Legal Writing and Research Commons^™

From The Editor, Steven Lopez - Editor

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

Welcome to the second issue of The Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment Law & Practice. As always, we have blended legal scholarship, readable style, and engaging design to create a publication that we hope is as informative as it is entertaining. In the areas of Music, Internet, Film/TV, and Sports, you'll hear from scholars, practitioners, students, and even a United States Congressman on issues that are timely, compelling, and relevant, to life and practice. We'd like to thank the professional and student writers whose sleep- less nights and deadline-driven efforts made this publication possible. We also owe a great debt of …

In Defense Of Author Prominence: A Reply To Crespi And Korobkin, Tracey E. George, Chris Guthrie

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

We thank Greg Crespil and Russell Korobkin for their provocative responses to our author-prominence ranking of specialized law reviews. Crespi provides a thoughtful critique of the methodology we employ and the results we obtained. Korobkin shares some of Crespi's concerns, but he focuses his critique on the potential implications of our rankings (and rankings more generally). In this reply, we briefly address the more significant criticisms each of them raises.

An Empirical Evaluation Of Specialized Law Reviews, Chris Guthrie, Tracey E. George

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

The sudden, rapid, and widespread increase in the number of specialized law reviews has attracted relatively little scholarly attention even though it is the most significant development in legal academic publishing in the second half of the twentieth century. As a consequence, there is a dearth of information about the proliferation, significance, and status of specialized reviews. In this Article, we attempt to fill this information gap by documenting the rise of the specialized review and by providing an empirical ranking of the top 100 specialized reviews.

An Empirical Evaluation Of Specialized Law Reviews, Tracey E. George, Chris Guthrie

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

The sudden, rapid, and widespread increase in the number of specialized law reviews has attracted relatively little scholarly attention even though it is the most significant development in legal academic publishing in the second half of the twentieth century. As a consequence, there is a dearth of information about the proliferation, significance, and status of specialized reviews. In this Article, we attempt to fill this information gap by documenting the rise of the specialized review and by providing an empirical ranking of the top 100 specialized reviews.

A Tour Of Mistakes, Paul H. Edelman

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

In these pages, Steven Lubet recently reviewed A Tour of the Calculus, by David Berlinski. Inspired by both the beauty of calculus and Berlinski's description of it, Lubet waxes poetic on the many parallels between the law and calculus. It is completely understandable--even admirable that one might be led to ruminations on the relationship between calculus and one's own discipline. There is little doubt that the subject of calculus stands as one of the great intellectual feats of Western thought. It has had profound implications for physics, engineering, economics and many other disciplines-so why not law? Alas, these philosophical musings …

Footnotes As Product Differentiation, Arthur D. Austin

Vanderbilt Law Review

When Professor Fred Rodell announced his first Goodbye to Law Reviews in 1936, he established the accepted wisdom for law review criticism. Rodell complained that law review literature had two serious defects-style and content. Subsequent criticism has been persistently harsh; the common theme is that "[the extraordinary proliferation of law reviews, most of them student edited and all but a handful very erratic in quality, has been harmful for the nature, evaluation, and accessibility of legal scholarship."

Having exhausted complaints on substance, critics uncovered another mischievous threat. They discovered that articles are Typhoid Marys of an insidious plague-footnotes. Second-rate style …

Thinking (By Writing) About Legal Writing, Philip C. Kissam

Vanderbilt Law Review

The practice of law requires a good amount of original writing,and it is a commonplace today that much of this writing is done rather poorly. Charles Fried, the United States Solicitor General,has implied that much legal writing, especially in appellate briefs,is "turgid and boring."' John Nowak, a Professor of Law at the University of Illinois, has reiterated Fred Rodell's classic complaint that the writing in law reviews lacks both style and substance. More fundamentally, Steven Stark, in his Harvard Law Review comment, has argued that the style and substance of most legal writing are flawed by lawyers' ideological commitments to …

Foreign Investment In The United States: A Survey Of Current Legal Literature, Igor L. Kavass

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

This Survey is limited to law and law-related writings on the subject of foreign investments in the United States which attorneys and legal scholars may find useful to consult for the purposes of conducting research and performing professional work. The Survey contains information about books, articles, notes, government reports and surveys, and Congressional hearings, reports, and papers published from about 1970 through the early part of 1985. The publications it describes can be divided into four major categories:

(1) investigative and policy-oriented monographs and articles;

(2) practical law manuals and guides either in the form of books or articles written …

Legal Research In The Federal Republic Of Germany: A Concise Presentation Of Basic Publications, Ralph Lansky

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

This Article provides information about legal literature and research in the Federal Republic of Germany. Twenty-four basic works are reviewed, including a dozen important law books and legal periodicals and a dozen legal bibliographies that help to locate additional legal information. In addition, a few other publications are briefly discussed. This Article addresses the use of selective legal materials and as a result is very basic. Its objective is to introduce the novice to German legal literature.

Most of the books concern the law of the Federal Republic of Germany. A few that are published in that country cover comparative …

International Legal Research: An Infinite Paper Chase, Adolf Sprudzs

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

International legal research operates in the contemporary reality of an increasingly interdependent, complex world in which constant change is the order of the day. Not only are the numbers of international actors on the world stage changing (from 51 original members of the United Nations in 1945 to 157 United Nations member-states in 1982), but also changing are the concepts and methods of international law-making, as well as perceptions of the nature and sources of international law. The tremendous growth in the number of new states and international organizations has been accompanied by a corresponding expansion in world trade, international …

Dedication, Dean C. Dent Bostick

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

It is a privilege for me to write a few words about my friend and colleague, Professor Igor Kavass. It has been the good fortune of the Vanderbilt Law School to have this ingenious and engaging man's high competence over the last decade, and it has been my good fortune as Dean and a fellow professor to know and cherish him as a colleague.

While his classroom teaching, committee service, and collegiality are valued highly by this institution, Professor Kavass' most enduring contribution to the Law School has been his accomplishments as the Law Librarian. In the course of ten …

United States Research Of The Law Of The Communist-Ruled States Of Europe, Ivan Sipkov

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The legal system of the Soviet Union, developed after the 1917 October Revolution, was introduced, with some variations, in several European, Asian, and Latin American states during the last years of World War II. These states have been characterized, both officially and unofficially, as "Soviet-type republics," "People's republics," "Socialist republics," and "Communist states." Their legal systems, although patterned after the Soviet Union legal system, developed in different directions. Today, the various legal systems of these republics are clearly distinguishable; however, one common feature is present: the states are ruled by one Communist party to the exclusion of other parties.

A New Classification Of Law For A Foreign, Comparative, And International Research Law Library, Jan Stepan

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The Swiss Institute of Comparative Law seated at Lausanne was established by the federal statute of October 6, 1978. The Institute is envisioned as a center for the "documentation of and research into comparative, foreign, and international law." According to the statute and the implementing decree of December 19, 1979, the Institute serves the following purposes:

(1) to supply federal agencies and the federal administration with material and studies that may be needed for decisions concerning legislation and international treaties; (2) to contribute towards international efforts at the harmonization and unification of law; (3) to provide information and expert opinions …

Earl Warren: The Judge Who Changed America. By Jack Harrison Pollack, Richard Y. Funston

Vanderbilt Law Review

Earl Warren was a decent, personable, and humane man who had the good fortune to preside over the Supreme Court of the United States at a peculiarly propitious moment. That, surely, is enough to say for any man's lifetime, and someday the definitive biography of Warren will say it. In the meantime, it remains some-thing of a mystery why aging liberals find it necessary to canonize the late Chief Justice. Nevertheless, journalist Jack Harrison Pollack's Earl Warren: The Judge Who Changed America is the latest addition to the Warren hagiography. In it you meet Warren,the self-effacing, underpaid, young District Attorney; …

Reference Guides To State Legal Bibliography: A Composite Review, Marvin R. Anderson

Vanderbilt Law Review

At present, the curriculum at almost all law schools includes a first-year course teaching the fundamentals of the legal method.The practical value of these courses, however, has been questioned. One criticism of the current course structure is the overemphasis placed on the basics of legal research and legal writing to the detriment of legal bibliography.More pertinent to this review is another practice of these classes-the use of certain national-in-scope legal research texts that cannot treat fully the many special characteristics of published legal materials in the various states. To know that states have similar publishing practices for codes, session laws, …

Discussion: Crisis In The Courts, Journal Staff

Vanderbilt Law Review

The Articles by Attorney General Griffin Bell, Chief Judge Harry Phillips, and Dean John W. Wade contained in this issue are based upon remarks made by the authors at the Cecil Sims Lecture Series, which was presented by the Vanderbilt Law School on November 4, 1977. The Sims Lecture Series was established in 1973 in memory of Cecil Sims, a 1914 graduate of Vanderbilt Law School and a preeminent attorney in Nashville, Tennessee. It was designed to foster discussion of issues of current significance to the legal community by bringing outstanding judges, attorneys, and public servants into close contact with …

The Court Of Justice Of The European Communities: An Annotated Bibliography -- 1951-1973, Igor I. Kavass

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

This bibliography attempts to bring together information about the publications of the Court of Justice and those of other Community institutions pertinent to the work of the Court, as well as relevant juridical writings about the Court and its activities published as books, essays, journal articles, comments, notes, etc. Wherever possible, individual entries are followed by short annotations or explanatory comments. Annotations to the more important treatises or monographs include citations to book reviews.

This bibliography, like all legal bibliographies of its type, is selective in that it lists only those works which the compiler was able to identify and …

A Primer Of Opinion Writing For Law-Clerks, George R. Smith

Vanderbilt Law Review

Not all appellate judges make the drafting of tentative opinions a part of their law clerks' duties. The practice, however, is increasing, perhaps as a result of the mounting case loads that now occupy the time of most appellate courts. Opinion writing by law clerks is certainly so widespread today that no symposium devoted to the duties of law clerks would be complete without some discussion of the subject. Except for the matter of final responsibility for the opinion, the problems that confront a law clerk in the preparation of an opinion include those that confront the judge himself in …

Choosing Law Clerks In Massachusetts, Robert Braucher

Vanderbilt Law Review

About the summer of 1875" Chief Justice Horace Gray of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts "began a practice, which he continued until the end of his judicial career, of employing a young graduate of the Harvard Law School as a secretary. At first he paid the expense of this from his own purse, but before he had been many years at Washington" as a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States "the Government provided for the appointment of a clerk for each of the justices of the Supreme Court. His colleagues generally appointed as their clerks stenographers …

Sample Instructions To Law Clerks, Frederick G. Hamley, Ruggero J. Aldisert

Vanderbilt Law Review

Sample Instructions to Law Clerks

Sample A -- Law Clerks for Judges of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals

Frederick G. Hamley

General Responsibilities

1. You should therefore adopt a professional attitude at the outset. 2. You will need to employ industrious work habits. 3. Cultivate efficient, time-saving ways of doing your work. 4. Make this a year of continuing legal education and an intensive training period. 5. You will come into possession of information concerning the processing of appeals which must remain secret until the opinions are filed. 6. Your prime loyalty is to your judge. 7. All of …

John W. Wade: Gentle Scholar, Pilot Lawyer, Roger J. Traynor

Vanderbilt Law Review

His contributions to the work of the American Law Institute, his career as the dean of a first-rate law school, and his essays on restitution,torts, and conflict of laws would be more than enough to place John Wade in the first rank of American lawyers. The very constructiveness of his work makes him pre-emininently a modern teacher and lawyer.

John W. Wade: Friendly Critic And Sensitive Scholar, Wex S. Malone

Vanderbilt Law Review

The teacher could boast only three or four years of maturity over his students; hence, he was vulnerable and was often at-tacked with considerable spirit. From the beginning John Wade faced me with the kind of challenge that can be both the delight and the despair of a beginning law teacher. His characteristic mode of attack by way of imperturbable but relentless prodding will be recalled with admiring pleasure by more than a generation of his own law students. This role of the friendly, reflective skeptic, which is so fundamental a part of the intellectual make-up of John Wade, has …

John W. Wade And The Development Of The Vanderbilt Law School, Paul H. Sanders

Vanderbilt Law Review

John W. Wade made a decided imprint upon the Vanderbilt Law School in the years before he became Dean in 1952. His contributions to the development of the institution were impressive, not only as a skillful "case-method" teacher in the classroom, but also as Faculty Editor for volumes two through five of the Vanderbilt Law Review at a time when this position entailed responsibilities for all phases of the publication greatly in excess of those imposed upon the Faculty Adviser in later years. Without question he was the person most responsible for the firm and early establishment of the Vanderbilt …

Law Students And A Constructive Approach To The Future Of America, John W. Wade

Vanderbilt Law Review

In years past, many intellectuals adhered to a theory of laissez faire. They believed that the way to maintain our economic system in good health was to keep our government and laws from interfering with its natural working. In those days, judges did not make law; they discovered through legal reasoning what the law was and what it had always been. In both fields the theory fell into decline and disfavor. As Justice Cardozo put it, the concept of laissez faire in law went the way of laissez faire in economics. Another theory, of more ancient origin, is that of …

Headnotes, Journal Staff

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

With this issue the Vanderbilt International enters its second year of publication and attempts to continue a metamorphosis from International Law Society newsletter to scholarly legal journal. While the birth of the International has been accompanied by the welcome emergence of numerous other international legal periodical, it is hoped that this publication will make a singular contribution by providing a medium for interdisciplinary analyses of international problems. Eventually, each issue will be a symposium in which a particular problem will be discussed by economists, political scientists, lawyers, and, of course, law students.

Eec, John W. Wade

Vanderbilt Law Review

Elliott Cheatham is a man of young ideas--often radical ones. His thoughts and plans are of the future, and he looks to the past only for the lessons it gives as to how the future can be improved. He thinks always of the "energizing forces of the law."' He sees the turmoil and vicissitudes of contemporary society as a challenge to the law, the lawyer, and the law school, to identify the values in them and find a way for law to produce the orderly change which will capture and utilize those values. He can sternly and firmly prod and …

Headnotes, Journal Editor

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

This issue marks the close of the first year for the Vanderbilt International. What it will become in the future is anyone's guess with General Hershey threatening a drastic reduction in the number of law students next year. In the long run, however, the publication can probably fill a very useful role as either an interdisciplinary magazine with a legal bias or as a law journal with an interdisciplinary bent. The former goal has been, by choice and necessity, the object of this year's Editors. Next year's staff will do as they like.

Regardless of emphasis, however, the increasing importance …

The End Of Empire, Fred D. Schneider

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Within the space of a generation, the British Empire has disintegrated in a way that appears extraordinary, even in retrospect. "How marvelous it all is," Lord Rosebery exclaimed at the end of the nineteenth century. If marvelous in its growth, the Empire has been no less significant in the manner of its passing.

The decline of great empires exerts a peculiar fascination over the mind of the historian; indeed, more has been written about the fall of Rome than about the death of any other political entity. Diverse and contradictory theories are advanced to explain a complex historical phenomenon, and …

Headnotes, Journal Editor

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

It is a pleasure for us to present the first issue of the Vanderbilt International to the Vanderbilt community. The present style and content of V.I. is hybrid -- lying somewhere between a scholarly journal and a popular news magazine, attempting to please the casual reader as well as the student of international affairs. While this first issue has a very definite legal bent, we plan to be as ecumenical as we can in the future, printing material by economists, historians and political scientists as well as by leaders from outside the academic community.

In its present form, V.I. is …

Legal Research--Computer Retrieval Of Statutory Law And Decisional Law, David T. Moody

Vanderbilt Law Review

Legal research presently involves a considerable amount of any lawyer's time and efforts largely because it is a slow and tedious process. Searching for a pertinent legal point can prove to be time-consuming and often fruitless. Moreover, it is here that chance plays one of its largest roles in the law.' An important legal point may exist,yet the researcher may fail to find it although he exercises a great degree of diligence. All lawyers must recognize this problem and the fact that it is becoming more acute with the passage of time. Something needs to be done to facilitate legal …