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Full-Text Articles in Law
Lights! Camera! Law School?: Using Video Interviews To Enhance First Semester Writing Assignments, Ian Gallacher
Lights! Camera! Law School?: Using Video Interviews To Enhance First Semester Writing Assignments, Ian Gallacher
Ian Gallacher
This short article discusses why the Legal Communication and Research program at Syracuse University College of Law has used video interviews between hypothetical clients and attorneys as an alternative to the traditional assignment memo. The article also discusses some of the technical issues related to this approach and suggests some techniques budding producers might use to develop effective and engaging videos to enhance traditional legal writing assignments.
Enigma: A Variation On The Theme Of Legal Writing's Place In Contemporary Legal Education, Ian Gallacher
Enigma: A Variation On The Theme Of Legal Writing's Place In Contemporary Legal Education, Ian Gallacher
Ian Gallacher
No abstract provided.
Erasing Boundaries: Inter-School Collaboration And Its Pedagogical Opportunities, Ian Gallacher, Amy Stein, Robin A. Boyle, David Thomson
Erasing Boundaries: Inter-School Collaboration And Its Pedagogical Opportunities, Ian Gallacher, Amy Stein, Robin A. Boyle, David Thomson
Ian Gallacher
This short article is the product of a presentation the four authors gave at the 2014 AALS Conference in New York City. In it, we briefly examine some of the problems facing legal education and propose that legal writing programs across the country could enhance the quality and complexity of the assignments they set if they worked together. Even though each faculty would teach the problem in their own way, and grade their own students' work, the possibilities offered by this approach would allow each school to simulate more closely the reality of law practice. The article includes some suggestions …
Do Robomemos Dream Of Electric Nouns?: A Search For The Soul Of Legal Writing, Ian Gallacher
Do Robomemos Dream Of Electric Nouns?: A Search For The Soul Of Legal Writing, Ian Gallacher
Ian Gallacher
This essay considers the possibility that computers might soon be capable of writing many of the documents lawyers typically write, and considers what qualities of writing are uniquely human and whether those qualities are sufficient to render human written work superior to computer generated work. After noting that despite the claims of rhetoricians and narrative theorists, not all legal writing is persuasive writing, and that it is in the non-persuasive area of prosaic, functional documents that computer generated documents might gain a bridgehead into the legal market, the essay tracks the development of computer-generated written work, particularly in the areas …
"When Numbers Get Serious": A Study Of Plain English Usage In Briefs Filed Before The New York Court Of Appeals, Ian Gallacher
"When Numbers Get Serious": A Study Of Plain English Usage In Briefs Filed Before The New York Court Of Appeals, Ian Gallacher
Ian Gallacher
This article describes the results of a study of briefs filed in the New York Court of Appeals between 1969 and 2008. In particular, portions of these briefs were analyzed using the Flesch Reading Ease test and the Flesh-Kincaid test. The first of these tests claims to determine how "readable" a piece of text might be, and the second expresses its results in terms of the grade level a hypothetical reader should have attained before the given text becomes "readable." Both of these tests are fallible, especially when used to determine the actual "readability" of a piece of text, but …
The Count's Dilemma, Or, Harmony And Dissonance In Legal Language, Ian Gallacher
The Count's Dilemma, Or, Harmony And Dissonance In Legal Language, Ian Gallacher
Ian Gallacher
Lawyers have had a long, but ambivalent, relationship with metaphor. Viewed by some as a mere literary device, a trick of language that "adds little of substance to an argument," metaphor is seen by others as an essential component of legal language, a rhetorical device inseparable from thought. On one thing, though, all can agree: lawyers only have words to express their thoughts, so they have an obligation to use words, whether used metaphorically or not, as exactly as possible. This article offers a critique of the way lawyers meet this obligation when they use metaphors based in musical language. …
Thinking Like Non-Lawyers: Why Empathy Is A Core Lawyering Skill And Why Legal Education Should Change To Reflect Its Importance, Ian Gallacher
Thinking Like Non-Lawyers: Why Empathy Is A Core Lawyering Skill And Why Legal Education Should Change To Reflect Its Importance, Ian Gallacher
Ian Gallacher
This article is an exploration of some of the issues raised by the recent Carnegie Report on legal education, and contains a recommendation that law schools change the way they teach especially first year law students in order to make them more empathetically aware of the circumstances by which the court opinions they study arose and the effects those opinions will have on others. This recommendation is made not just because it will make students better people, but also because it will make them better lawyers; the article analyses in depth the dangers inherent in an overemphasis on the “logical” …
Mapping The Social Life Of The Law: An Alternative Approach To Legal Research, Ian Gallacher
Mapping The Social Life Of The Law: An Alternative Approach To Legal Research, Ian Gallacher
Ian Gallacher
As the law moves inexorably to a digital publication model in which books no longer play a role, the problem of how to continue to make the law available to all becomes more acute. Open access initiatives already exist, and more are on the way, but all are limited by their inability to provide more than self-indexed search options for their users. Self-indexing, although a powerful alternative to the traditional pre-indexed searching made possible by systems like West’s “Key Number” digests, has inherent limitations which make it a poor choice as the sole means of researching the law. But developing …
'Aux Armes, Citoyens!:' Time For Law Schools To Lead The Movement For Free And Open Access To The Law, Ian Gallacher
'Aux Armes, Citoyens!:' Time For Law Schools To Lead The Movement For Free And Open Access To The Law, Ian Gallacher
Ian Gallacher
This article is a manifesto that outlines the principles of the open access to legal information movement and sounds a call to action for law schools to become leaders in that movement. The article surveys the present legal information environment, reviews the development of computer-assisted legal information and the long-term future of book-based legal research, and discusses the problems inherent in a system where two large “information resource” corporations control access to legal information. After considering the need for open access to the law for pro se litigants, scholars from outside the legal academy, and practicing lawyers, after considering and …
Cite Unseen: How Neutral Citation And America's Law Schools Can Cure Our Strange Devotion To Bibliographical Orthodoxy And The Constriction Of Open And Equal Access To The Law, Ian Gallacher
Ian Gallacher
This article looks at the phenomenon of legal citation and its unintended consequences. After considering the reasons for the American legal system's devotion to precisely accurate and detailed citations and the history of American legal citation, the article looks at the effect the bibliographical orthodoxy promoted by the two leading citation manuals – The Bluebook and the ALWD Manual – has on open access to the law. In particular, the article looks at how the required common law citation format prescribed by both of these manuals helps to consolidate the market position of West and LexisNexis, the duopoly of legal …
"Who Are Those Guys?:" The Results Of A Survey Studying The Information Literacy Of Incoming Law Students, Ian Gallacher
"Who Are Those Guys?:" The Results Of A Survey Studying The Information Literacy Of Incoming Law Students, Ian Gallacher
Ian Gallacher
This article presents the results of a summer 2006 survey of students about to begin their first year of law school. In total, 740 students from seven different law schools responded to the survey. The survey gathered general information from the students, as well as self-evaluative data on student reading, writing, and research habits in an attempt to understand how the students perceive their skills in these crucial areas. The survey data suggest that while there is some positive news to report, incoming law students overestimate their writing and research skills and come to law school inadequately trained in information …
“Forty-Two:” A Hitchhikers Guide To Teaching Legal Research To The Google Generation, Ian Gallacher
“Forty-Two:” A Hitchhikers Guide To Teaching Legal Research To The Google Generation, Ian Gallacher
Ian Gallacher
This article seeks to answer the questions of what students should learn about legal research and who should teach them. It identifies the cultural tension between those who endorse traditional book-based research and those who embrace computer-assisted legal research, looks at the virtues and pitfalls of both approaches, and reflects on some pedagogical strategies the legal research teaching community might adopt in order to help improve law students' ability to conduct effective and efficient legal research.