Legal Writing and Research Commons^™

Not Just Key Numbers And Keywords Anymore: How User Interface Design Affects Legal Research, Julie M. Jones

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Legal research is one of the foundational skills for the practice of law. Yet law school graduates are frequently admitted to the bar without adequate competence in this area. Applying both information-foraging theory and current standards for optimal web design, Ms. Jones considers, through a heuristic analysis, whether the user interfaces of Westlaw and LexisNexis help or hinder the process of legal research and the development of effective research skills.

What's On Your Playlist? The Power Of Podcasts As A Pedagogical Tool, Kathleen Elliott Vinson

Suffolk University Law School Faculty Works

It is six in the morning and a law student is walking her dog before beginning a full day of classes. Across town a few hours later, a classmate rushes onto a crowded subway train, forced to stand sandwiched between strangers during his commute to school. That afternoon, an evening student sits in rush hour traffic, hoping to make it into the city in time for class. Later that night, a student jogs on a treadmill at the gym after a long day of school. What do all of these students have in common? They are learning by listening to …

Partners In Law, Meg Butler

Faculty Publications By Year

No abstract provided.

Helpful Resources For Handling A Domestic Relations Case, Emily M. Janoski-Haehlen

Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Draining The Morass: Ending The Jurisprudentially Unsound Unpublication System, David R. Cleveland

Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Overturning The Last Stone: The Final Step In Returning Precedential Status To All Opinions, David R. Cleveland

Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Boulder Statement On Legal Research Education, Legal Information Conference Attendees

2009 Conference (Boulder)

The Conference on Legal Information: Scholarship and Teaching was attended by legal research professionals who gathered at the University of Colorado Law School in Boulder, Colorado on June 21-22, 2009, to discuss legal information scholarship and instruction. The following Boulder Statement on Legal Research Education was developed at that Conference and reflects the consensus of the conference participants on the theoretical foundation of a signature pedagogy for legal research education.

Practice Writing: Responding To The Needs Of The Bench And Bar In First-Year Writing Programs, Amy Vorenberg, Margaret Sova Mccabe

Law Faculty Scholarship

Do first year legal writing programs really prepare law students for the rigors of practice writing? This article begins to answer this question based on attorney and judge survey results, as well as interviews with judges who had also read student work in preparation for their interview. We found that while legal writing programs do provide a good foundation for legal writing skills, improvement can be made. Important changes that we have made at Pierce Law include shorter, more frequent assignments, variation/flexibility in choice of organizational paradigm, understanding the difference between settled and unsettled areas of law, and increased emphasis …

"The Real World": Creating A Compelling Appellate Brief Assignment Based On A Real-World Case, Elizabeth Inglehart, Martha Kanter

Faculty Working Papers

Creating an appellate brief problem that is realistic, balanced, and interesting for students to work on is one of the most challenging opportunities facing a legal analysis and writing professor. Developing such a problem is particularly important because many legal writing courses use an appellate brief problem throughout an entire law school semester, usually requiring students to write at least one, and often two, appellate briefs based on the problem, and to argue that case in a moot court. This article provides advice, drawn from the authors' experience as professor of legal analysis and writing, as to how to develop …

Researching Initiatives And Referendums In Arkansas, Joseph A. Custer

Faculty Publications

This bibliographic essay and guide to researching Arkansas initiatives and referendums is intended to assist anyone interested in this vital subject.

Law School 2.0: Legal Education For A Digital Age, David I.C. Thomson

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

Legal education is at a crossroads. As today's media-saturated students enter law school, they find themselves thrust into old style lecture-orientated, casebook modes of instruction, much of which is over 100 years old. Over those years legal education has resisted many studies recommending change, most recently from the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Clinical Legal Education Association. . .

2009 John Marshall Law School International Moot Court Competition In Information Technology And Privacy Law: Bench Memorandum, 27 J. Marshall J. Computer & Info. L. 95 (2009), Sarah M. Knight, William S. Weltman, Andrew T. Call, Panagiota Kelali

UIC John Marshall Journal of Information Technology & Privacy Law

Petitioner, Phillip Nevilson, appeals to the Marshall Supreme Court from a decision affirming the granting of summary judgment in favor of Respondent, Marshoogle, Inc., on his claims of intrusion upon seclusion, publication of private facts, and tortious interference with business expectancy claims. The issues in this case concern whether an individual can state a claim for invasion of privacy against an Internet search engine provider where liability is based on taking a photograph of an individual in his home and the publication of such photograph on a website. The final issue concerns whether the act of publication of the photograph …

2009 John Marshall Law School International Moot Court Competition In Information Technology And Privacy Law: Brief For The Petitioner, 27 J. Marshall J. Computer & Info. L. 131 (2009), Megan Peterson, Tyler Rench

UIC John Marshall Journal of Information Technology & Privacy Law

SUMMARY OF THE ARGUMENT: As encroaching technologies shrink the realm of privacy and expose intimate details of the home, courts must craft a solution that will provide a remedy to the injured. When Marshoogle’s prying cameras took photographs of Nevilson seated inside his home, they invaded his privacy by intruding into his private area of seclusion and this court should give Nevilson the opportunity to seek a remedy. Because Nevilson was inside his home when the images were captured, he had a reasonable expectation of privacy, which cannot be lost simply by leaving his curtains open. Marshoogle’s cameras were intentionally …

2009 John Marshall Law School International Moot Court Competition In Information Technology And Privacy Law: Brief For The Respondent, 27 J. Marshall J. Computer & Info. L. 169 (2009), Michael Jones, Stuart Ladner, Sabrina Stone

UIC John Marshall Journal of Information Technology & Privacy Law

SUMMARY OF THE ARGUMENT: Nevilson has not raised a genuine issue of material fact on his intrusion upon seclusion claim. First, Nevilson cannot show Marshoogle intentionally invaded Nevilson’s privacy. When Marshoogle captured the images for its Marshall Avenue Perspective feature, no one physically entered Nevilson’s property or used sensory enhancements or telephoto lenses to pry into his private space. Second, Marshoogle’s actions were not highly offensive to a reasonable person because the photographs were not captured in an effort to exploit or defame Nevilson, but rather were captured in an effort to produce a free and effective virtual map for …

Front Matter

St. Thomas Law Review

Front Matter includes the Table of Contents for St. Thomas Law Review Volume 21, Issue 2, Winter 2009.

Foreword - Alinsky Conference, 42 J. Marshall L. Rev. Xxv (2009), Walter J. Kendall Iii

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Cognition And Star Trek™: Learning And Legal Education, 42 J. Marshall L. Rev. 959 (2009), Kate E. Bloch

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Writer's Block - Resolve To Become A Better Writer, David Spratt

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

No abstract provided.

Why Punctuation Matters; Part One, David Spratt

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

No abstract provided.

Grammar Confidential: Dispelling Common Writing Myths, David Spratt

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

No abstract provided.

Interactive Group Learning In The Legal Writing Classroom: An International Primer On Student Collaboration And Cooperation In Large Classrooms, Roberta K. Thyfault, Kathryn Fehrman

Faculty Scholarship

Research has long shown that students who work in small groups learn and retain more than students who are taught by other techniques. This crucial bit of information has led many scholars and educators to explore a variety of models for supporting and involving students in group learning. Part II of this article will provide an overview of the scholarship of collaborative and cooperative learning and the associated definitions and techniques. Part III discusses the application of collaborative and cooperative learning techniques in the law school classroom and special considerations and suggestions for international and large law school classrooms. Finally, …

Feature: The Father Of Miranda, James Tobin

Law Quadrangle (formerly Law Quad Notes)

This is the first in a series of articles about the intellectual history of the Law School, and the impact our scholars have had, from the classroom to the Supreme Court.

Yale Kamisar's transformative impact on the law began with a humble hunch in the early 1960s, when he was a young professor at the University of Minnesota.

Feature: The Roots Of The Executive Branch

Law Quadrangle (formerly Law Quad Notes)

When President Barack Obama needed a top adviser and steadfast sounding board, he turned to a Michigan Law alumna who has been called the "First Friend" and "the other half of Obama's brain." When he considered appointees for the role of Secretary of the Interior, he chose and alumnus he called a "champion for farmers, ranchers, and rural communities." Here, we profile some of Obama's aides, advisers, and appointees who have ties to Michigan Law, and who began their jobs by our press time. We highlight how their experiences in Law School helped to shape their journey from the gothic …

Feature: Teaching The Teachers, Nicole Fawcett

Law Quadrangle (formerly Law Quad Notes)

A new ranking system explores 'intellectual super-spreaders'. A new model for determining the influence of law schools looks at the links between where law professors received their J.D. and where they go on to teach law. The model, which uses a mixture of social network analysis and computer simulation, shows how a handful of elite institutions are likely influencing legal principles and attitudes across the country. Michigan Law ranks third in the study.

Feature: Anatomy Of An Alumnus, Katie Vloet

Law Quadrangle (formerly Law Quad Notes)

50 years later, remembring Anatomy of a Murder and the fly-fishing, U.P.-loving, mushroom-hunting state Supreme Court justice who wrote it.

The Theory And The Practice Reflective Writing Across The Curriculum, Nancy Levit

Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

A Derivatives Market In Legal Academia, Paul H. Edelman

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Building on the success of derivatives markets in the financial arena, I show how similar markets can be used to hedge risk in legal academia. Prudent use of these markets will generate cash, mitigate errors in hiring, and increase the academic prestige of law schools. In short, they can do for legal academia what they have already done to the financial world.

International Terrorism: The Legitimization Of Safe Harbor States In International Law, Carol A. Bahan

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

Teaching Multiple Skills In Drafting & Simulation Courses, Karen J. Sneddon

Articles

Good morning. I am really excited to be at this conference as a transactional lawyer who never drafted anything before she went into practice and had very, very little experience with any of the other transactional skills that I would be using on a daily basis. I am really excited to hear about the number of courses and opportunities that students have now. Of course, I am thrilled to speak about the opportunities that I offer the students in my courses.

What I do is provide two opportunities to learn about counseling. Every student at Mercer University School of Law …

Book Review, The First Century: One Hundred Years Of Aall History, 1906-2005, Kristina L. Niedringhaus

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

The author reviews The First Century: One Hundred Years of AALL History by Frank G. Houdek.