Legal Writing and Research Commons^™

Tomorrow's Law Libraries: Academic Law Librarians Forging The Way To The Future In The New World Of Legal Education, Jessie Wallace Burchfield

Law Faculty Scholarship

This article briefly discusses the historical development of academic law libraries and reviews observations, analyses, and predictions of leading law librarians, examining recent changes and continuing trends. It examines academic law libraries in light of two of the drivers of change identified by Susskind: the “more-for-less” challenge and information technology. It briefly discusses one academic law library's experience with these drivers of change and gives a few examples of academic law librarians who are technology leaders. It notes the initial effects of an ongoing global pandemic that changed the face of public school, undergraduate, and postgraduate education–including legal education–in a …

Precedent As Rational Persuasion, Brian N. Larson

Faculty Scholarship

The ways that judges and lawyers make and justify their arguments and decisions have profound impacts on our lives. Understanding those practices in light of theories of reasoning and argumentation is thus critical for understanding law and the society it shapes. An inquiry that explores the very foundations of all legal reasoning leads to a broad, important question: How do lawyers and judges use cited cases in their legal arguments? It turns out there is practically no empirical research to suggest the answer. As the first step in a comprehensive empirical effort to answer this question, this article performs a …

Dumping: On Law Reviews, James Boyle

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Submission Of Law Student Articles For Publication, Nancy Levit, Lawrence D. Maclachlan, Allen Rostron, Staci J. Pratt

Faculty Works

Each year law students collectively write a large number of papers that could become law review articles but that are never published. Most law schools require students at some point during their time in law school to research and write an academic paper of publishable quality or seminar paper. Some of these are law review notes and comments that are not selected for publication. Others of these are papers written for specific substantive classes or to fulfill research and writing requirements. Most of these student papers - even very worthy ones - will never be published or posted online. The …

Assertion And Hearsay, Richard Lloret

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

This article explores the characteristics and functions of assertion and considers how the term influences the definition of hearsay under Federal Rule of Evidence 801. Rule 801(a) defines hearsay by limiting it to words and conduct intended as an assertion, but the rule does not define the term assertion. Courts and legal scholars have focused relatively little attention on the nature and definition of assertion. That is unfortunate, because assertion is a robust concept that has been the subject of intense philosophic study over recent decades. Assertion is not a mere cypher standing in for whatever speech or conduct one …

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

Law Library Blog (January 2021): Legal Beagle's Blog Archive, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Law Library Newsletters/Blog

No abstract provided.

Introduction To The Symposium: The Stakes For Critical Legal Theory, Elizabeth S. Anker, Justin Deystone

Publications

No abstract provided.

The New Skill On The Block: Using Social Media In The Law School Classroom To Facilitate Learning, Rosa Castello

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

The emergence and rapid growth of technology has dramatically changed society, including the way we communicate and interact. People are gravitating toward shorter forms of written communication, like blogs and tweets. And it seems everyone interacts with others in some way on an online social media platform, exchanging ideas, connecting with friends and colleagues, and offering support.

As a Legal Writing professor, I wonder how this change in written communication will impact legal education and the profession and how I can better prepare my students for a professional environment that embraces these changes. Communication is an essential lawyering skill. …

The Cognitive Power Of Analogies In The Legal Writing Classroom, Patricia G. Montana

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

New law students traditionally learn better when they can connect what they are learning to a familiar non-legal experience. Therefore, the use of an analogy, which can be defined as a comparison showing the similarities of two otherwise unlike things to help explain an idea or concept, is an obvious way to facilitate a student’s connection between the new and what is already known. An analogy is a logical step in introducing the complex processes of legal research and analysis by attempting to simplify the alien structure of summarizing that legal research and analysis into a coherent piece of …

How To Train Your Supervisor, Kris Franklin, Paula J. Manning

Articles & Chapters

In an ideal world every meeting between law students and professors, or between beginning lawyers and their supervisors, would leave supervisors impressed by their charges and junior lawyers/students with a clear sense of direction for their work. But we do not live in that ideal world. Instead, supervisors, supervisees, law professors and law students frequently leave such meetings feeling frustrated, disconnected and without a shared understanding of how to improve the experience (and future performance).

This Article seeks to improve supervisory meetings, and to do so from the perspective of the ones under supervision. There is a genuine art to …

The Dreaded Parenthetical, Brian Wolfman

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This essay concerns the use -- and, particularly, the overuse and misuse -- of explanatory parentheticals in legal briefs. The essay describes four particular concerns about parentheticals that appear in briefs. Parentheticals shouldn't be used to repeat what you’ve just said or to say something that easily can be taken out of the parenthetical and placed in ordinary text. Generally, parentheticals shouldn't be used to drive the substance of a brief. The ordinary prose should do that work. And if there’s a good reason to use a parenthetical, try to place it at the end of a paragraph where it …

A Novel Response: How Law Libraries Adapted To The Pandemic, Aamir S. Abdullah

Publications

No abstract provided.

Justice Ginsburg, Civil Procedure Professor And Champion Of Judicial Federalism, Rodger D. Citron

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

The Struggle With Basic Writing Skills, Ann Nowak

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Aman Reflects On "Page-Turning" Opportunities Throughout His Indiana Law Tenure, Kenneth L. Turchi, Alfred Aman

Alfred Aman Jr. (1991-2002)

After nearly 50 years of practicing, teaching, and administration, Alfred C. (Fred) Aman, Jr., took emeritus status at the end of the 2019–2020 academic year. Earlier this fall, he visited with ergo editor Ken Turchi to reflect on his distinguished career.

Dean's Desk: Iu Maurer Research Focusing On Most Topical Issues Of 2020, Austen L. Parrish

Austen Parrish (2014-2022)

The three major stories of 2020 — the COVID-19 pandemic, the heightened awareness of racial injustice and the election — have made this year one that we will remember. While we couldn’t have envisioned all that would happen at the beginning of the year, our faculty are producing useful and thought-provoking scholarship on all these topics.

I often use my Dean’s Desk columns to celebrate student and alumni achievement, to describe new and innovative programs in our curriculum, or to share how the law school supports and collaborates with community organizations and the courts to provide pro bono legal services …

Law Library Blog (November 2020): Legal Beagle's Blog Archive, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Law Library Newsletters/Blog

No abstract provided.

Enough Is As Good As A Feast, Noah C. Chauvin

Seattle University Law Review

Ipse Dixit, the podcast on legal scholarship, provides a valuable service to the legal community and particularly to the legal academy. The podcast’s hosts skillfully interview guests about their legal and law-related scholarship, helping those guests communicate their ideas clearly and concisely. In this review essay, I argue that Ipse Dixit has made a major contribution to legal scholarship by demonstrating in its interview episodes that law review articles are neither the only nor the best way of communicating scholarly ideas. This contribution should be considered “scholarship,” because one of the primary goals of scholarship is to communicate new ideas.

Re-Envisioning Law Student Scholarship, Emily Zimmerman

Catholic University Law Review

This Article recommends that we think more intentionally about how law students’ engagement in scholarship can promote their professional development. In so doing, we should recognize that legal scholarship plays a different role for law students than it does for law professors. Rather than trying to replicate law professors’ relationship with scholarship, the pedagogy of law student scholarship should focus more intentionally on the value of scholarship for law students—most of whom will not become law professors.

This Article suggests that much of the value of scholarship for law students lies in process, rather than product. Rather than thinking …

Law Library Blog (October 2020): Legal Beagle's Blog Archive, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Law Library Newsletters/Blog

No abstract provided.

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

How I Finally Overcame My Apprehension About Peer Review, Beth H. Wilensky

Articles

I’ll admit it: I was afraid to try peer review in my Legal Practice class. I’ve been teaching legal analysis, writing, and research for 17 years. I know all of the benefits of peer review. I’ve read plenty of scholarship about why and how to do it well. I have space in my syllabus to incorporate it into my teaching. But I’ve been reluctant. I worried that students would be averse to sharing their work with a classmate. I worried that the exercise would embarrass students who felt self-conscious about their writing. And I worried that the truly excellent writers …

Law Library Blog (September 2020): Legal Beagle's Blog Archive, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Law Library Newsletters/Blog

No abstract provided.

Law Library Blog (August 2020): Legal Beagle's Blog Archive, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Law Library Newsletters/Blog

No abstract provided.

Student Wellness And Mental Wellbeing, Emily Bishop, Stevie Leahy

William & Mary Law School’s Conference for Excellence in Online Teaching Legal Research & Writing

This presentation will focus on centering the mental wellbeing of students for the 2020-21 academic year. The incoming cohort has unique stressors that are compounded by challenging current events - as educators, we are also challenged to engage and connect with these students in a virtual environment. This presentation will give practical strategies to engage with students that facilitate and foster mental health, with an eye to anchoring our tactics within a legal research and writing curriculum. The presentation aims to encourage healthy dialogue on how to de-stigmatize mental wellbeing and best support our students. This goal, more so now …

No Matter How Loud I Shout: Legal Writing As Gender Sidelining, Leslie Culver

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

In this essay, I argue that viewing legal writing as a mode of gender sidelining uncovers the urgency for law schools to provide unitary tenure for legal writing programs across all law schools. I recognize that many legal writing faculty are employed under ABA Standard 405(c), a seemingly second-best option to traditional tenure tracks. As Professor Kathy Stanchi (UNLV) comments, however, while Standard 405(c) offers some respite from “job insecurity, intellectual disparagement, and pay inequity,” it ultimately serves as an “institutionalized bar to professional advancement divorced from any reasonable measure of merit.” This essay takes Stanchi’s framing of 405(c) as …

Against The Grain: The Secret Role Of Dissents In Integrating Rhetoric Across The Curriculum, Mark A. Hannah, Susie Salmon

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Law School News: Dean's Distinguished Service Award: Raquel Ortiz 05-22-2020, Michael M. Bowden

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Law Library Blog (May 2020): Legal Beagle's Blog Archive, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Law Library Newsletters/Blog

No abstract provided.