Law Commons^™

Bringing Light To The Halls Of Shadow, Richard J. Peltz-Steele

Faculty Publications

Appellate judges operate in the shadows. Though they don’t see it that way. “We are judged by what we write,” said U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy. True too, court proceedings and records are presumptively open to the public. The West Wing of the White House is certainly not so vulnerable to public scrutiny, and the backrooms of legislative chambers are famously smoke-filled. Yet the parts of court activity that we see and hear seem only to whet our appetite for the rest of the process. In this Preface, the author introduces the subject of the journalist and the court, …

Suggestions On How To Conduct Empirical Research: A Behind-The-Scenes View, Robin A. Boyle, Joanne Ingham

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

The conference theme of empirical research at the 2006 Association of American Law Schools Annual Meeting, held in Washington,D.C., indicated an interest on the part of doctrinal and skills professors to conduct their own studies. The conference title, Empirical Scholarship:What Should We Study and How Should We Study It?, along with the plentiful workshops on the topic, evidenced the acceptance in the academe of empiricism.As a researcher noted, “Empirical legal scholarship … is arguably the next big thing in legal intellectual thought.”

Assisting legal writing professors with their growing interest in conducting empirical studies, the authors presented at the …

Democracy's Harvest: Resources For Massachusetts Voters' Initiatives And Referendums, Spencer E. Clough

Faculty Publications

Massachusetts initiatives and referendums, based upon a lengthy and complicated constitutional amendment, present legal and historical researchers with a number of questions and issues to resolve. This review of the resources on initiatives and referendums attempts to provide guidance for these researchers, while provoking critical thinking about issues past, present, and future.

Mandarin Chinese: An Annotated Bibliography Of Self-Study Materials, Duncan E. Alford

Faculty Publications

The People’s Republic of China is currently the seventh largest economy in the world and is projected to be the largest economy by 2050. Commensurate with its growing economic power, the PRC is using its political power more frequently on the world stage. As a result of these changes, interest in China and its legal system is growing among attorneys and academics. International law librarians similarly are seeing more researchers interested in China, its laws and economy. The principal language of China, Mandarin Chinese, is considered a difficult language to learn. The Foreign Service Institute has rated Mandarin as “exceptionally …