Law Commons^™

Surveying The Not Yet Dead: Comment On Hirsch’S Empirical Analysis Of Revival Of Wills, Jonathan Klick

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Hirsch advocates using an empirically grounded presumption when handling the revival of wills problem. The empirical baseline, according to him, should match what most people think (rightly or wrongly) a court would do when the revival problem arises. Hirsch then presents survey evidence on people’s expectations in this setting. Hirsch’s proposal is completely sensible in principle, and there is no reason it should be restricted to the revival problem. The argument applies throughout the field of wills, trusts, and estates and maybe even the law more generally. In practice, however, defining the relevant population to survey could pose a problem.

The Draft Restatement (Third) Of Conflict Of Laws: A Response To Brilmayer & Listwa, Kermit Roosevelt Iii, Bethan R. Jones

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This Essay responds to Lea Brilmayer and Dan Listwa’s criticisms of the Draft Restatement (Third) of Conflict of Laws. We appreciate their engagement. As a general matter, we disagree about the nature and purpose of restatements. More specifically, we disagree about the history and aims of the Restatements of Conflict of Laws. Brilmayer and Listwa’s main criticism—that the drafters of the Restatement (Third) are not authoritatively interpreting any single state’s law and therefore can be only persuasive authority as to the content of a state’s law—could apply to all restatements. But since this Draft Restatement, like other …

Are Universities Schools? The Case For Continuity In The Regulation Of Student Speech, Chad Flanders

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Are universities schools? The question seems almost silly to ask: o f course universities are schools. They have teachers and students, like schools. They have grades, like schools. There are classes and extracurricular activities, also like schools. But recent writings on the issue of ₀₄ free speech on campus" have raised the improbable specter that universities are less educational institutions than they are public forums like parks and sidewalks, where a free-wheeling exchange o f ideas and opinions takes place, unrestricted by any sense of academic mission or school disciplinc.¹ Some of this rhetoric is of course exaggerated, and …

Foreword, Elizabeth Magill

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No abstract provided.

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

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No abstract provided.

Implementing A First-Year Research Assessment, Savanna L. Nolan

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University of Baltimore Law librarians do not have a formal role in teaching legal research, but are frequent guest lecturers and recognized research experts. As such, we volunteered to administer UB's first summative assessment in accordance with the recent implementation of ABA Standard 314. This poster shows the steps taken to design, execute, and grade this legal research assessment, as well as how we reported the results to stakeholders.

The assessment had an objective true/false and multiple-choice section, and a subjective essay question. The librarians selected objective questions considering the core legal research competencies identified by RIPS-SIS following the MacCrate …

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

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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 …

Book Review: Academic Law Library Director Perspectives: Case Studies And Insights, Adeen Postar

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No abstract provided.

Analysis, Research, And Communication In Skills-Focused Courses, Ruth Anne Robbins, Amy E. Sloan, Kristen Konrad Tiscione

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Since the Carnegie Report and Best Practices for Legal Education were published, a new focus has emerged on building students’ traditional foundational skills through increased opportunities for experiential education, including legal research and writing instruction. Although the Carnegie Report explored legal writing pedagogy in some detail, Best Practices devoted little attention to how foundational analytical, research, and writing skills are or should be taught with specificity, which provided the impetus for more extended treatment here. This section identifies some “better practices” being used and urges adoption of best practices.

In skills-focused courses, legal analysis, research, and writing should be taught …

Law School Culture And The Lost Art Of Collaboration: Why Don't Law Professors Play Well With Others, Michael I. Meyerson

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I have an Erdős number. Specifically, I have an Erdős number of 5. For the uninitiated, the concept of an “Erdős number” was created by mathematicians to describe how many “degrees of separation” an author of an article is from the great mathematician Paul Erdős. If you coauthored a paper with Erdős, you have an Erdős number of 1. If you coauthor a paper with someone with an Erdős number of 1, you have earned an Erdős number of 2. Coauthoring a paper with someone with an Erdős number of 2 gives you an Erdős number of 3, and so …

The 95 Theses: Legal Research In The Internet Age, Amy E. Sloan

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No abstract provided.

Empirical Law And Economics, Jonah B. Gelbach, Jonathan Klick

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Empirical work has grown in importance in law and economics. This growth coincides with improvements in research designs in empirical microeconomics more generally. In this essay, we provide a stylized discussion of some trends over the last two or three decades, linking the credibility revolution in empirical micro to the ascendancy of empirical work in law and economics. We then provide some methodological observations about a number of commonly used approaches to estimating policy effects. The literature on the economics of crime and criminal procedure illustrates the ways in which many of these techniques have been used successfully. Other fields, …

Introduction To The Micro-­‐‑Symposium On Scalia & Garner's “Reading Law”:The Textualist Technician, Karen Petroski

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Recently, the Green Bag issued a call for short (1,000 words) essays on Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts, by Antonin Scalia and Bryan Garner. We sought “[a]ny theoretical, empirical, or practical commentary that will help readers better understand the book.” The result is this micro-symposium. Our call drew dozens of micro-essays, some thought-provoking, some chuckle-prompting, and some both. Blessed with an abundance of good work but cursed by a shortage of space, we were compelled to select a small set – representative and excellent – of those essays to publish in the Green Bag and its sibling publication, …

Maryland Practice Materials: A Selective Annotated Bibliography, Adeen Postar, Khelani Clay

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This chapter is intended to cover Maryland Law in its entire complexity and for the most part is intended for current use by practitioners. Whenever possible, it includes references to online sources of material, including LexisNexis, Westlaw, and authoritative sites available on the Internet. We have not included references to WestlawNext as many Maryland specific materials have not been included there as this project was concluding in November 2011.

Creating And Teaching A Specialized Legal Research Course: The Benefits And Considerations, Erika Cohn

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This article outlines the author's experience creating and teaching a specialized legal research course. It includes the reasons for offering such a course, tips for selecting a topic and developing a syllabus, getting the course approved, creating student interest, developing a teaching plan, and evaluating the course.

Government Internet Resources: Federal, State And Local, David E. Matchen Jr.

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This presentation discusses the basic outlines of federal legal research as well as state and local legal research. Discussion of state and local legal research is limited to Maryland, but many states have comparable systems.

They Were Meant For Each Other: Proffessor Edward Cooper And The Rules Enabling Act, Anthony J. Scirica, Mark R. Kravitz, David F. Levi, Lee H. Rosenthal

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No abstract provided.

Thinking, Big And Small, Stephen B. Burbank

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No abstract provided.

Compelling Orthodoxy: Myth And Mystique In The Marketing Of Legal Education, Kenneth Lasson

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This article seeks to demonstrate the negative effects of law schools’ preoccupations with enhancing their image and marketing strategy, especially as they are reflected in both scholarship and academic freedom.

The Law Review Games, Miriam A. Cherry, Paul M. Secunda

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A Parody in which The Hunger Games meet the law review submission process.

Does It Matter What We Say About Legal Interpretation?, Karen Petroski

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Despite a common interest in justifying their scholarly output, legal academics have resisted seeing how their work is molded by the institutional environment in which it is produced, and not just by legal doctrine, ideology, or individual perspectives. This paper presents a case study from this neglected perspective, considering the shape of scholarship on legal interpretation in light of the social conditions of its production. After a brief discussion of the debates over whether scholarship (and which scholarship) matters, the paper explores how such concerns are addressed in various academic accounts of scholars’ textual practices. It then offers some initial …

Briefing Cases: Session On Copyright Law, Lynn Mclain

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This handout contains the decision from Walt Disney Productions v. Air Pirates, 581 F.2d 751 (1978), suggested elements for how to brief a case in general, and an example brief for the Air Pirates case.

Scorn Not The Sonnet: In Search Of Shakespeare's Law, Jeffrey G. Sherman

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No abstract provided.

A Wise Man Of The Law, Anthony J. Scirica

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No abstract provided.

The Dog That Didn't Bark: Stealth Procedures And The Erosion Of Stare Decisis In The Federal Courts Of Appeals, Amy E. Sloan

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Informal en banc review is a procedural expedient that nine of the thirteen federal circuits use to circumvent the requirements of formal en banc review. Panels invoke informal en banc review to take actions normally reserved for the full court sitting en banc. The circuits that use informal en banc review say the procedure is to be used rarely. In practice, however, the frequency of informal en banc review is significant when compared with formal en banc review. Informal en banc review is more efficient than formal en banc review, but the efficiency benefits come at a price. Informal en …

Regulating Conflicts Of Interest In Research: The Paper Tiger Needs Real Teeth, Jesse A. Goldner J.D.

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This article describes the current state of the regulation of financial conflicts of interest in research in the United States. It notes the implications of the changing academic and private research environment and reviews recent empirical research on (1) the perceived implications of such conflicts on clinician and researcher behavior, and (2) the effect of disclosure of such conflicts to potential research participants. The article also details a number of widely publicized research “scandals” involving conflicts of interest and the effects these may have on both public support for research as well as on the quality of care that ultimately …

Step Right Up: Using Consumer Decision Making Theory To Teach Research Process In The Electronic Age, Amy E. Sloan

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The legal academy has framed legal research as a professional skill, and much research pedagogy centers around replicating a controlled professional environment to allow students to learn how to do research by simulating legal practice. Although this is a valid way to conceptualize research, it is not the only way. Another way to conceptualize research is as a consumer transaction. Legal information is, in many ways, a product that information providers market to lawyers and students, as the promotions and contests that LexisNexis and Westlaw sponsor demonstrate. Once legal information is understood as a product, the process of research can …

More Than Just Law School: Global Perspectives On The Place Of The Practical In Legal Education, James Maxeiner

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Foreign experiences remind us that legal education is not just law school. They inform us that we should seek for ways not just to integrate theoretical and practical teaching, but to assure that our students or our graduates get real experience with practice. The assumption that law schools are the exclusive place for preparation for the profession of law is bad for students, bad for bar, bad for law schools, bad for the legal system and bad for society. We should look to see what we can do best and should encourage other institutions to do what they can do …

Policy And Methods: Choices For Legislatures, James Maxeiner

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The legal methods through which one adopts and implements policy decisions profoundly affect the compatibility of policy implementation with democratic legitimacy and legal certainty of the rule of law. Indeed, the choice of legal methods can be as important as the formulation of the policy itself. While a good choice of methods will not heal a bad policy, it can help assure that a less-than-perfect choice of policy can be more forcefully realized than otherwise, it can also help improve the policy choices made and help protect democratic legitimacy and the rule of law. While deficiencies in legislation or in …

The Public Face Of Presumptions, Karen Petroski

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We commonly think of presumptions as second-best inferential tools allowing us to reach conclusions, if we must, under conditions of limited information. Scholarship on the topic across the disciplines has espoused a common conception of presumptions that defines them according to their function within the decisionmaking process. This focus on the “private” face of presumptions has generated a predominantly critical and grudging view of them, perpetuated certain conceptual ambiguities, and, most important, neglected the fact that what we refer to as “presumptions” have distinguishing features other than the defeasibility and burden-shifting effects associated with their use as inferential tools. When …