Law Commons^™

Going On A “Which” Hunt, K.K. Duvivier

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

KK: Here's a question that/which I've wondered about for some time. What is the proper use of the words "that"and "which"? I understand their use in the context of "Which car is yours?"and "It's that red one."However which word is proper in my first sentence and how do I know when to use one or the other?

Legal Writing And Academic Support: Timing Is Everything, Dionne L. Koller

All Faculty Scholarship

The conventional wisdom is that legal writing and academic support go hand-in-hand. Most law schools assume that struggling students can be reliably identified for academic support through their first-year legal writing course, and that first-year legal writing instructors can fairly easily and effectively provide this support. Indeed, this is the prevailing view in current academic support and legal writing scholarship. Professor Koller's article challenges the conventional wisdom and instead points out several issues that should be considered if a law school relies on the first-year legal writing course as a component of, or in lieu of, an academic support program. …

All For One: Subject-Verb Agreement For Compounds And Collective Subjects, K.K. Duvivier

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

I missed the memo that changed noun-verb agreement on nouns formerly defined as singular i.e. "staff," meaning more than one person, as in "the staff are." When did it change from "the staff is"? Who decided on this change, and why wasn't I notified? I'm making light of this issue, but I'm perplexed. PS. Grammar check didn't get the memo either District Judge Marilyn Leonard.

"In A Case, In A Book, They Will Not Take A Second Look!" Critical Reading In The Legal Writing Classroom, Debra Curtis, Judith Karp

Faculty Scholarship

This article is based on a presentation that was first assembled for the Southeastern Regional Legal Writing Conference in September 2003. The theme of that conference was "The Basics and Beyond: Building Solid Skills on Flawed Foundations." As legal writing professions with nine years of teaching experience between us, we immediately honed in on "reading" as a core lawyering skill--though it is the one that seemed most flawed in the first-year legal writing class. We determined that case analysis, statute analysis, synthesis, and application were not possible unless students critically read the material with which they were working. Many students …

You've Got Rhythm: Curriculum Planning And Teaching Rhythm At Work In The Legal Writing Classroom, Debra Curtis

Faculty Scholarship

With increased frequency, attention is being given to the methods and style of teaching the law, and to the educational knowledge of law teachers necessary for their development. While teachers in many other areas of higher education are required to take credit hours in education courses, that requirement or focus on pedagogy itself has not yet fully spilled over to legal education professionals. In addition, although law professions, have been encouraged to think and learn about the law, they generally have long since accepted the Socratic method as a primary method of teaching. Recently information about students' learning styles, and …

The Ten Commandments As Secular Historic Artifact Or Sacred Religious Text: Using Modrovich V. Allegheny County To Illustrate How Words Create Reality, Ann N. Sinsheimer

Articles

In his essay, The 'Ideograph: A Link Between Rhetoric and Ideology', Michael Calvin McGee proposes that our system of beliefs is shaped through and expressed by words. We are consciously and unconsciously conditioned and controlled by the words we hear and use. Words carry ideology and convey and create meaning. Like Chinese characters, words are 'ideographs that 'signify' and 'contain' a unique ideological commitment', that is frequently unquestioned. McGee also suggests that by understanding that a single word can carry ideology and that ideology can be expressed in a single word, we are better able to expose and evaluate ideology …

Legal Writing And Academic Support: Timing Is Everything, Dionne L. Koller

Cleveland State Law Review

Part I of this essay briefly explores the relationship between academic support and legal writing as it exists in many law schools today. Part II will outline the academic support program at Maryland to give context to the observations presented in this article. Part III will present some of the negative aspects of legal writing courses as they relate to the academic support mission of a law school. Finally, Part IV will describe how a legal writing course can avoid the negatives and be an effective vehicle to deliver more advanced academic support after the first year.

When Flyspecks Matter—Part Ii, K.K. Duvivier

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

Most of my columns advise legal writers; this one also aims to change the perspective of a legal reader. The September 2004 column addressed some of the issues raised by a British best- seller on punctuation called Eats, Shoots & Leaves. The author, Lynne Truss, attempts to make a case for "sticklers" who "refuse to patronize any shop with checkouts for 'eight items or less'" or who have urges to "shin up ladders at dead of night with an apostrophe-shaped stencil and a tin of paint" to correct advertisements. To her, punctuation errors are "signs of ignorance and indifference."

Legal Writing And Academic Support: Timing Is Everything, Dionne L. Koller

Faculty Scholarship

The conventional wisdom is that legal writing and academic support go hand-in-hand. Most law schools assume that struggling students can be reliably identified for academic support through their first-year legal writing course, and that first-year legal writing instructors can fairly easily and effectively provide this support. Indeed, this is the prevailing view in current academic support and legal writing scholarship. Professor Koller's article challenges the conventional wisdom and instead points out several issues that should be considered if a law school relies on the first-year legal writing course as a component of, or in lieu of, an academic support program. …

Painting With Print: Incorporating Concepts Of Typographic And Layout Design Into The Text Of Legal Writing Documents, Ruth Anne Robbins

Ruth Anne Robbins

This article looks at the science behind what makes words readable and legible. It suggests that lawyers should be strategizing the look of the document itself as a persuasive technique. The article also contains suggetsed optimal layouts and looks at court rules around the country to determine whether lawyers can actually accomplish the visual persuasion in a particular jurisdiction (New Jersey lawyers are out of luck beyond the trial level courts). The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals has the article linked from its homepage. www.ca7.uscourts.gov

When Flyspecks Matter—Part I, K.K. Duvivier

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

Thus, instead of reinforcing the author's premise, the panda story may illustrate the weakness of assertions that most punctuation significantly controls meaning.

The Reference Brief, K.K. Duvivier

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

Judges read briefs looking for guidance from the parties about the correct law and the proper resolution of a case. Although it would be nice to assume that all of the briefs provide this guidance, many do not. Some briefs are unclear and contain obvious format and substantive errors. Consequently, in sifting through the submissions for a case, the judges and their clerks often learn more heavily on one party's brief over another as a starting point for their analysis.

Reputation, K.K. Duvivier

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

Whenever you send our a piece of paper or, nowadays, an email, your reputation flutters or flickers on the words you write. Perhaps you have an engaging presence or you are a crack litigator in the courtroom. Perhaps your tech department can help you use multimedia to make innovative presentations. Still, ninety percent of what lawyers do is writing. Be vigilant about what your writing is saying to others about you.

Alwd Citation Manual: A Grammar Guide To The Language Of Legal Citation, Jennifer L. Cordle

University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review

No abstract provided.

Verb-Based Writing, K.K. Duvivier

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

A colleague, who has devoted most of his career to legal writing, has developed an excellent solution. In a recent talk at the University of Denver College of Law, C. Edward Good, author and "writer in residence" at a law firm, delivered a one-hour talk teaching our students that the most efficient way to improve writing is by developing "verb-based style."

Vulcan Mind Melds And Picture Windows, K.K. Duvivier

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

Because our words can both facilitate and block communication, they are much like glass in a windowpane. Just as a window helps us see outside, the words can help our readers see our analysis. But first, we must eliminate three main obstructions to the view : 1) mechanical erros, 2) complex wording, and 3) literary devices.

Damages As Narrative, Melody Richardson Daily

Faculty Publications

The traditional approach to legal instruction in America-the casebook method-requires students to read hundreds of appellate decisions, most of which include equally terse accounts of human suffering. How might this pedagogical approach affect future lawyers? Can reading a book like Damages help law students develop the ability to empathize with their clients?

Rhetoric, Advocacy And Ethics: Reflections On Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, Stephen A. Newman

Articles & Chapters

The rhetorical skill necessary to speaking and writing persuasively may be studied with great profit by exploring realms of knowledge far from the courtroom and the law office. Literature naturally comes to mind as a rich resource for the study of persuasion. For this essay, I have chosen a well-known set of speeches that appear in William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar to illustrate various aspects of persuasion.

In the play's most riveting scene, Marcus Brutus and Mark Antony speak before a crowd of Romans, giving their opposing views of the assassination of Caesar. Brutus claims justification for his and his co-conspirators' …

Meaning What You Say, James Boyd White

Book Chapters

In this essay I talk about a wide range of themes in the hope of establishing a connection among them: writing (including the teaching of writing) and what is at stake, for the writer and the rest of the world, in doing it well or badly; certain forces in our culture-hard to define and understandthat tend to reduce or trivialize human experience, indeed the very value of the human being; the conception of the human being, not trivial at all, that underlies our practices of self-government in general and constitutional democracy in particular; and the idea of justice at work, …

How To Improve Student Ratings: Views From The Trenches, Judith D. Fischer

Judith D. Fischer

This article reports a study about student ratings of professors (sometimes called “student evaluations of teaching”). Survey respondents were teachers of legal writing in U.S. law schools. Their advice about improving teaching included being prepared for class, respecting the students, and caring about the students. Advice tailored specifically to the student ratings included being “upbeat,” not giving grades before the students complete the evaluation forms, and laying groundwork before presenting unpopular topics. The article also references biases and negative effects of student ratings.

The Lawyer As Legal Scholar, Michael J. Madison

Michael J. Madison

I review Eugene Volokh's recent book, Academic Legal Writing. The book is nominally directed to law students and those who teach them (and for those audiences, it is outstanding), but it also contains a number of valuable lessons for published scholars. The book is more than a writing manual, however. I argue that Professor Volokh suggests implicitly that scholarship is underappreciated as a dimension of the legal profession. A well-trained lawyer, in other words, should have experience as a scholar. The argument sheds new light on ongoing discussions about the character of law schools.

Lawmanac-Another Tool For The Shed Or Your Computer Desktop, K.K. Duvivier

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

This column addresses another recently released tool to help legal writers: Lawmanac. Lawmanac is not a book; it is software you load onto your computer hard drive to provide "click- able help for legal writers." Lawmanac includes seven types of "clickable help": (1) a 4,700-word legal dictionary; (2) a list of 2,800 abbreviations of legal sources, with website links; (3) tables for state and federal authorities, with website links; (4) advice on punctuation, capitalization, and typeface conventions; (5) a twenty-lesson course for learning and perfecting legal citation style and form; (6) lists of examples illustrating proper punctuation and form for …

Nothing New Under The Sun-Plagiarism In Practice, K.K. Duvivier

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

The word "plagiarism" comes from the Ltin word "plagiariius," meaning kidnapper, and has been defined as the "purloining of ideas or language from another source. Some law schools have strict tests: if students borrow a unique phrase of two or three words, a string of seven words or more, or a single idea, these students may be guilty of plagiarism.

White Space-The Sequel, K.K. Duvivier

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

Just as an artist must be conscious of the "negative space" surrounding a form, a legal writer should be aware of the white areas on a page of prose, the space between and around the words.

Questions From Readers: Redbook Responses-Part Ii, K.K. Duvivier

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

After the last "Scrivener" article, I received several questions from readers about capitalization, so this entire column will address capitalization concerns.

The Professional In Legal Education: Foreign Perspectives, James Maxeiner

All Faculty Scholarship

Japan is about to change its system of legal education. In April 2004 Japan will introduce law schools. Law schools are to occupy an intermediary place between the present undergraduate faculties of law and the national Legal Training and Research Institute. The law faculties are to continue to offer general undergraduate education in law, while the law schools in combination with the national Institute are to provide professional legal education. A principal goal of the change is to produce more lawyers. Law schools are charged with providing "practical education especially for fostering legal professionals." But just what is professional legal …

Generation X In Law School: The Dying Of The Light Or The Dawn Of A New Day, Tracy L. Mcgaugh

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

(Un)Examined Assumptions And (Un)Intended Messages: Teaching Students To Recognize Bias In Legal Analysis And Language , Lorraine Bannai, Anne Enquist

Seattle University Law Review

This article discusses how law school, specifically through legal writing courses, can address cultural bias and its effect on legal analysis and language. Part I addresses why the law school curriculum should aid students in recognizing expressions of bias in legal analysis and language. Part II discusses how bias typically appears in legal language, as well as how it may infect legal analysis and argument, and suggests ways of teaching students to recognize it in a legal writing course. Part III addresses challenges that may be faced in teaching the material, including suggestions for handling discussions of potentially sensitive subjects.

Continuing Development: A Snapshot Of Legal Research And Writing Programs Through The Lens Of The 2002 Lwi And Alwd Survey, Kristin B. Gerdy

Faculty Scholarship

This article summarizes the findings of the 2002 survey and highlights significant changes and trends in the operation of legal research and writing programs across the country.

The Propriety Of Poetry In Judicial Opinions, Mary Kate Kearney

Mary Kate Kearney

No abstract provided.