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Articles 1 - 28 of 28
Full-Text Articles in Law
Checklists: Not Just For Pilots Anymore, Diane B. Kraft
Checklists: Not Just For Pilots Anymore, Diane B. Kraft
Law Faculty Popular Media
In this column for Kentucky Bar Association's magazine (B&B - Bench & Bar), Professor Diane B. Kraft discusses how using checklists can improve an individual's legal writing skills.
"I See And I Remember; I Do And Understand": Teaching Fundamental Structure In Legal Writing Through The Use Of Samples, Judith B. Tracy
"I See And I Remember; I Do And Understand": Teaching Fundamental Structure In Legal Writing Through The Use Of Samples, Judith B. Tracy
Judith B. Tracy
A first-year legal reasoning and writing curriculum is designed to introduce students to the analytical skills and organizational tools needed for the preparation of effective objective and then persuasive documents. This article describes how to use samples to enable students to self-identify a general, logical structure for a document, considering its content, its audience and purpose, and the realities of legal practice.
'The Reasonable Zone Of Right Answers': Analytical Feedback On Student Writing, Jane Kent Gionfriddo
'The Reasonable Zone Of Right Answers': Analytical Feedback On Student Writing, Jane Kent Gionfriddo
Jane Kent Gionfriddo
This article develops the theory behind and practice of written analytical feedback on student writing for law practice. After Section I, which provides an introduction, Section II discusses the theory. It begins by addressing the function of legal writing classes in teaching students how to produce the kind of accurate and precise analysis that is the necessary foundation for documents useful in law practice. The section then goes on to discuss how this focus on analysis requires legal writing teachers to play a dual role—that of a legal educator as well as reader in law practice—in providing written critique of …
A Methodology For Mentoring Writing In Law Practice: Using Textual Clues To Provide Effective And Efficient Feedback, Jane Kent Gionfriddo, Daniel Barnett, E. Joan Blum
A Methodology For Mentoring Writing In Law Practice: Using Textual Clues To Provide Effective And Efficient Feedback, Jane Kent Gionfriddo, Daniel Barnett, E. Joan Blum
E. Joan Blum
Becoming a successful legal writer is a process that begins in law school and continues intensively during the beginning years of a lawyer's career. Throughout this process, in both contexts, a writer benefits enormously from feedback on his analysis, and how that analysis is conveyed, from those more experienced. Much has been written about how legal educators should respond to student written work, yet little addresses the role that supervising attorneys can play in mentoring the writing of less experienced colleagues. This article therefore proposes a methodology to help supervisor-mentors provide, in an efficient manner, effective feedback on junior lawyers' …
Teaching In Practice: Legal Writing Faculty As Expert Writing Consultants To Law Firms, E. Joan Blum, Kathleen E. Vinson
Teaching In Practice: Legal Writing Faculty As Expert Writing Consultants To Law Firms, E. Joan Blum, Kathleen E. Vinson
E. Joan Blum
As experts in the pedagogy and substance of legal writing, full-time legal writing faculty who serve as writing consultants to law firms help fill an increasing need for training and support of lawyers. In addition to providing a direct benefit to lawyers and their firms, this practice benefits the legal academy by providing fresh ideas for teaching and scholarship. This article discusses generally the practice of legal writing consulting in law firms by full-time legal writing faculty. The article provides background in theory and practice, addressing why law firms seek outside consultants for this type of training and support and …
Hitting The Wall As A Legal Writer, Elizabeth Fajans
Hitting The Wall As A Legal Writer, Elizabeth Fajans
Elizabeth Fajans
This article tries to answer a question students frequently ask, but which I often find hard to answer, namely, how they can move from a “B+” or “A-” on a paper to an “A.” Papers at the “B” level or lower have clearly identifiable faults: they lack thoroughness, misstate authority, draw imperfect analogies, make implausible arguments, or contain organizational, grammatical, or citation errors. In contrast, a “B+” or “A-“ paper may make none of these errors; they just lack a certain something, some value-added factor not captured by standard rubrics. Not only are the value-added factors harder to identify and …
Competing Stories: A Case Study Of The Role Of Narrative Reasoning In Judicial Decisions, Kenneth D. Chestek
Competing Stories: A Case Study Of The Role Of Narrative Reasoning In Judicial Decisions, Kenneth D. Chestek
Kenneth D. Chestek
Abstract:
Within minutes after President Obama signed into law the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (derisively referred to by some as the “Obamacare” law), the lawsuits started flying. Literally dozens of suits were filed all across the country. Some were frivolous, but many others raised serious issues of federalism and the reach of Congress’ power under the Commerce Clause.
Of the initial spate of lawsuits, ultimately five were decided by various trial courts on the merits of the Commerce Clause issue. Three judges found the law constitutional, and two others found it unconstitutional. But since the issue is almost …
Reinvigorating The 1l Curriculum: Sequenced "Writing Across The Curriculum" Assignments As The Foundation For Producing Practice-Ready Law Graduates, Alice M. Noble-Allgire, Suzanne J. Schmitz
Reinvigorating The 1l Curriculum: Sequenced "Writing Across The Curriculum" Assignments As The Foundation For Producing Practice-Ready Law Graduates, Alice M. Noble-Allgire, Suzanne J. Schmitz
Alice M. Noble-Allgire
Study after study lists written legal analysis as one of the most critical skills of a lawyer; yet it is often under-developed in the traditional law school curriculum. This article describes an integrative, sequenced “Writing Across the Curriculum” (WAC) program to help first-year law students master legal analysis and writing by systematically developing these skills though writing assignments in doctrinal courses, thereby enhancing the instruction that students receive in the Lawyering Skills course. The article discusses the key components of the program --- writing assignments sequenced to build skills incrementally from simple to complex; prompt and consistent feedback based upon …
Reinvigorating The 1l Curriculum: Sequenced Awriting Across The Curriculum@ Assignments As The Foundation For Producing Practice-Ready Law Graduates, Alice M. Noble-Allgire, Suzanne J. Schmitz
Reinvigorating The 1l Curriculum: Sequenced Awriting Across The Curriculum@ Assignments As The Foundation For Producing Practice-Ready Law Graduates, Alice M. Noble-Allgire, Suzanne J. Schmitz
Alice M. Noble-Allgire
This article describes an integrative, sequenced “Writing Across the Curriculum” (WAC) program to help first-year law students master legal analysis and writing by systematically developing these skills though writing assignments in doctrinal courses, thereby enhancing the instruction that students receive in the Lawyering Skills course. The article discusses the key components of the program --- writing assignments sequenced to build skills incrementally from simple to complex; prompt and consistent feedback based upon a competency model; and transparency in setting forth the professor’s expectations, both in advance of the exercise and in the feedback --- and assesses some of the benefits …
Come A Little Closer So That I Can See You My Pretty: The Use And Limits Of Fiction Point Of View Techniques In Appellate Briefs, Cathren Page
Cathren Page
Come a Little Closer so That I Can See You my Pretty, The Use and Limits of Fiction Point of Techniques in Appellate Briefs began when I was struggling to explain point of view to my students in Appellate Advocacy. They represented a fictional criminal defendant whose bag was searched when the police were executing a premises warrant at his friend’s house. My students scrunched up their faces when I tried to explain why they should not start their facts with the friend’s crime that spurred the search. The crime happened first in time, so to them it came first. …
What Great Writers Can Teach Lawyers And Judges: Precise, Concise, Simple And Clear, Douglas E. Abrams
What Great Writers Can Teach Lawyers And Judges: Precise, Concise, Simple And Clear, Douglas E. Abrams
Faculty Publications
Despite some imperfections across disciplines, advice from well-known fiction and non-fiction writers can serve lawyers and judges well because law, in its essence, is a literary profession heavily dependent on the written word. There are only two types of writing - good writing and bad writing. As poet (and Massachusetts Bar member) Archibald MacLeish recognized, good legal writing is simply good writing about a legal subject. "Lawyers would be better off," said MacLeish, "if they stopped thinking of the language of the law as a different language and realized that the art of writing for legal purposes is in no …
Peer Editing: A Comprehensive Pedagogical Approach To Maximize Assessment Opportunities, Integrate Collaborative Learning, And Achieve Desired Outcomes, Cassandra L. Hill
Peer Editing: A Comprehensive Pedagogical Approach To Maximize Assessment Opportunities, Integrate Collaborative Learning, And Achieve Desired Outcomes, Cassandra L. Hill
Nevada Law Journal
No abstract provided.
Improve Your Legal Writing, Christine C. Pagano
Improve Your Legal Writing, Christine C. Pagano
Publications
Christine Pagano of Golden Gate University School of Law suggests some helpful resources for attorneys wishing to hone their drafting skills.
Law And Economics As A Rhetorical Perspective In Law, Michael D. Murray
Law And Economics As A Rhetorical Perspective In Law, Michael D. Murray
Law Faculty Publications
Law and Economics as a Rhetorical Perspective in Law
Michael D. Murray
Abstract
This article introduces twenty-first century law and economics as a school of contemporary legal rhetoric to test and improve general legal discourse in areas beyond the economic analysis of law. My article is the first to examine the prescriptive implications of the rhetoric of law and economics for general legal discourse as opposed to examining the benefits and limitations of the economic analysis of law itself. This article advances the conversation in two areas: the study and understanding of the persuasiveness of law and economics and the …
The Perils Of Hyperbole, Diane B. Kraft
The Perils Of Hyperbole, Diane B. Kraft
Law Faculty Popular Media
In this column for Kentucky Bar Association's magazine (B&B - Bench & Bar), Professor Diane B. Kraft makes suggestions about avoiding hyperbole in legal writing.
Sea Change: The Seismic Shift In The Legal Profession And How Legal Writing Professors Will Keep Legal Education Afloat In Its Wake, Kirsten A. Dauphinais
Sea Change: The Seismic Shift In The Legal Profession And How Legal Writing Professors Will Keep Legal Education Afloat In Its Wake, Kirsten A. Dauphinais
Kirsten A Dauphinais
2010 found us in the midst of what commentators have called "The Great Recession" and the effects on the legal profession have been profound. Law firms have lost their immunity to recession and industry leaders are concluding that the recession has and will continue to have an enduring impact on the profession, including extensive layoffs, salary decreases, hiring freezes, firm closures, and even deaths. Many observers have predicted that these changes may prove to be permanent, not only because of the magnitude of the economic downturn, but also because the present predicament is only an acceleration of the decline of …
Fixing Students' Fixed Mindsets: Paving The Way To Meaningful Assessment, Carrie Sperling
Fixing Students' Fixed Mindsets: Paving The Way To Meaningful Assessment, Carrie Sperling
Carrie Sperling
Soon every law school in the country will be turning its attention to the important topic of assessment. Responding to a new ABA guideline, schools will be tackling the difficult task of defining, refining, and creating more assessment opportunities for their students. The guideline’s purpose is to improve student learning through more assessment, but nothing in the ABA proposal changes the fact that many of our students fail to react adaptively to feedback. Instead, many students will become hostile, defensive, or despondent and will, therefore, not further develop their competencies.
With the American Bar Association putting emphasis on formative assessment …
Judicial Opinion Writing: An Annotated Bibliography, Ruth C. Vance
Judicial Opinion Writing: An Annotated Bibliography, Ruth C. Vance
Law Faculty Publications
No abstract provided.
Thurgood Marshall: The Writer, Anna Hemingway, Starla J. Williams, Jennifer Lear, Ann Fruth
Thurgood Marshall: The Writer, Anna Hemingway, Starla J. Williams, Jennifer Lear, Ann Fruth
Starla J. Williams
This article profiles Thurgood Marshall as a writer in his roles as an advocate and social activist, a legal scholar and a Supreme Court Justice. It examines the techniques that he used as a writer to inform and persuade his audiences in his life-long endeavor to achieve equality for everyone. This examination of Marshall’s legal, scholarly, and judicial writings can help lawyers, academics, and students increase their knowledge of how the written word profoundly impacts society. The article first studies his arguments and legal strategy in two early civil rights cases, University of Maryland v. Murray and Smith v. Allwright. …
Thurgood Marshall: The Writer, Anna Hemingway, Starla J. Williams, Jennifer Lear, Ann Fruth
Thurgood Marshall: The Writer, Anna Hemingway, Starla J. Williams, Jennifer Lear, Ann Fruth
Jennifer M. Lear
This article profiles Thurgood Marshall as a writer in his roles as an advocate and social activist, a legal scholar and a Supreme Court Justice. It examines the techniques that he used as a writer to inform and persuade his audiences in his life-long endeavor to achieve equality for everyone. This examination of Marshall’s legal, scholarly, and judicial writings can help lawyers, academics, and students increase their knowledge of how the written word profoundly impacts society.
The article first studies his arguments and legal strategy in two early civil rights cases, University of Maryland v. Murray and Smith v. Allwright. …
Thurgood Marshall: The Writer, Anna Hemingway, Starla J. Williams, Jennifer Lear, Ann Fruth
Thurgood Marshall: The Writer, Anna Hemingway, Starla J. Williams, Jennifer Lear, Ann Fruth
Ann E. Fruth
This article profiles Thurgood Marshall as a writer in his roles as an advocate and social activist, a legal scholar and a Supreme Court Justice. It examines the techniques that he used as a writer to inform and persuade his audiences in his life-long endeavor to achieve equality for everyone. This examination of Marshall’s legal, scholarly, and judicial writings can help lawyers, academics, and students increase their knowledge of how the written word profoundly impacts society. The article first studies his arguments and legal strategy in two early civil rights cases, University of Maryland v. Murray and Smith v. Allwright. …
Bridging Gaps And Blurring Lines: Integrating Analysis, Writing, Doctrine, And Theory, Susan J. Hankin
Bridging Gaps And Blurring Lines: Integrating Analysis, Writing, Doctrine, And Theory, Susan J. Hankin
Faculty Scholarship
This article is an outgrowth of the author’s participation in a July 29, 2009 panel presentation, “Change in Legal Education: Practical Skills,” at the Symposium, YES WE CArNegie: Change in Legal Education after the Carnegie Report. The article responds to the Carnegie Report’s call to “bridge the gap between analytical and practical knowledge” by presenting two models for integrating skills with doctrine in the first-year curriculum. The first model, built into the curriculum at the University of Maryland School of Law, involves teaching the first semester Legal Analysis & Writing course by pairing it with another required first-semester course, Torts, …
Do Law Schools Mistreat Women Faculty? Or, Who’S Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?, Dan Subotnik
Do Law Schools Mistreat Women Faculty? Or, Who’S Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?, Dan Subotnik
Scholarly Works
No abstract provided.
Paper Tectonics, Patrick O. Gudridge
The Long And Winding Road: Developing An Online Research Curriculum, Jessica L. Clark, Nicole Evans Harris
The Long And Winding Road: Developing An Online Research Curriculum, Jessica L. Clark, Nicole Evans Harris
GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works
In the realm of online research instruction, electronic research vendors (such as LexisNexis and Westlaw) play various roles in teaching and training law students. Some students take advantage of all free training opportunities, while others ignore even mandatory trainings assigned as supplemental course instruction through a first-year legal writing program. This article details the results of a cooperative initiative among a law professor, a librarian, and the Westlaw and LexisNexis academic account managers, designed to integrate online research instruction into the first-year curriculum. The multiple goals of the initiative included taking advantage of the vendors’ expertise and resources, reinforcing lessons …
Persuasive Legal Writing, Nancy Schultz, Louis Sirico
Persuasive Legal Writing, Nancy Schultz, Louis Sirico
Nancy Schultz
No abstract provided.
When You're The Editor: Editing The Writing Of Other Lawyers Uses Skills Similar To Those Applied In Editing Your Own Writing But Also Requires 'Additional Roles', Anna Hemingway, Jennifer Lear
When You're The Editor: Editing The Writing Of Other Lawyers Uses Skills Similar To Those Applied In Editing Your Own Writing But Also Requires 'Additional Roles', Anna Hemingway, Jennifer Lear
Anna P. Hemingway
Amos Lee's "Street Corner Preacher" Through Michel Foucault's Critique Of Scientific Knowledge: A Critique Of Legal Knowledge, Nick J. Sciullo
Amos Lee's "Street Corner Preacher" Through Michel Foucault's Critique Of Scientific Knowledge: A Critique Of Legal Knowledge, Nick J. Sciullo
Nick J. Sciullo
This article will demonstrate that although students of the law, legal scholars, and practitioners rely on a relatively narrow body of “legal scholarship,” there are in fact sundry diverse sources of legal thought that deserve to be evaluated along with currently accepted legal scholarship. It will present arguments in favor of appreciating music as a unique and important source of legal commentary through which we might understand how people relate to the law—what I have called “coming to the law.” It will demonstrate that music can be uniquely transgressive and presents a powerful alternative to what Michel Foucault called “scientific …