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Full-Text Articles in Law
The Unfulfilled Promise Of Self-Determination In Court-Connected Mediation, Peter Reilly
The Unfulfilled Promise Of Self-Determination In Court-Connected Mediation, Peter Reilly
Faculty Scholarship
In the context of mediation, party self-determination refers to the ability of disputants to have power, control, and autonomy in the process. There are numerous process design questions involved in running a mediation, no matter its subject matter. Consider just one example: “Should the mediation be conducted in-person, or virtually?” The answer to this question can have a profound impact on the direction and course of a mediation, including its outcome. Yet, in the context of court-connected mediation, disputing parties are not consistently provided the opportunity to give input on how such process design questions are resolved. In fact, these …
Legal Clutter: How Concurring Opinions Create Unnecessary Confusion And Encourage Litigation, Meg Penrose
Legal Clutter: How Concurring Opinions Create Unnecessary Confusion And Encourage Litigation, Meg Penrose
Faculty Scholarship
Good judges are clear writers. And clear writers avoid legal clutter. Legal clutter occurs when judges publish multiple individually written opinions that are neither useful nor necessary. This essay argues that concurring opinions are the worst form of legal clutter. Unlike majority opinions, concurring opinions are legal asides, musings of sorts—often by a single judge—that add length and confusion to an opinion often without adding meaningful value. Concurring opinions do not change the outcome of a case. Unlike dissenting opinions, they do not claim disagreement with the ultimate decision. Instead, concurring opinions merely offer an idea or viewpoint that failed …
"They Don't Know What They Don't Know": A Study Of Diversion In Lieu Of Lawyer Discipline, Leslie C. Levin, Susan Saab Fortney
"They Don't Know What They Don't Know": A Study Of Diversion In Lieu Of Lawyer Discipline, Leslie C. Levin, Susan Saab Fortney
Faculty Scholarship
Lawyer misconduct can have devastating consequences for clients. But what is the appropriate regulatory response when lawyers make less serious mistakes? For almost thirty years, jurisdictions have offered some lawyers diversion in lieu of discipline. Diversion is intended to help educate lawyers or treat those with impairments so that they do not reoffend. Yet remarkably little is known about how diversion operates, whether it is used appropriately, and how well it seems to work. This Article addresses these questions. It draws on the limited published data and on interviews with disciplinary regulators in twenty-nine jurisdictions about their use of diversion. …
Latinas In The Legal Academy: Progress And Promise, Raquel E. Aldana, Emile Loza De Siles, Solangel Maldonado, Rachel F. Moran
Latinas In The Legal Academy: Progress And Promise, Raquel E. Aldana, Emile Loza De Siles, Solangel Maldonado, Rachel F. Moran
Faculty Scholarship
The 2022 Inaugural Graciela Oliva ́rez Latinas in the Legal Academy (“GO LILA”) Workshop convened seventy-four outstanding and powerful Latina law professors and professional legal educators (collectively, “Latinas in the legal academy,” or “LILAs”) to document and celebrate our individual and collective journeys and to grow stronger together. In this essay, we, four of the Latina law professors who helped to co-found the GO LILA Workshop, share what we learned about and from each other. We invite other LILAs to join our community and share their stories and journeys. We hope that the data and lessons that we share can …
Reconceiving Argument Schemes As Descriptive And Practically Normative, Brian N. Larson, David Seth Morrison
Reconceiving Argument Schemes As Descriptive And Practically Normative, Brian N. Larson, David Seth Morrison
Faculty Scholarship
We propose a revised definition of “argument scheme” that focuses on describing argumentative performances and normative assessments that occur within an argumentative context, the social context in which the scheme arises. Our premise-and-conclusion structure identifies the typical instantiation of an argument in the argumentative context, and our critical framework describes a set of normative assessments available to participants in the context, what we call practically normative assessments. We distinguish this practical normativity from the rationally or universally normative assessment that might be imposed from outside the argumentative context. Thus, the practical norms represented in an argument scheme may still be …
Centering Students’ Rhetorical Knowledge: The Community Of Inquiry As Formative Assessment, Brian N. Larson
Centering Students’ Rhetorical Knowledge: The Community Of Inquiry As Formative Assessment, Brian N. Larson
Faculty Scholarship
This essay describes an approach to peer review and classroom workshopping intended to develop a community of inquiry in the first-year law school classroom, center students’ own rhetorical knowledge, and establish the authority of students—especially minoritized students—as rhetorical agents. The technique described in this essay works from the presumption that each student who comes to law school comes with rich rhetorical experience. In other words, they have extensive experience constructing discourse suited to certain audiences and certain contexts. They use a variety of tools to construct such discourse, including linguistic registers (or styles) and rhetorical genres (such as the academic …
Trauma-Informed (As A Matter Of) Course, Natalie Netzel
Trauma-Informed (As A Matter Of) Course, Natalie Netzel
Faculty Scholarship
Law students are impacted by trauma and law professors are in a position to help by adopting a trauma-informed approach as a matter of universal precaution. The 2021 Survey of Law Student Well-Being (“SLSWB”) revealed that over twenty percent of responding law students meet criteria that indicate they should be evaluated for post-traumatic stress disorder (“PTSD”). The study also revealed that almost fifty percent of responding students reported an important motivation for attending law school was experiencing a trauma or injustice. Put differently, law schools are full of law students who have experienced trauma, many of whom are actively struggling …
Shortlisted: A Conversation Between Judge Diane Wood, Renee Knake Jefferson, And Hannah Brenner Johnson, Renee Newman Jefferson, Hannah Brenner Johnson, Diane P. Wood
Shortlisted: A Conversation Between Judge Diane Wood, Renee Knake Jefferson, And Hannah Brenner Johnson, Renee Newman Jefferson, Hannah Brenner Johnson, Diane P. Wood
Faculty Scholarship
This article includes an edited excerpt from the introduction to Shortlisted: Women in the Shadows of the Supreme Court and a discussion with the book's authors led by Judge Diane Wood, a senior judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. They discuss the book, the women who were passed over for seats on the Court, and the lessons their stories offer — for women judges and the legal profession as a whole.
Unmasking Aall’S Idea Special Committee: A Closer Look At The Committee’S Process For Creating Aall’S New Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Policy, Ronald E. Wheeler
Unmasking Aall’S Idea Special Committee: A Closer Look At The Committee’S Process For Creating Aall’S New Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Policy, Ronald E. Wheeler
Faculty Scholarship
The goal of this column is to describe the process used by the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) Inclusion, Diversity, and Equity Awareness (IDEA) Special Committee, which provided the foundation and resources for AALL to create the new Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Policy. The committee, initially appointed and charged by the 2020 AALL President Emily R. Florio, began meeting in 2020, and started its work with discussions aimed at defining and narrowing the scope of its charge and finding consensus on what we were setting out to accomplish. During this initial stage, our discussions helped us find commonality to …