. What would it be like to have no past history to either inform or encumber those …

Feminist Legal Writing, Kathryn M. Stanchi

Scholarly Works

To lay the groundwork for the exploration of feminist legal writing, this Article first summarizes the traditions and conventions of persuasion and persuasive writing-how they are characterized in law and how they are taught in law school. It then summarizes a type of language in linguistic theory called "antilanguage," which is language created by groups in society that are outcasts or otherwise excluded from the dominant social class to rebel against the dominant class. Analyzing several pieces of feminist legal scholarship that use unconventional writing techniques, this Article identifies a type of feminist legal antilanguage. This feminist legal antilanguage uses …

A Voice Of Reason: The Products Liability Scholarship Of Gary T. Schwartz, Joseph A. Page

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Of my many fond personal memories of Gary Schwartz, the one that stands out most vividly summons from the mists of time an evening in June 1983 at Boston's Fenway Park. It was my last visit to a childhood haunt where I had seen my first professional baseball game in 1941, an occasion that marked the beginning of a lifelong passion for the national pastime. Settled into an excellent seat that faced the storied left-field wall (and brought to mind visions of the large advertisements that covered its surface before it became known as the "Green Monster”,), I began to …

The Rhetorics Of Legal Authority Constructing Authoritativeness, The “Ellen Effect,” And The Example Of Sodomy Law., Kris Franklin

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.

Improving Legal Writing Courses: Perspectives From The Bar And Bench, Constance Krontz, Susan Mcclellan

Faculty Articles

To fine-tune legal writing courses to better prepare law students to enter legal practice, Professors Constance Krontz and Susan McClellan surveyed judges and practicing attorneys who supervise the work of first-year associates or judicial law clerks. They selected attorneys from a variety of practices in Washington State, including offices of public defenders and state prosecutors, the Attorney General's office, and private firms of various sizes. They sought information about the performance of all first-year clerks and associates, without reference to where they obtained their law degrees. Knowledge of the bench and bar's perception of the oral and written performance of …

Travaux Preparatoires And United Nations Treaties Or Conventions: Using The Web Wisely, Marylin J. Raisch

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

While it is possible to find individual recent documentation relating to the drafting of treaties by searching the Internet via the popular search engines, the results may not always be as comprehensive as the conscientious legal practitioner or scholar might wish. And what of the less well-known multilateral conventions? Alas, it is not only the obscure or bilateral treaties that can be hard to interpret or locate. Travaux for larger conventions may be a challenge as well. An ounce of caution and a larger dose of background knowledge can save the generalist and the specialist librarian, respectively, from the pitfalls …

The Inside Scoop: What Federal Judges Really Think About The Way Lawyers Write, Kristen Konrad Robbins-Tiscione

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

A recent survey indicates that what troubles federal judges most is not what lawyers say but what they fail to say when writing briefs. Although lawyers do a good job articulating legal issues and citing controlling, relevant legal authority, they are not doing enough with the law itself. Only fifty-six percent of the judges surveyed said that lawyers “always” or “usually” make their client’s best arguments. Fifty-eight percent of the judges rated the quality of the legal analysis as just “good,” as opposed to “excellent” or “very good.” The problem seems to be that briefs lack rigorous analysis, and the …