Legal Writing and Research Commons^™

Recent Books, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A List of Books Received by Michigan Law Review

Law Without Mind, Steven D. Smith

Michigan Law Review

A large part of the work done by lawyers and judges involves the interpretation of enacted law - primarily, statutes and the Constitution. Not surprisingly, legal scholars offer a good deal of advice, usually unsolicited, about how the task of interpretation should be performed. At present, such scholarly advice commonly recommends variations on an approach that may be called "present-oriented interpretation." This approach discourages judges from equating a law with its historical meaning or "original understanding." Instead, it urges them to construe statutes and constitutional provisions in a way that will render the law "the best it can be" in …

Recent Books, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A List of Books Received by Michigan Law Review

Jean-Luc Godard And Critical Legal Studies (Because We Need The Eggs), Jeffrey L. Harrison, Amy R. Mashburn

Michigan Law Review

The New Wave in filmmaking is now thirty years old. Critical Legal Studies (CLS) has been around in one form or another for approximately a third of that time. We believe that by examining the avant-garde movement in film we may be able to anticipate what is in store for the avant-garde movement in law. Our conclusion is that just as New Wave film methodology has had only a limited impact on the film industry generally, CLS is likely to have a limited - perhaps only stylistic - effect on jurisprudential development.

The reason for the shortfall is that Godard …

Untangling "Operation Common Sense": Reopening And Review Of Social Security Administration Disability Claims, Elizabeth S. Ferguson

Michigan Law Review

Part I of the Note outlines how the SSA processes a disability claim and illustrates the ambiguity in the language of the reopening regulations that has caused the split in the courts. Part II examines the four interpretations of the reopening regulations created by courts. Part II begins with the Secretary's interpretation and concludes that this interpretation is plainly inconsistent with the language of the regulations. Thus, courts need not defer, as they normally would, to an agency's interpretation of its own regulation. This Part next examines the alternative interpretations of these regulations advanced by various courts, and describes how …

The Myth Of The Disposable Opinion: Unpublished Opinions And Government Litigants In The United States Courts Of Appeals, Lauren K. Robel

Michigan Law Review

This article discusses the courts' adoption of the limited publication plans and analyzes the methods used by the courts to discourage the use of unpublished opinions. It also discusses the results of a survey conducted to determine if, and how, government litigants - some of the chief unanticipated beneficiaries of the publication plans make use of unpublished opinions. Finally, it challenges the assumption that limited publication is essential in an age of caseload crisis.

Recent Books, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A List of Books Received by Michigan Law Review

The Future Of Liberal Legal Scholarship, Ronald K.L. Collins, David M. Skover

Michigan Law Review

Earl Warren is dead.

A generation of liberal legal scholars continues, nevertheless, to act as if the man and his Court preside over the present. While this romanticism is understandable, it exacts a high price in a world transformed.

The following commentary is a reconstructive criticism written from the perspective of two liberals concerned about the future of "legal liberalism." We present our views as a commentary to emphasize their preliminary character; they represent our current assessment of where liberals stand and where they might redirect their energies.

The Practice And Discourse Of Legal Scholarship, Edward L. Rubin

Michigan Law Review

This article begins with a discussion of the critique of methodology, a characterization of standard legal scholarship in terms of the critique, and an exploration of the critique's relevance for this form of scholarship. The next section discusses the modes of legal analysis represented by the critical legal studies, law and literature, and law as practical reason movements, which draw from many of the same philosophic sources as the critique. Despite their common origin, these movements do not rely on the critique of methodology itself, and do not focus on standard legal scholarship. The Article then proceeds to offer a …

A Bibliography Of The Works Of William W. Bishop, Jr., Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A Bibliography of the Works of William W. Bishop, Jr.

The State Of Legal Writing: Res Ipsa Loquitur, George D. Gopen

Michigan Law Review

There is a glory, it seems, in the mystery of a language that can be deciphered only by initiates of the secret society; there is a great sense of power and an even greater actuality of power in controlling a language that in turn controls the most pressing affairs of individuals and communities; and there is a monopolistic safety in being able to manipulate a language which because it was part of the creation of legal problems must be part of their solutions as well. It was true in 1921, and it is still true sixty-six years later. This essay …

"There'll Always Be An England": The Instrumental Ideology Of Evidence, Kenneth W. Graham Jr.

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Theories of Evidence: Bentham and Wigmore by William Twining

Francis A. Allen -- Selected Bibliography, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A Selected Bibliography of Francis A. Allen's works.

The Formulaic Constitution, Robert F. Nagel

Michigan Law Review

This essay explores the ways in which the formulaic style is different from other, older forms of constitutional doctrine. It argues that the modern style affects the content that the Court finds in the Constitution and that it illuminates the current interpretive functions of the judiciary. Perhaps most importantly, the formulaic style establishes an identifiable relationship between the Court and the public and thus constrains how the Court's version of the Constitution bears upon the larger political culture.

A New List Of Recommended Reading For Prospective Law Students, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A List Compiled from the Recommendations of the Faculty of the Michigan Law School

Eric Stein Vita & Bibliography, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

Eric Stein Vita & Bibliography

Clear Understandings: A Guide To Legal Writing, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Clear Understandings: A Guide to Legal Writing by Ronald L. Goldfarb and James C. Raymond

The Judicial Opinion And The Poem: Ways Of Reading, Ways Of Life, James Boyd White

Michigan Law Review

This paper is an essay in what I want to call the poetics of the law. I begin with a largely autobiographical account of what seems to me a striking similarity in the ways in which poetry and law once were taught - and to some degree still are taught, though perhaps less comfortably so. My first object is to suggest some connections: between these two kinds of thought and expression; between the ways in which we are habituated to read texts of each sort; and between the dilemmas that confront readers and critics in each field. In doing these …

L. Hart Wright -- Bibliography, Elizabeth Gaspar Brown

Michigan Law Review

A Bibliography of L. Hart Wright

The Roles Of Lawbooks, Alfred F. Conard

Michigan Law Review

The Michigan Law Review's annual review of books provides us with an informative sample of the recently published books that are available to inform the lawyer's mind. No doubt the sample is biased by the idiosyncracies of the editors' tastes and of the reviewers' receptivity. But these biases are more likely to enhance than to diminish the significance of the selection.

On Describing Legal Research, Steven M. Barkan

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Fundamentals of Legal Research. 2d ed. by J. Myron Jacobstein and Roy M. Mersky

Truth And Interpretation In Legal History, G. Edward White

Michigan Law Review

The essay consists of four sections. Section I discusses the nature of historical explanation, devoting some attention to the roles of "truth," interpretation, and detachment in historical scholarship. Section II continues that discussion by exploring the meaning and the purpose of what I call "interpretive detachment" in the writing of history. Section III considers the theoretical assumptions of Marxist legal historians from the point of view developed in preceding sections. Section IV, taking into account some issues that remain problematic or troublesome, restates my approach.

In Praise Of Book Reviews, Francis A. Allen

Michigan Law Review

This is the third time in as many years that the Michigan Law Review has presented a substantial canvass of legal and law-relevant literature to its readers. Any institutional practice repeated three times is in a fair way of becoming a tradition, and the tradition of an annual "book-review issue" in this journal seems vigorously alive and well. Accordingly, the present collection of review essays requires no benediction from me. That these remarks are a work of supererogation is even more strongly suggested when one recalls the elegant essay of David Cavers, which helped launch the first collection two years …

Lawyer's Writing, Richard C. Wydick

Michigan Law Review

A review of How To Write Plain English: A Book for Lawyers & Consumers by Rudolf Flesch

Book Reviews In Law Reviews: An Endangered Species, David F. Cavers

Michigan Law Review

Introduction: Book Reviews in Law Reviews: An Endangered Species

How Liberated Was Judge Jerome Frank?, Michael E. Smith

Michigan Law Review

A Review of A Man's Reach: The Philosophy of Judge Jerome Frank edited by Barbara Frank Kristein

A Bibliography Of The Published Works Of George Ellis Palmer, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A Bibliography of the Published Works of George Ellis Palmer

Defamatory Opinions And The Restatement (Second) Of Torts, George C. Christie

Michigan Law Review

This Article will focus on one important aspect of the Institute's work: the question of whether opinion, including ridicule, can be an independent basis of an action for defamation. Before undertaking that inquiry, however, some basic concepts regarding defamatory opinions must be understood. First, a statement of opinion can, of course, often be reasonably construed to imply the existence of facts that would justify the opinion. If a direct statement of those facts would be defamatory, then the statement of an opinion that implies the existence of those false facts would be defamatory and capable of supporting an action for …

A Bibliography Of The Published Works Of Lewis M. Simes, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A Bibliography of the Published Works of Lewis M. Simes

A Bibliography Of The Published Works Of Paul G. Kauper, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A Bibliography of the Published Works of Paul G. Kauper