Law Commons^™

Power Verbs, K.K. Duvivier

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

To make your writing more vivid and efficient, focus attention on your verbs. For those who were not taught the parts of speech in school, the “subject is that part of a sentence about which something is being said,” and the verb “says something about what the subject is [a state of being] or is doing [an action].”

Quotations Part Ii: Block Quotes, K.K. Duvivier

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

The previous column addressed the tendency of legal readers to skip or skim long quotations. To be sure impatient readers do not miss critical points, legal writers can reduce quotations to key words and incorporate those few words into the analysis. Sometimes blocked or indented quotations are helpful.

Quotations Part I: Fundamentals, K.K. Duvivier

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

Legal writing relies heavily on the words of others. The impulse to repeat verbatim the words of applicable authorities is often compelling. While an authority may be integral to your discussion, quoting lengthy passages actually may interfere with your message. This column addresses quotation fundamentals—when and how much to quote.

Letters From Readers, K.K. Duvivier

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

This month’s column features remarks from readers concerning previous columns.

Creating An Expert System For Legislative History Research: Project Clear's 'Lexpert', I. Trotter Hardy

Faculty Publications

Professor Hardy describes techniques that help to automate the creation of Lexpert, an expert system for giving advice about legislative history research.

Misguided Metaphors, K.K. Duvivier

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

Figures of speech, such as the metaphor of the season of spring that President Clinton used in his Inaugural Address, are commonplace in rehtoric. Similarly, such figures have their place in legal writing. Through judicious use of a metaphor, you can provide your readers with a pleasant interlude to the more mundane aspects of. your argument and transform an abstract concept into a powerful visual image.

The Scholar's Workstation Now A Reality! Enhancing Faculty Information Access And Delivery, Claire M. Germain

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Academic Freedom And Political Neutrality In Law Schools: An Essay On Structure And Ideology In Professional Education, J. Peter Byrne

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

My topic for this essay is the role of institutional political neutrality in fostering a vital academic freedom within a law school. It is necessary to explain what this inquiry embraces and why it is a useful entry into our concerns. Traditionally, the political neutrality of the university has been seen as the foundation for the academic freedom of the professoriate. But the media today vibrate with complaints about "political correctness" in legal education, meaning an administrative sponsorship of certain social ideals in a manner that restricts criticism or debate.1 Also, political contention over the shape of legal education has …

Remarks: Annual Banquet Of The University Of Pennsylvania Law Review, Roger J. Miner '56

Law Review Addresses

No abstract provided.

Against The Tyranny Of Paraphrase: Talking Back To Texts, Elizabeth Fajans, Mary R. Falk

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Road Maps, K.K. Duvivier

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

When you write, do your readers know your ultimate destination and how you will get there? Help them trek through your analysis by providing a road map.

Targeted, Direct-Mail Solicitation: Shapero V. Kentucky Bar Association Under Attack, Jeffrey S. Kinsler

Law Faculty Scholarship

Attorneys have been reluctant to take part in advertising and solicitation since the United States Supreme Court specifically allowed their use sixteen years ago. Of those attorneys who have advertised or solicited, most have used the traditional forms of advertising such as television, radio, and print media. Attorneys have been particularly averse to direct-mail solicitation, which may be the most effective form of advertisement. Prior to 1988, the scarcity of attorney solicitation could be explained by the unsettled nature of the governing law. In that year, however, the Supreme Court finally clarified the law regarding targeted, direct mail solicitation by …

Writing Our Lives: Making Introspective Writing A Part Of Legal Education, James R. Elkins

Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Native American Restricted Allotments: A Surviving Spouse's Elective Share Rights, Jeffrey S. Kinsler

Law Faculty Scholarship

Nearly all states have laws that prohibit decedents from disinheriting their spouses. In these states, if a surviving spouse is disinherited, the spouse may renounce the will and elect to take a certain percentage of the decedent's estate. In Oklahoma and Nebraska, for instance, a surviving spouse may elect to take one-half of the decedent's estate in lieu of the devises, if any, made for the surviving spouse in the will. These "elective share" statutes afford long-term financial security for surviving spouses. A century ago, Native Americans acquired real estate by allotment. Under the allotment system, the federal government issued …

The Proper Location Of Party-Depositions Under The Federal Rules Of Civil Procedure, Jeffrey S. Kinsler

Law Faculty Scholarship

Federal Rules of Civil Procedure provide numerous mechanisms for noticing and conducting party-depositions, but they are silent about location. Determining the proper location of party-depositions requires a foray into a confusing, and sometimes inconsistent, line of case law. For instance, some courts hold that the proper location to depose a corporate representative is the judicial district in which the corporation maintains its principal place of business, while others suggest that it is the district in which the suit is pending. This Article clarifies the law concerning the proper location of party-depositions and proposes a hard-and-fast rule for determining the appropriate …

Exposure To Tobacco Smoke Is More Than Offensive, It Is Cruel And Unusual Punishment, Jeffrey S. Kinsler

Law Faculty Scholarship

In McKinney v. Anderson, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals found that compelled exposure to environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) may constitute cruel and unusual punishment. The Fifth, Seventh, and Tenth Circuits, however, have reached the opposite conclusion. The Supreme Court should affirm the Ninth Circuit's ruling in McKinney for two reasons. First, the medical evidence introduced since the Ninth Circuit decided McKinney confirms that court's belief "that the attitude of our society has evolved at least to a point that it violates current standards of decency to expose unwilling prisoners to ETS levels that pose an unreasonable risk of harm …

"Skilling" Time, Peter B. Knapp

Faculty Scholarship

This article describes disagreements about the "MacCrate Report" on skills education for law students, as well as the connections between the Report's recommendations and legal education at William Mitchell College of Law. The final commentary focuses on what William Mitchell can do to further ensure that teaching prepares students for the learning they will have to do when they begin working as lawyers.

Of Legislative Histories And Librarians, Stephen G. Margeton

Scholarly Articles

Professor Margeton outlines the history of federal legislative history research, tracing the achievements of Washington, D.C., area law librarians and the Law Librarians' Society of the District of Columbia in compiling legislative histories, creating cooperative programs, and improving access to congressional materials.

That Obscure Object Of Desire: Hermeneutics And The Autonomous Legal Text, Paul Campos

Publications

No abstract provided.

"Mastering The Lawless Science Of Our Law": A Story Of Legal Citation Indexes, Patti J. Ogden

Journal Articles

Ms. Ogden presents a history of American legal citation indexes, covering early nineteenth-century attempts, the development of modern citator systems by Frank Shepard and others, online citation systems, and the potential for future improvements in an essential tool of legal research.

Advocacy And Scholarship, Paul F. Campos

Publications

The apex of American legal thought is embodied in two types of writings: the federal appellate opinion and the law review article. In this Article, the author criticizes the whole enterprise of doctrinal constitutional law scholarship, using a recent U.S. Supreme Court case and a Harvard Law Review article as quintessential examples of the dominant genre. In a rhetorical tour de force, the author argues that most of modern constitutional scholarship is really advocacy in the guise of scholarship. Such an approach to legal scholarship may have some merit as a strategic move towards a political end; however, it has …

Book Review, Paul Campos

Publications

No abstract provided.

Cataloging Reform: An Overview For Academic Law Librarians, Joseph W. Thomas

Journal Articles

Mr. Thomas explains the issues involved in cataloging reform and suggest methods for streamlining procedures without destroying quality, with particular reference to academic law libraries.

Preface: Academic Freedom And Legal Education, J. Peter Byrne

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Preface to a collection of papers delivered at a conference on Academic Freedom and Legal Education, held at the Tulane University School of Law on April 3 and 4,1992. Speaking or writing about academic freedom propels one from current controversies toward implicit or explicit propositions about the nature and goals of legal education.

Why Do Jury Research?, Richard O. Lempert

Book Chapters

Inside the Juror presents the most interesting and sophisticated work to date on juror decision making from several traditions - social psychology, behavioural decision theory, cognitive psychology, and behavioural modeling. The authors grapple with crucial questions, such as: why do jurors who hear the same evidence and arguments in the courtroom enter the jury room with disagreements about the proper verdict? how do biases and prejudices affect jurors' decisions? and just how 'rational' is the typical juror? As an introduction to the scientific study of juror decision making in criminal trials, Inside the Juror provides a comprehensive and understandable summary …

Some Steps Between Attitudes And Verdicts, Phoebe C. Ellsworth

Book Chapters

Most research that has attempted to predict verdict preferences on the basis of stable juror characteristics, such as attitudes and personality traits, has found that individual differences among jurors are not very useful predictors, accounting for only a small proportion of the variance in verdict choices. Some commentators have therefore concluded that verdicts are overwhelmingly accounted for by "the weight of the evidence," and that differences among jurors have negligible effects. But there is a paradox here: In most cases the weight of the evidence is insufficient to produce firstballot unanimity in the jury (Hans & Vidmar, 1986; Hastie, Penrod, …

Corrective Justice For Moderns, George P. Fletcher

Faculty Scholarship

Once when I was reading a Soviet commentary on criminal procedure, a friend noticed the cyrillic title and asked whether the Russian book was fiction or nonfiction. My initial tendency was to give the straight response, "Nonfiction, of course," but then I thought about what I was reading and began to laugh. Now if someone asked me whether Jules Coleman's Risks and Wrongs was fiction or nonfiction, I would want to give the straight reply. Thinking about the book, however, I hesitate. And I do not laugh.

It is becoming more and more difficult these days to distinguish fiction from …

Throwing Stones At The Mudbank: The Impact Of Scholarship On Administrative Law, Ronald A. Cass, Jack M. Beermann

Faculty Scholarship

The impact of administrative law scholarship on administrative law seems at first blush both a relatively straightforward issue and one that academicians should be especially eager to engage. But there is reason to doubt both propositions. First, any effort to grapple with this topic compels the conclusion that the issue is by no means straightforward. As Peter Strauss recently observed, the question of the influence of administrative law scholarship necessarily becomes as well the influence of active engagement in the practice of administrative law on scholarship.' Moreover, the questions implicated in this assessment cannot be narrowly compassed. The topic requires …

The Supreme Court's Narrow View On Civil Rights, Jack M. Beermann

Faculty Scholarship

The right to choose abortion, although recently significantly curtailed from its original scope,' is a federally protected liberty interest of women, and is at least protected against the imposition of "undue burdens" by state and local government.² Some of the most serious threats to women's ability to choose abortion have come not from government regulation, but from private, national, organized efforts to prevent abortions. In addition to seeking change through the political system, some of these organizations, most notably Operation Rescue, have focused on the providers of abortion, and have attempted to prevent abortions by forcibly closing abortion clinics …

The Mind In The Major American Law School, Lee C. Bollinger

Faculty Scholarship

Legal scholarship is significantly, even qualitatively, different from what it was some two or three decades ago. As with any major change in intellectual thought, this one is composed of several strands. The inclusion in the legal academic community of women and minorities has produced, not surprisingly, a distinctive and at times quite critical body of thought and writing. The emergence of the school of thought known as critical legal studies has renewed and extended the legal realist critique of law of the first half of the century. But more than anything else it is the interdisciplinary movement in legal …