Law Commons^™

Oh, The Treatise!, Richard A. Danner

Faculty Scholarship

This foreword to the Michigan Law Review’s 2013 Survey of Books Related to the Law considers the history of the American legal treatise in light of the well-known criticisms of legal scholarship published by Judge Harry Edwards in 1992. As part of his critique, Edwards characterized the legal treatise as “[t]he paradigm of ‘practical’ legal scholarship.” In his words, treatises “create an interpretive framework; categorize the mass of legal authorities in terms of this framework; interpret closely the various authoritative texts within each category; and thereby demonstrate for judges or practitioners what ‘the law’ requires.” Part I examines the origins …

Open Access To Legal Scholarship: Dropping The Barriers To Discourse And Dialogue, Richard A. Danner

Faculty Scholarship

This article focuses on the importance of free and open access to legal scholarship and commentary on the law. It argues that full understanding of authoritative legal texts requires access to informed commentary as well as to the texts of the law themselves, and that free and open access to legal commentary will facilitate cross-border dialogue and foster international discourse in law. The paper discusses the obligations of scholars and publishers of legal commentary to make their work as widely accessible as possible. Examples of institutional and disciplinary repositories for legal scholarship are presented, as are the possible impacts of …

Becoming A Legal Scholar, Samuel W. Buell

Faculty Scholarship

There is now a literature on how to become a law professor. The first book-length treatment of the subject, Becoming A Law Professor, displays a common fault of this literature in directing candidates’ focus on process at the expense of substance. The present body of material on the market for new legal academics does not persuade candidates of the necessity of locating their agendas and voices as scholars, much less does it show them how to go about that vital search. It also risks contributing to a tendency of credentialing processes to standardize resumes without improving outcomes. A second-generation literature …

Feminist Legal Scholarship: A History Through The Lens Of The California Law Review, Katharine T. Bartlett

Faculty Scholarship

This Essay describes the evolution of feminist legal scholarship, using six articles published by the California Law Review as exemplars. This short history provides a window on the most important contributions of feminist scholarship to understandings about gender and law. It explores alternative formulations of equality, and the competing assumptions, ideals, and implications of these formulations. It describes frameworks of thought intended to compensate for the limitations of equality doctrine, including critical legal feminism, different voice theory, and nonsubordination theory, and the relationships between these frameworks. Finally, it identifies feminist legal scholarship that has crossed the disciplinary bound-aries of law. …

The Durham Statement Two Years Later: Open Access In The Law School Journal Environment, Richard A. Danner, Kelly Leong, Wayne V. Miller

Faculty Scholarship

The Durham Statement on Open Access to Legal Scholarship, drafted by a group of academic law library directors, was promulgated in February 2009. It calls for two things: (1) open access publication of law school–published journals; and (2) an end to print publication of law journals, coupled with a commitment to keeping the electronic versions available in “stable, open, digital formats.” The two years since the Statement was issued have seen increased publication of law journals in openly available electronic formats, but little movement toward all-electronic publication. This article discusses the issues raised by the Durham Statement, the current state …

A Foxy Hedgehog: The Consistent Perceptions Of Carol Rose, Jedediah Purdy

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Supporting Scholarship: Thoughts On The Role Of The Academic Law Librarian, Richard A. Danner

Faculty Scholarship

Discussing the role of the law library in legal education is necessary and essential, both because of the demands libraries place on increasingly tight law school budgets and space, and the challenges that libraries face as the information they collect and organize has moved largely from print to digital formats. This paper explores the roles of academic law librarians in supporting faculty scholarship within the context of the forces affecting libraries, librarians, and legal education in the (still early) twenty-first century. Although it has been more than 30 years since the widespread adoption of the legal research databases in the …

The Humanity Of Law, H. Jefferson Powell

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Beware The ‘Monological Imperatives’: Scholarly Writing For The Reader, Joan A. Magat

Faculty Scholarship

This article describes principles of effective academic writing - offered not as edicts, but as guidelines - for legal scholars in particular. The overall focus is style, but the discussion begins with observations of format. These are followed by a few stylistic principles that govern clear and effective writing. None of these principles is a revelation to the student of method or to the accomplished writer. But for the academic writer less focused on or less familiar with such principles, being aware of and practicing them can clear the fog from syntax, illuminate the writer's thesis and its development, and …

Depriving Law Reform Of Its Potential? New Perspectives On The Public-Private Divide Law Commission Of Canada, Ed. (Vancouver: University Of British Columbia Press, 2003), Richard Devlin Frsc

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

New Perspectives on the Public-Private Divide is the second installment in a new series, Legal Dimensions, sponsored by the Canadian Association of Law Teachers, the Canadian Law and Society Association, the Canadian Council of Law Deans and the Law Commission of Canada. The ambitions of this series are large: to "examine various issues of law reform form a multidisciplinary perspective [and]... to advance our knowledge about law and society through the analysis of fundamental aspects of law."

The focus on the public-private divide is an excellent choice for the Legal Dimensions Series for no matter how one conceptualizes the relationship, …

Deans And Stories, William Michael Treanor

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Professor Howard Gardner's superb book Leading Minds is a study of leadership that, while prominent in the discipline of education, has received relatively little attention in the legal literature. Leading Minds thoughtfully argues that effective story-telling is critical to effective leadership. In this essay, the author explores in a very preliminary way the relationship between Gardner's thesis and what deans do or should do in order to lead their law schools and, more broadly, the different constituencies they represent.

In his group of 11 leaders, Gardner includes an academic leader--Robert Maynard Hutchins, who was dean of Yale Law School and …

Introduction: Favorite Insurance Cases Symposium, Jeffrey W. Stempel

Scholarly Works

Insurance law scholars and teachers sometimes feel, with a mixture of paranoia and justification, that insurance law simply does not receive its proper respect in the hierarchy of legal education and law generally.

Consider the law school curriculum. In none of America’s nearly 200 ABA-approved law schools in insurance law a required course. Nor is it considered a course that, although not required, prudent students “must” be sure to take before they graduate (e.g. Evidence, Corporations). Enrollments may be respectable but the class is seldom oversubscribed, even where the law school is located in an insurance hub city. Although other …

Statutory Interpretation In The Courtroom, The Classroom, And Canadian Legal Literature, Stephen F. Ross

Journal Articles

In recent years, judges and scholars in Canada and the United States are devoting more attention to the theory and techniques involved in statutory interpretation. Although some advocate "foundational" theories to answer all theories of interpretation, most difficult cases require a pragmatic approach that requires analysis of the statutory text, original legislative intent, and legislative purpose in light of modern circumstances. Moreover, the most difficult cases may not be answerable by any of these approaches. In difficult cases, judges often resort to "normative canons" - rules they created to further a jurisprudence they desire. These canons need to be closely …

The Joseph And Edythe Jackier Rare Book Room: The Invention Of Printing And The Common Law Tradition, A. W. Brian Simpson

Law Library Publications

An account of the books included in the dedicatory exhibit at the Joseph and Edythe Jackier Rare Book Room, April 14 1996.

Voice, Perspective, Truth, And Justice: Race And The Mountain In The Legal Academy, Jerome Mccristal Culp Jr.

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

You Can Take Them To Water But You Can’T Make Them Drink: Black Legal Scholarship And White Legal Scholars, Jerome Mccristal Culp Jr.

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Introduction, Bernard D. Reams Jr.

Faculty Articles

The law of immigration and nationality is becoming an increasingly important topic in legal literature. This introductory volume of Immigration and Nationality Law Review represents an attempt to provide a centralized annual forum for the leading articles in this area of American law. Normally, leading legal periodical articles on the subjects of immigration, nationality, and alienage, are spread throughout various law journals. At best, materials germane to this subject have occasionally appeared in special law review issues or symposium volumes published by various American law schools. However, considering the growing relevance and concerns of immigration and nationality in the United …

Review Of Encyclopedia Of Soviet Law, Whitmore Gray

Reviews

The publication of this work is an occasion for real celebration. At last there is a standard reference book to which both initiated scholar and interested neophyte can turn for an excellent introduction to almost any point of Soviet law. Professor F.J.M. Feldbrugge of the University of Leiden and his collaborators have produced a volume which will surely serve as the point of initial reference and departure for all subsequent scholarship on Soviet law.

Western Legal Treatises In Russian Translations, Jurij Fedynskyj

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Scholarship On Soviet Family Law In Perspective, Whitmore Gray

Articles

The radical changes in the norms of Soviet family law over the past fifty years have reflected the convulsions of Soviet society as well as the revisions of Marxism-Leninism-Stalinism. This paper is a commentary on the writing in this field by Americans in particular, and by other non-Soviets in general. In view of the volume of writing in this field, it has been necessary to limit discussion in the text to a few representative articles illustrating a few of the subject matters treated and various typical approaches employed. The topic is a particularly timely one, for new, comprehensive Principles of …

Review Of A Bibliography On Foreign And Comparative Law, Whitmore Gray

Reviews

This volume is a most welcome addition to the author's first compilation of English language materials on this subject which covered the period to 1953. The present volume includes books and articles from April 1, 1953 through 1959 and a few articles of special importance after that date. It also includes a few earlier items not included in the first volume.

Some Basic Questions Regarding Legal Classification For Professional And Scientific Purposes, Jerome Hall

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.