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Full-Text Articles in Law
Shot Selection, Patrick Barry
Shot Selection, Patrick Barry
Articles
One of the more common pieces of writing advice in our post-Hemingway world is to keep sentences short. Experts on legal writing are particularly fond of this Position — and for good reason. Few judges look at the sentences that appear in briefs, memos, statutes, and contracts and say, "You know what each of those could use? More words." Professor Noah Messing does a particularly good job making the case for short sentences. Brevity, he explains, "reduces the risk that your writing will confuse or irk readers," especially given that "empirical studies show that writing verbosely makes writers sound dumber …
Paragraphing, Patrick Barry
Paragraphing, Patrick Barry
Articles
Consider treating the word paragraph as a verb. Think of it as something you can do well or poorly, with major consequences for your readers. Good paragraphers, for example, help readers. They make it easy to navigate and absorb information. They don’t flit around, hastily moving on to the next point before fully supporting their first. Nor do they get stuck for too long in one place. Instead, they give a lot of thought not just to the ideas but also to their arrangement—their shape, their balance, their pace.
Sites Of Storytelling: Supreme Court Confirmation Hearings, Patrick Barry
Sites Of Storytelling: Supreme Court Confirmation Hearings, Patrick Barry
Articles
Supreme Court confirmation hearings have an interesting biographical feature: before nominees even say a word, many words are said about them. This feature— which has been on prominent display in the confirmation hearings of Judge Brett Kavanaugh—is a product of how each senator on the confirmation committee is allowed to make an opening statement. Some of these statements are, as Robert Bork remembers from his own confirmation hearing, “lavish in their praise,” some are “lavish in their denunciations,” and some are “lavish in their equivocations.”1 The result is a disorienting kind of biography by committee, one which produces not one …
What We Still Don't Know About What Persuades Judges – And Some Ways We Might Find Out, Edward R. Becker
What We Still Don't Know About What Persuades Judges – And Some Ways We Might Find Out, Edward R. Becker
Articles
Over 25 years ago, in his foreword to the first volume of Legal Writing, Chris Rideout nailed it: legal writing as actually practiced by lawyers and judges needs to improve, “[b]ut more fundamental inquiry into legal writing...is needed as well.” The intervening decades have seen many laudable efforts on the latter front, as our collective scholarly discipline, then in its infancy, has matured. But one particular question that Rideout identified remains largely unaddressed by our discipline, although recent developments suggest a welcome increase in attention to the topic. Specifically, Rideout explained that our field did not know as much as …
Editing And Empathy, Patrick Barry
Editing And Empathy, Patrick Barry
Articles
Design begins with empathy.” I recently wrote that on the board during a class for students in the Child Welfare Appellate Clinic at the University of Michigan Law School. I thought it might help them write better briefs. I got the idea from Ilse Crawford, whose work as an interior designer can be seen all over the world—from airport lounges in Hong Kong, to fancy restaurants in London, to pear-shaped stools at IKEA. In Crawford’s view, “empathy is a cornerstone of design.”1 She thinks it is important to understand the spaces and products she creates from the perspective of the …
Emojis And The Law, Eric Goldman
Emojis And The Law, Eric Goldman
Faculty Publications
Emojis are an increasingly important way we express ourselves. Though emojis may be cute and fun, their usage can lead to misunderstandings with significant legal stakes—such as whether someone should be obligated by contract, liable for sexual harassment, or sent to jail.
Our legal system has substantial experience interpreting new forms of content, so it should be equipped to handle emojis. Nevertheless, some special attributes of emojis create extra interpretative challenges. This Article identifies those attributes and proposes how courts should handle them.
One particularly troublesome interpretative challenge arises from the different ways platforms depict emojis that are nominally standardized …
Legal Education En Español: A Pedagogical Model, Jayesh Rathod
Legal Education En Español: A Pedagogical Model, Jayesh Rathod
Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals
Law schools in the United States are pursuing various strategies to prepare their graduates to compete in a global marketplace for jobs. One such strategy is the development of courses and programs designed to equip law graduates with the knowledge and skills needed to serve as effective bilingual advocates. As part of this effort, in recent years, teachers and scholars have engaged in curricular experimentation and ongoing theorizing about the optimal methods and approaches for bilingual legal education. This essay builds upon existing theoretical work and outlines a unique, bilingual instructional model that involves adding an optional credit hour – …
The Role Of Input And Interaction In The Acquisition Of Chinese As A Second Language, Xiaoping Gao
The Role Of Input And Interaction In The Acquisition Of Chinese As A Second Language, Xiaoping Gao
Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)
Input and interaction have received great attention in second language research due to their dominant role in second language teaching and learning. However, empirical studies that have examined their effects on the acquisition of Chinese as a second language remain scarce. This study fills this gap by comparing the effects of teacher-student interaction and student-student interaction on vocabulary acquisition in Chinese as a second language. Thirty-six adult beginners of Chinese completed ten weeks' study in Australia, in addition to pre- and post- tests and a background questionnaire. Selected participants attended a focus group interview. Statistical analyses show that both types …
Language Use And Language Attitudes In New Caledonia With Particular Reference To French Creole Tayo, Anu Bissoonauth-Bedford
Language Use And Language Attitudes In New Caledonia With Particular Reference To French Creole Tayo, Anu Bissoonauth-Bedford
Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)
New Caledonia has an unusual language dynamic in comparison to other French overseas territories. In most of these islands, a French Creole is usually the lingua franca and has a lower status than French. In contrast, in New Caledonia the French Creole, called Tayo, is a minority language and comes in contact with French, English and 28 Indigenous languages (also called Kanak languages). The 2014 census population revealed a multi-ethnic and multicultural NewCaledonian population. It did not, however, record the rate of multilingualism in speakers. Results from a recent sociolinguistic study on patterns of language use and language attitudes revealed …