Law Commons^™

The Trouble With Categories: What Theory Can Teach Us About The Doctrine-Skills Divide, Linda H. Edwards

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We might not need another article decrying the doctrine/skills dichotomy. That conversation seems increasingly old and tired. But like it or not, in conversations about the urgent need to reform legal education, the dichotomy’s entailments confront us at every turn. Is there something more to be said? Perhaps surprisingly, yes. We teach our students to examine language carefully, to question received categories, and to understand legal questions in light of their history and theory. Yet when we talk about the doctrine/skills divide, we seem to forget our own instruction.

This article does not exactly take sides in the typical skills …

Scholarship By Legal Writing Professors: New Voices In The Legal Academy, Linda H. Edwards, Terrill Pollman

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In this Article, the authors explore the questions of whether legal writing topics are subjects fit for scholarship and whether scholarship on these topics could support promotion and tenure. The authors examine the scholarship of today’s legal writing professors—what they are writing and where it is being published—and they define the term “legal writing topic,” identifying major categories of legal writing scholarship and suggesting criteria for evaluation in this emerging academic area.

Further Thoughts On Better Writing, Terrill Pollman

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As writing teachers, we frequently witness the mystery of how writing and re-writing clarifies thinking. We teach our students to let the writing process show them the gaps in their reasoning. As student edit, they learn that paring away the superfluous allows us to see the line and structure of the argument. When a section or sentence “won’t write,” it is often because we are trying to ignore a flaw in our understanding. Form is related to content. The attempt to simplify out message teaches us what is it we have to say.

Building A Tower Of Babel Or Building A Discipline? Talking About Legal Writing, Terrill Pollman

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High-quality writing is one of the crafts most necessary to a successful career in law. Mature legal professionals, lawyers, judges, and law professors write every day. Often, they write cooperatively--editing and redrafting a shared document. Nevertheless, those trained in the law may lack a common language that enables them to talk with each other about writing. Like the workers building the tower in the biblical story of Babel, legal professionals sometimes find themselves unable to communicate about their work.

Unlike most subjects in the legal academy, legal writing has emerged as an area of serious study in law schools only …

A Plea For Rationality And Decency: The Disparate Treatment Of Legal Writing Faculties As A Violation Of Both Equal Protection And Professional Ethics, Peter Brandon Bayer

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This article builds on the work of others by demonstrating that as a matter of academic ethics, informed by cardinal legal standards of decency, the disparate treatment and adverse terms and conditions imposed on writing professors are not simply unfair but defy the ethical aspirations of American law schools. Specifically, as the construct for analysis, this article establishes and utilizes the proposition that the discordant status of legal writing professors fails to satisfy minimal professional ethics. As a model, this article shows that it is not even minimally rational under the Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution, our …

The Lawyering Process Program: Building Competence And Confidence, Terrill Pollman, Jennifer B. Anderson

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In this article, the authors describe the Lawyering Process Program at the William S. Boyd School of Law. Like their colleagues at law schools across the country, students at the Boyd School of Law spend the early part of their law school careers learning the basics of legal research and writing. Unlike many of their fellow IL's, however, Boyd students also learn other important concepts and skills. The Lawyering Process Program at Boyd is a unique, three-semester class that includes significant instruction and experience in four areas: (1) legal writing and analysis; (2) legal research; (3) lawyering skills; and (4) …

A Writer’S Board And A Student-Run Writing Clinic: Making The Writing Community Visible At Law Schools, Terrill Pollman

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In this article the author explains institutional programs she has developed in response to a common problem, students’ frustrations with the limits of a law school’s legal writing program. The author proposes establishing a Writers’ Board, where members of the law school community who care most about legal research and writing training can work together to create opportunities for students to learn more. The Writers’ Board’s primary project is a Writing Clinic that offers diverse ways to improve legal research and writing on campus. Despite problems that are likely to arise when creating a Writers’ Board and Clinic, the author …