Law Commons^™

Child Abuse And Cannabis Use: How A Prima Facie Standard Mischaracterizes Parental Cannabis Consumption As Child Neglect, Jasmine Harris

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Save It For The Judge? A Case Study On The Effects Of Big Money On State Judicial Elections And The Call For Stronger Recusal Rules, Gustavo A. Jimenez

Indiana Journal of Law and Social Equality

No abstract provided.

Goodbye To Concurring Opinions, Meg Penrose

Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy

Modern Supreme Court opinions are too long. They are too fractured. And they often lack clarity. Separate opinions, particularly concurring opinions, are largely to blame. Today’s justices are more inclined to publish separate opinions than their predecessors. The justices do not want to read lengthy briefs but appear willing to publish lengthy opinions. Yet the justices owe us clarity. They should want the law to be understandable—and understood. In hopes of achieving greater legal clarity, this article calls for an end to concurring opinions.

The modern Court writes more separate opinions than past courts. It is becoming far too common …

Pro Se, No Say?: The Impact Of Presumptive Mediation In The New York State Court System On Self-Represented Litigants, Sarah Konnerth

Fordham Law Review

In May 2019, the New York State Unified Court System announced its plan to refer all civil cases to various forms of alternative dispute resolution at the earliest stage of litigation. The presumptive alternative dispute resolution initiative aims to decrease costs associated with litigation, improve case outcomes, and reduce case delays. In the context of mediation, litigants, both represented and self-represented, may be seated across from each other at a table to discuss their disputes with the assistance of a neutral third party. This Note examines mediation and discusses the policy implications of a presumptive mechanism for pro se parties. …

Reporting Certainty, James A. Macleod

BYU Law Review

Legal theorists, judges, and legal writing instructors persistently decry the assertions of certainty—”obviously X,” “undoubtedly Y,” etc.—that litter judicial opinions. According to the conventional view, the rhetoric of certainty that these assertions epitomize is disingenuous. It also reflects, and even encourages, poor judicial decision-making. And as if that were not enough, it is so unpersuasive that it is counter-persuasive: it signals uncertainty, nonobviousness, etc.—the exact opposite of what its author intends. Judges, for these and other reasons, should abstain from needless assertions of certainty and the myopic thinking they evince. That much is certain.

Yet the rhetoric of certainty persists. …

Practical Truth: The Value Of Apparent Honesty In Supreme Court Opinions, Timothy C. Macdonnell

Scholarly Articles

Judicial honesty or judicial candor is the subject of significant scholarly attention, but it is not the focus of this Essay. Rather, the author's focus is on the importance that appearing honest has on the persuasive force of an opinion and the dangers associated with failing to achieve that goal. This distinction is not intended to suggest Justices should seek apparent honesty while not being actually honest. Rather, this Essay emphasizes that actually honest opinions must also be apparently honest. Thus, judicial candor is necessary to apparent honesty, but it is not always sufficient on its own.

To support the …

Get With The Pronoun, Heidi K. Brown

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Goodbye To Concurring Opinions, Meg Penrose

Faculty Scholarship

Modern Supreme Court opinions are too long. They are too fractured. And they often lack clarity. Separate opinions, particularly concurring opinions, are largely to blame. Today’s justices are more inclined to publish separate opinions than their predecessors.The justices do not want to read lengthy briefs but appear willing to publish lengthy opinions. Yet the justices owe us clarity. They should want the law to be understandable—and understood. In hopes of achieving greater legal clarity, this article calls for an end to concurring opinions.

The modern Court writes more separate opinions than past courts. It is becoming far too common that …

Get With The Pronoun, Heidi K. Brown

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.

A Tenant’S Fate In The Mountain State: What State Ex Rel Morrisey V. Copper Beech Townhome Communities Means For Tenants As Consumers, Emily Ann Cramer

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Menulis Di Jurnal Hukum: Gagasan, Struktur, Dan Gaya, Andri Gunawan Wibisana

Jurnal Hukum & Pembangunan

Writing articles in a law review is different from writing an opinion in a newspaper or articles in other types of journals. Indonesian authors often fail to indicate the problems to be discussed, the proposed thesis statement or idea (claim), and the structure of the article. They also write too descriptive and employ very limited references. This paper aims to support the authors to find out important aspects in formulating a good legal article. For this reason, this paper explains that an article must contain the claim, and be novel, non-obvious, and useful. This paper also explains the importance of …

Contrastive Analysis And Contrastive Rhetoric In The Legal Writing Classroom, Diane B. Kraft

New Mexico Law Review

In the past several decades, the number of English-as-a-second-language (ESL) speakers attending law schools as part of J.D. and LL.M. programs has increased dramatically. While some of these students are fluent in English, many are not yet able to read, write, and speak English, or understand spoken English, at the advanced level required for successful graduate work in law. The language problems are sometimes grammatical, sometimes cultural, and often both. For those students who are required to complete a writing course as part of their graduate program, deficiencies in writing ability can be a difficult obstacle to overcome. For the …

Finding Balance: Using Employment Law Problems To Achieve Multiple Learning Goals In Persuasive Legal Writing, Rosa Castello

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

Legal Writing professors, like myself, face the same challenge each new semester: how can I effectively and efficiently help students learn one of the most important skills for a practicing lawyer? And one large hurdle in this quest to make our students good legal writers is creating a trial motion or appellate brief problem that helps them develop the particular skills required for persuasive legal writing. The act of creating the problem is sometimes like tightrope walking̶ finding just the right balance of facts and law to challenge students and help develop and enhance vital research, analytical, organizational, writing, …

Reporting Certainty, James Macleod

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Art Of The Effective Reply, Peter M. Mansfield

The Journal of Appellate Practice and Process

No abstract provided.

Supreme Verbosity: The Roberts Court's Expanding Legacy, Mary Margaret Penrose

Faculty Scholarship

The link between courts and the public is the written word. With rare exceptions, it is through judicial opinions that courts communicate with litigants, lawyers, other courts, and the community. Whatever the court’s statutory and constitutional status, the written word, in the end, is the source and the measure of the court’s authority.

It is therefore not enough that a decision be correct—it must also be fair and reasonable and readily understood. The burden of the judicial opinion is to explain and to persuade and to satisfy the world that the decision is principled and sound. What the court says, …

Supreme Verbosity: The Roberts Court's Expanding Legacy

Marquette Law Review

The link between courts and the public is the written word. With rare exceptions, it is through judicial opinions that courts communicate with litigants, lawyers, other courts, and the community. Whatever the court’s statutory and constitutional status, the written word, in the end, is the source and the measure of the court’s authority.

It is therefore not enough that a decision be correct—it must also be fair and reasonable and readily understood. The burden of the judicial opinion is to explain and to persuade and to satisfy the world that the decision is principled and sound. What the court says, …

Running It Twice (Or Thrice): Double-Header, Triple-Header, And Reverse Baseball Arbitration, Michael J. Hasday

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform Caveat

This Essay illustrates how the “Running It Twice” concept that makes poker games less of a gamble can also be used in another forum where large amounts of money can be at stake: arbitrations. I introduce three new forms of arbitration based on this concept: Double-Header Baseball Arbitration, Triple-Header Baseball Arbitration, and Reverse Baseball Arbitration. In this Essay, I show that that these new forms of arbitration are superior to current methods because they result in what the average or median qualified arbitrator would award—thereby making arbitration more accurate, predictable, and fair.

Self-Plagiarism, Josh Blackman

Florida State University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Silencing Discipline In Legal Education, Lucille A. Jewel

Scholarly Works

In current times, the production of critical legal knowledge has become constrained by a neoliberal education mindset that emphasizes economic performance and measured outcomes over critical thought. In this essay, I argue that academic freedom, in the sense of being free to speak, write, and teach critical knowledge, both in the intellectual sense and in the law practice sense, is being eroded. And, I urge my critically minded colleagues that are traditional law scholars (tenure-track or tenured) to consider the circumstances of law teachers who currently do not have the protections of tenure but who generate valuable knowledge, particularly in …

The Litigation Privilege As A Shelter For Miscreant Legal Counsel, Marc I. Steinberg, Logan J. Weissler

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

This article focuses on a pressing issue of national importance related to attorney conduct (or misconduct). The Litigation Privilege is a long-recognized immunity fashioned for attorneys to enable them to perform their functions as zealous advocates and litigators, without having to consider prospective non-client lawsuits aimed at their conduct in the course of representation. However, recent case law purports to expand the Litigation Privilege outside of its traditional contexts, posing a nationwide threat to attorney ethical standards. Broad readings of what sorts of legal assistance constitute “litigation” for the purposes of the application of the Litigation Privilege have recently been …

43 Essex Street: A Case Study In Shutting Down Tenant Harassment And Displacement With Community Organizing And Lawyering, Cynthia Cheng-Wun Weaver, Donna Chiu

City University of New York Law Review

No abstract provided.

Reconstructing The Voice Of Authority, Susie Salmon

Akron Law Review

Notwithstanding the presence of three women on the Supreme Court of the United States, in terms of gender equality, surprisingly little has changed in the legal profession over the past 20 years. This stagnation is particularly apparent in the highest paying and most prestigious sectors, such as the Supreme Court bar, the top echelons of the top law firms, the judiciary, and the general-counsel’s office. Even where objective facts suggest that female lawyers should be hired, billed out, or compensated at the same or higher rate than their male peers, subjective decisions informed, in part, by bias and stereotype drive …

Do Muddy Waters Shift Burdens?, Carrie Sperling, Kimberly Holst

Maryland Law Review

No abstract provided.

Resurrecting (And Modernizing) The Research Treasure Hunt, Nancy E. Vettorello

Articles

First-year associates will spend forty-five percent of their time on legal research; second- and third-year associates will spend thirty percent. And unfortunately, employers find their associates’ research skills lacking. This is not a new complaint. Employers have been complaining for more than a hundred years that recent law graduates cannot research well. None of this is lost on those who teach legal research, who have long debated the best way to do so. Techniques for teaching research have changed over time, and methods once thought appropriate were sometimes later disfavored. Changes were driven both by pedagogy and by the ever-changing …

The Lost Promise Of Arbitration, Sarah Rudolph Cole

SMU Law Review

This article disputes the notion that arbitration, a historically informal process, tends to disadvantage minority disputants or provide them with quick decisions tainted by prejudice. Responding to Richard Delgado’s seminal work, Fairness and Formality: Minimizing the Risk of Prejudice in Alternative Dispute Resolution, this article attempts to shed greater light on the benefits of modern arbitration for minority disputants. Although still capable of improvement, arbitration may well provide greater protections to minority disputants than does litigation. Since Delgado first wrote his article, the use of arbitration as a primary dispute resolution mechanism has increased dramatically, particularly among businesses and …

Small Claims Court: A Vehicle For Social Change And The Case For Equitable Relief, Shelly Mcgill

Journal of Law and Social Policy

Small Claims Court has a long history in debt collection and a popular image as the “People’s Court.” This article examines a little known emerging function as a forum where pressing social issues are given voice and social policy is implemented on the grassroots level. The Ontario Small Claims Court is a recent recipient of this social policy mandate. Over the past fifteen years, the Ontario Legislature and Court of Appeal have directly or indirectly given the Small Claims Court new responsibility for implementing modern social policy in the areas of child supervision, discrimination, and privacy. This article examines the …

Attracting Undue Scrutiny On Appeal: An Appellate Judge's Perspective, Marshall L. Davidson Iii

The Journal of Appellate Practice and Process

No abstract provided.

The Truth (Of The Matter Asserted) Is Out There: Law And The Paranormal Outside The First Amendment, Christopher L. Henry

Barry Law Review

No abstract provided.

Deciding Not To Decide: A Limited Defense Of The Silent Concurrence, Alexander I. Platt

The Journal of Appellate Practice and Process

No abstract provided.