Law Commons^™

Symbolic Logic: A Razor-Edged Tool For Drafting And Interpreting Legal Documents, Layman E. Allen

Articles

A large amount of the litigation based on written instruments-whether statute, contract, will, conveyance or regulation-can be traced to the draftsman's failure to convey his meaning clearly. Frequently, of course, certain items may purposely be left ambiguous, but often the question in issue is due to an inadvertent ambiguity that could have been avoided had the draftsman clearly expressed what he intended to say. In this Article it is suggested that a new approach to drafting, using certain elementary notions of symbolic logic, can go a long way towards eliminating such inadvertent ambiguity. This new approach makes available to draftsmen …

The Michigan Law Review: A Survey, John B. Waite

Articles

"The Michigan Law Review was instituted as a means of special education for those seniors in the Law Department who proved themselves particularly capable of profitting[sic] therefrom. It stands also as an extremely valuable service of the Law School to its alumni and to practicing lawyers in general."

Revival Of Moot Courts At Michigan, Herbert F. Goodrich

Articles

"Clubs formed for the purposes of argument of moot cases exist in varying numbers at several of the best law schools in the country. From the students of the Law School at Michigan has come a movement for the establishment of such clubs here...."

Legal Education And Admission To The Bar, Henry M. Bates

Articles

From Conclusions: "We cannot close this report with some general remarks concerning standards of admission to the bar. An examination of the Proceedings of the American and the various state bar associations during the last few years will show a constant expression of dissatisfaction with the comparatively low standards for admission which prevail ..."

Roman Law In Modern Life And Education, Joseph H. Drake

Articles

"This discussion might be entitled, an experiment in classical education and how it failed... It is in a way an Apologia pro Mea Vita Paedagogica. The excess of ego dixi et meus filius respondit in it may, therefore, perhaps be pardoned by a confession at the outset that it is an account of failure on the part of the speaker to solve a troublesome pedagogical question and a very satisfactory solution of the same problem by one of his colleagues in the Latin Department."

Legal Education, Henry M. Bates

Articles

Bates describes the growth of law schools and the changing nature of legal education: "The outstanding fact in legal education in this country during the past twenty-five years is the shift from the law office to the law school as the avenue of approach to the bar.... This increase in the number of institutions teaching law and in the number of students preparing for the bar in this way makes on the whole for improvement, but the ointment is not without its flies..."

Some Observations On Case Law Reporting, John R. Rood

Articles

There is an old tradition, still believed by many lawyers, that these year-books were official reports made by a reporter appointed and paid by the king. If there ever was such a reporter, he is yet to be discovered. No year-books have been found in the treasury of the courts; there is no record of the appointment or payment of any official reporter, through all the two hundred and fifty years covered by the year-books; all the year-books now in the British Museum were found in private hands.2 Is it conceivable that an official reporter would criticize the court and …

The "Law Reports", Nathan Abbott

Articles

The period between the years 1860 and 1870 marks an interesting stage in the history of law reporting. Within this period a system of reporting that had existed for upward of three centuries came to an end, and an experiment was begun whereby it was hoped to produce reports not merely in a new way, but reports that were to be materially different in form and substance from those of the previous system. The conception of the enterprise and its successful accomplishment is due to the energy and discretion of one man, whose history of the affair, after twenty years …

Davey V. Aetna Life Ins. Co., Henry W. Rogers

Articles

Professor Rogers considers a case where a life insurance policy appears to be voided by the use of alcoholic beverages by the insured, to the degree of cause of death. Rogers notes: "In the particular case the court was asked to give the following instruction: Th expression in the policy, 'became so far intemperate as to impair his health,' does not mean habitual intemperance; but an act of intemperance producing the impairment of health is within the condition of the policy, and renders the policy null and void except as therein provided...."

In the Application for Rule to Show Cause …

Sarony V. Burrow-Giles Lithographic Co., Henry W. Rogers

Articles

Commenting in the Federal Reporter on this Opinion, Professor Rogers considers at length this case bearing on definitions of copyright and artistic properties. "This was an action at law for the violation of the plaintiff's copyright of a photograph of Oscar Wilde, which the defendant had copied by the process known as chromo-lithography.... A jury was waived, and the case was argued upon questions of law only, which appear in the opinion."

"The contention of the defendant, briefly stated, is this: That there was no constitutional warrant for this act; that a photographer is not an author, and a photograph …

Detroit Savings Bank V. Zeigler, Henry W. Rogers

Articles

"Such interchanges of assistance between officers of a bank, as temporary need may require, is fairly within the contemplation of the appointment of such an officer, and the sureties on his bond are liable for a default made while he was temporarily filling the place of another officer.

"The receiving teller of the savings department of a bank, while filling the place of the general teller, during the latter's temporary absences, embezzled moneys of the bank: Held, that the sureties on a bond, given by him for so taken."

Coyle V. The Commonwealth, Henry W. Rogers

Articles

"Homicidal mania must be proved, not assumed, nor confounded with reckless frenzy; To instruct, however, that it must be proved by 'clearly preponderating evidence' is error. All the authorities require is that the evidence proving it should 'fairly' preponderate.

"An attempt at suicide is not of itself evidence of insanity, and raises no legal presumption thereof....

"It was clearly proved that Coyle killed Emily Myers. That fact is admitted. The only defence set up is that he was insane at the time."