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Full-Text Articles in Law
Tax Law Is An Ideal Subject For Advanced Legal Research, Kincaid C. Brown
Tax Law Is An Ideal Subject For Advanced Legal Research, Kincaid C. Brown
Law Librarian Scholarship
Tax law is an ideal regulatory area for advanced legal research classes when you want to teach a comprehensive research topic putting together all of the various case, regulatory, legislative, and analytical sources that are needed in the real world. Since everyone pays taxes, tax is accessible and a good starting point to expend from the first-year common law focus, especially for those students resistant to regulatory research. Every regulatory area is different in terms of agency practice, resources, and the tools available, but tax law is an ideal example area because the tools used by law firms are great …
Spoiler Alert: When The Supreme Court Ruins Your Brief Problem Mid-Semester, Margaret Hannon
Spoiler Alert: When The Supreme Court Ruins Your Brief Problem Mid-Semester, Margaret Hannon
Articles
Partway through the winter 2019 semester,1 the Supreme Court ruined my favorite summary judgment brief problem while my students were working on it. I had decided to use the problem despite the Court granting cert and knowing it was just a matter of time before the Court issued its decision. In this Article, I share some of the lessons that I learned about the risks involved in using a brief problem based on a pending Supreme Court case. I conclude that, while I have not typically set out to base a problem on a pending Supreme Court case, doing so …
Incorporating Social Justice Into The 1l Legal Writing Course: A Tool For Empowering Students Of Color And Of Historically Marginalized Groups And Improving Learning, Sha-Shana Crichton
Incorporating Social Justice Into The 1l Legal Writing Course: A Tool For Empowering Students Of Color And Of Historically Marginalized Groups And Improving Learning, Sha-Shana Crichton
Michigan Journal of Race and Law
The media reports of police shootings of unarmed Black men and women; unprovoked attacks on innocent Jews, Muslims, religious minority groups, and LGBTQ persons; and current pervasive, divisive, and misogynistic rhetoric all cause fear and anxiety in impacted communities and frustrate other concerned citizens. Law students, and especially law students of color and of historically marginalized groups, are often directly or indirectly impacted by these reports and discrimination in all its iterations. As a result, they are stressed because they are fearful and anxious. Research shows that stress impairs learning and cognition. Research also shows that beneficial changes are made …
Collaboration With Doctrinal Faculty To Introduce Creac, Beth Hirschfelder Wilensky
Collaboration With Doctrinal Faculty To Introduce Creac, Beth Hirschfelder Wilensky
Articles
When legal writing professors introduce CREAC (or IRAC, TREAT, etc.), our examples necessarily use some area of substantive law to demonstrate how the pieces of legal analysis fit together. And when we ask students to try drafting a CREAC analysis, they also have to learn the relevant substantive law first. Students might be asked to analyze whether a worker is an employee or independent contractor or whether the elements of a tort claim are satisfied. But that means that students need to learn the relevant substantive doctrine while they are also grappling with the basics of CREAC. In the language …
Resurrecting (And Modernizing) The Research Treasure Hunt, Nancy E. Vettorello
Resurrecting (And Modernizing) The Research Treasure Hunt, Nancy E. Vettorello
Articles
First-year associates will spend forty-five percent of their time on legal research; second- and third-year associates will spend thirty percent. And unfortunately, employers find their associates’ research skills lacking. This is not a new complaint. Employers have been complaining for more than a hundred years that recent law graduates cannot research well. None of this is lost on those who teach legal research, who have long debated the best way to do so. Techniques for teaching research have changed over time, and methods once thought appropriate were sometimes later disfavored. Changes were driven both by pedagogy and by the ever-changing …
Using Advanced Conflict Waivers To Teach Drafting, Ethics, And Professionalism, Edward R. Becker
Using Advanced Conflict Waivers To Teach Drafting, Ethics, And Professionalism, Edward R. Becker
Articles
On a substantive and ethical level, I tell my students to take on faith that if you were to do all of this and take all this into account, if you were to apply the conflict of interest and the disqualifications rules, it could make it extremely difficult or many of the firms involved in these matters to avoid being conflicted out; especially, if the parties and the kind of firms involved were not dealing with these conflicts and issues until a problem arose. The question I ask my students again at this point is what could be done. What …
Introducing Marijuana Law Into The Legal Writing Curriculum, Howard Bromberg, Mark K. Osbeck
Introducing Marijuana Law Into The Legal Writing Curriculum, Howard Bromberg, Mark K. Osbeck
Articles
Interest in marijuana law continues to grow, due in large part to the complicated and rapidly evolving landscape of marijuana laws in the United States. Nearly every day, newspapers report on new or proposed legislation and the legal controversies that have arisen with regard to this evolving landscape. There are now several marijuana-law blogs on the Internet, Congress is considering sweeping legislation that would essentially grant significant deference to the individual states, and public opinion continues to move in favor of increased legalization. For the last two years, Newsweek magazine has published special editions devoted exclusively to marijuana law and …
Teaching Legal History Through Legal Skills, Howard Bromberg
Teaching Legal History Through Legal Skills, Howard Bromberg
Articles
I revolve my legal history courses around one methodology: teaching legal history by means of legal skills. I draw on my experience teaching legal practice and clinical s.kills courses to assign briefs and oral arguments as a means for law students to immerse themselves in historical topics. Without detracting from other approaches, I frame this innovation as teaching legal history not to budding historians but to budding lawyers.
Transactional Drafting: Using Law Firm Marketing Materials As A Research Resource For Teaching Drafting, Edward R. Becker
Transactional Drafting: Using Law Firm Marketing Materials As A Research Resource For Teaching Drafting, Edward R. Becker
Articles
Since I started teaching drafting, I would like to think that I have continued to learn some lessons about teaching both the substance and the skills of transactional drafting. One of those lessons that I am going to be talking about today is one that I stumbled across by happy accident rather than one that I consciously sought. Specifically, I want to talk about and highlight the ways that law students can use law firm marketing materials to increase their understanding of both drafting and lawyering skills in law school and, hopefully, in practice.
What Is "Good Legal Writing" And Why Does It Matter?, Mark Osbeck
What Is "Good Legal Writing" And Why Does It Matter?, Mark Osbeck
Articles
Law schools face increasing pressure to improve instruction in practice-oriented skills. One of the most important of these skills is legal writing. The existing literature on legal writing contains various rules and suggestions as to how legal writers can improve their writing skills. Yet it lacks an adequate theoretical account of the fundamental nature of good legal writing. As a result, legal writers are left without a solid conceptual framework to ground the individual rules and suggestions. This Article attempts to fill the theoretical void in the literature by offering a systematic analysis of what it is for a legal …
Religious Shunning And The Beam In The Lawyer's Eye, Edward R. Becker
Religious Shunning And The Beam In The Lawyer's Eye, Edward R. Becker
Articles
Some LRW professors design assignments so that students begin learning fundamental legal skills in the context of issues of particular interest to the professor-–what Sue Liemer calls “teaching the law you love.” Recent articles have explained how this might work when applied to such varying matters as multiculturalism or transactional practice. But exposing LRW students to diversity of religious belief does not appear to have found as much traction, at least in the literature. This essay describes one attempt to design a problem that grounds students in just such a larger firmament, while not distracting students (or the professor) from …
Rookie Mistakes To Avoid, Edward R. Becker
Rookie Mistakes To Avoid, Edward R. Becker
Other Publications
I'm Ted Becker from the University of Michigan. My part of today's presentation is to fall on the sword. I say that because my topic is rookie mistakes to avoid. Many of us up here on the panel aren't rookies but I certainly am. I just completed my first semester of teaching transactional drafting so I'm new to the game, and then when it comes to mistakes, oh yes, there's a bunch of them that we can talk about. Because the semester just ended, these missteps are as fresh in my mind as they could possibly be, and I hope …
If I Had A Hammer: Can Shepardizing, Synthesis, And Other Tools Of Legal Writing Help Build Hope For Law Students?, Edward R. Becker
If I Had A Hammer: Can Shepardizing, Synthesis, And Other Tools Of Legal Writing Help Build Hope For Law Students?, Edward R. Becker
Articles
Are lawyers mechanics? In 1920, photographer Lewis Hines took a striking photo of a powerhouse mechanic sure-handedly wielding a large wrench to tighten bolts on a steam pump. This picture may bring to mind many things, but I suspect that many legal writing professors in our (past or present) incarnations as practicing attorneys would not look at this image and think, "My job is a lot like that." Similarly, I assume that many of our students do not think of a lawyer's role in this way. Indeed, many of our students might have chosen to pursue a career in law …
Peking University School Of Transnational Law: A New Venture In International Legal Relations, Howard Bromberg
Peking University School Of Transnational Law: A New Venture In International Legal Relations, Howard Bromberg
Articles
The School of Transnational Law (STL) is largely the work of two men of vision, Hai Wen, Vice-President of Peking University, and Jeffrey Lehman, former Dean of the University of Michigan Law School and President of Cornell University. Both were instrumental members of the Joint Center for China-U.S. Law and Policy Studies Institute (the Joint Center), founded in 2005, whose mission is to “nurture harmony between the Chinese and American legal systems through the dissemination of knowledge.” Hai and Lehman aspired to create a law school that would integrate China’s bold entry into global business and international diplomacy with a …
Using Ethics Codes To Reinforce Lessons Of Statutory Interpretation, Edward R. Becker
Using Ethics Codes To Reinforce Lessons Of Statutory Interpretation, Edward R. Becker
Articles
To increase my students' exposure to statutory interpretation, I assign them early in the second semester to argue a motion to disqualify counsel based on imputed disqualification under Michigan's ethics ruls. Interpreting ethics rules involves many of the same "pure" statutory interpretation techniques I introduced the previous semester, and the students appear to easily make any needed translations. This exercise also helps prepare students to interpret other quasi-legislative authorities like court or evidentiary rules, administrative codes, and municipal ordinances.
Avoiding Common Problems In Using Teaching Assistants: Hard Lessons Learned From Peer Teaching Theory And Experience, Edward R. Becker, Rachel Croskery-Roberts
Avoiding Common Problems In Using Teaching Assistants: Hard Lessons Learned From Peer Teaching Theory And Experience, Edward R. Becker, Rachel Croskery-Roberts
Articles
A majority of American law schools rely on teaching assistants to help administer first-year legal writing, research, and analysis (LWRA) courses. Specifically, surveys jointly conducted by the Association of Legal Writing Directors (ALWD) and the Legal Writing Institute (LWI) consistently detail the extensive use many LWRA professors make of teaching assistants. Likewise, Julie Cheslik recognized in her article about her 1994 survey on the use of TAs in the typical LWRA course that "[o]ne of the most prevalent uses of peer teachers in the law school setting is the employment of upper-level law students as teaching assistants in the first-year …
Selecting And Designing Effective Legal Writing Problems, Grace C. Tonner, Diana Pratt
Selecting And Designing Effective Legal Writing Problems, Grace C. Tonner, Diana Pratt
Articles
Legal research and writing courses are unlike most substantive first year law school classes in that they teach using the problem method. The success of a legal writing course depends on the quality of the problems. The purpose of this article is to provide some guidance for legal writing professors in designing legal writing problems. The article addresses (1) general considerations in problem design, (2) designing expository problems, (3) designing persuasive problems, and (4) sources of problems. In the first section, we discuss problem design as it relates to the overall goals for teaching the basic forms of legal analysis, …
The Anatomy Of A Leading Case: Lawrence V. Fox In The Courts, The Casebooks, And The Commentaries, M. H. Hoeflich, E. Perelmuter
The Anatomy Of A Leading Case: Lawrence V. Fox In The Courts, The Casebooks, And The Commentaries, M. H. Hoeflich, E. Perelmuter
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
In spite of the wide diversity of training, practice, and location of lawyers throughout the United States, virtually all share one experience: the standard core curriculum of the first year of law school taught by the case method. The extent to which that experience in parsing cases in contracts, torts, and property shapes the American legal mentality is open to debate, but it undeniably has an impact. The first-year experience socializes law students in the culture of the law. During this period, students learn the language of the law and the ways that lawyers think. During this period, too, students …
Cases On The Law Of Evidence, Horace L. Wilgus
Cases On The Law Of Evidence, Horace L. Wilgus
Books
A casebook supporting Evidence course in any Law curriculum. The work is arranged in three sections: Part I: Relevancy; Part II, Proof; and Part III, Production and Effect of Evidence. There is further organization into 113 topical Sections as described in the Table of Contents. The author provides no introductory remarks.